Wendyl Nissen

Divine transformation
The self-confessed former bitch magazine editor has reincarnated herself as an entrepreneurial green goddess.
Wendyl Nissen’s happy place is a 1968 blue and white painted sheet-metal caravan parked up at a remote Bay of Plenty camping ground. Since picking it up from a Kawhai farm, where it was used to house shearers six years ago, it has become her refuge from the sometimes too chaotic existence in Auckland’s Grey Lynn.
The journalist, broadcaster, author, entrepreneur and self-decreed green goddess escapes there whenever she can, sometimes with her family but often on her own, to kick back, relax and take pleasure in the gorgeous natural surrounds – often with a glass of wine or her signature Turkish Gin in hand. There, as at home, she leads as clean and green a lifestyle as possible, letting only non-processed foods her nana would recognise pass her lips. Even the Turkish Gin – made with rose syrup, lemon juice, gin and soda water – is practically a health tonic (or as close as an alcoholic beverage can get). Although the caravan and her life there could be described as basic, that’s just what she loves about them. In her latest book, A Home Companion: My year of living like my grandmother, she relays how, sitting down to write one day at the old Formica table, she is overcome by a sense of complete calm.
“As I wait for [my laptop] to fire into life, I look out at my view. Crystal blue water at high tide laps just metres away, a taupe coloured sandbank breaks the horizon and there is more behind it. Crisp lines of surf roll in endlessly.”
Buying the caravan was a key instigator in Wendyl’s decision to make the transition from super-successful (and stressed out) ‘corporate animal’ to green goddess.
At 40, she exhibited many of the symptoms of what is commonly referred to as ‘superwoman syndrome’. Starting out as a newspaper reporter, she’d gone on to edit a string of high-profile magazines including Woman’s Day, The NZ Woman’s Weekly, Cleo and Family Circle. She’d also commanded slots on national radio and produced acclaimed TV documentaries, becoming, as the title of her first book has it, ‘bitch and famous’ along the way. She’d also been ultra productive on the home front – she and husband Paul Little, a writer and editor, have five children and a three-year-old granddaughter.
She was the very picture of your super-successful working mum and yet she felt burnt out and depressed. The reason, she determined, was that her priorities were way out of whack.
“I was born in the 1960s and brought up to believe women could do anything and everything. And so I did. But when I hit 40, I just stopped. I realised I was neglecting what was most important to me – my family.”
Prescribing a simpler life as the antidote to her malaise, she quit her job, went home to her sunny villa, threw open the windows, took a breath of fresh air and embarked on the next phase of her life – as a freelance columnist, journalist and full-time nana.
Before long, she discovered that beneath her ‘hard-nosed’ exterior, a veritable domestic goddess was just waiting to be set free. When she wasn’t writing or talking on the radio, she tended to her organic vegetable garden and human and feathered broods (she’s the proud owner of some much-pampered free-range hens). Concerned about the harmful effects of chemicals in commercial beauty and household products, she also set about developing her own natural, eco-friendly range. She pored over old recipe tomes found in libraries and op-shops and tested promising-sounding formulas in her kitchen, altering them as she saw fit. Family and friends were so impressed with the results, she decided to compile the more than 100 recipes into a book. Published in May 2009, Domestic Goddess on a Budget proved a hit with New Zealand’s seemingly large population of domestic/green goddesses.
Wendyl believes the innumerable chemicals we are exposed to in our everyday lives are key contributors to many of the modern world’s biggest health and environmental problems, from rises in the rates of asthma, diabetes, obesity and cancer to global warming.
“My two eldest children had asthma and eczema so I started researching the topic and the more I learnt, the more horrified I became by how prevalent chemicals are and how dangerous they can be. There’s a subtle invasion going on. It’s important to me to spread the word.”
The desire to help, inspire and connect with others interested in pursuing purer lifestyles prompted her to launch an e-newsletter, Wendyl’s Green Goddess, which now has more than 4,000 subscribers. Like A Home Companion, it offers a humorous account of her attempts to live a life more like her grandmother’s along with practical advice.
Wendyl soon realised, however, that while many women like the idea of making their own beauty and cleaning products, most lack the time and/or motivation to do so. Discussing the matter with Paul, he came up with an apparently simple solution – sell them hers.
She initially dismissed the idea, telling Paul she was no businesswoman and that such a venture would inevitably end in disaster. But old friend and PR maven Deborah Pead managed to talk her around a few months later over a long, boozy lunch date – with more than a little help from Paul who, by this stage, was positively brimming with enthusiasm for the idea.
When a PR representative for The Home Show phoned the next day to ask if she’d give a talk on life as a domestic/green goddess, her entrepreneurial instinct suddenly kicked in. She accepted his invitation before asking sweetly whether it would be all right for her to sell her new range of natural cleaning products as well. Clearly taken aback, he agreed.
The Home Show was set to take place just a fortnight later so she and Paul went into manufacturing overdrive, producing 60 bottles of spray cleaner, glass cleaner, lavender laundry liquid, blueing powder and anti-bacterial spray in the evenings after work. It became a truly family affair, with son Daniel designing suitably retro labels and daughters Hannah and Pearl helping stick them on.
Fortunately, the madness and mayhem were worth it. The products sold so well over the course of the three-day show that, at the end of it, the couple felt they’d conceived a healthy business destined to grow up fast.
Back home, they worked out what they’d need to do to set it up properly.
“As journalists, Paul and I didn’t have a lot of money so we started small,” Wendyl explains. “We knew we’d have to do almost everything ourselves so we decided to take things very slowly.”
Wendyl set about designing a company website, learning as she went, while Paul, who had run a successful enterprise in the past, got started on the business plan. They hired an accountant, organised eco-friendly packaging and refined the label design.
“We include the recipes on the labels as well as the ingredients which I think helps build a sense of trust,” Wendyl explains. “People know we’re selling them because we believe in them, not just because we want to make loads of money. I’d estimate that about 80 percent of our customers continue to buy the products and about 20 percent start making them themselves.”
These days, Wendyl is in charge of product development and marketing while Paul handles the day-to-day running of the business. Both juggle the making of the products in their home kitchen with freelance writing work.
A big fan of social networking, Wendyl uses Facebook and Twitter as well as the company website to communicate with existing and potential customers.
Over the past 14 months, the company has continued to grow steadily. The expanding range of products is now available in 15 retail outlets in the north and south islands as well as on the website and Wendyl’s TradeMe store.
“[The business] ticks along – we haven’t had a loss from it, which I’m sure has a lot to do with the fact we had no debt starting out,” she says.
As she sees it, the business’ success is a product of her strong work ethic and the genuine enjoyment and satisfaction she derives from helping others lead healthier, more sustainable lives.
“I was never a big goal-setter and didn’t set out to achieve many of the things I have. But I’ve always tried to make the most of the talents that I have. Having worked as a magazine editor has also given me a really good understanding of what women want.”
Wendyl is also hugely grateful to the many small business owners who have contacted her out of the blue with words of advice and encouragement.
“I’ve discovered we have an amazingly supportive business community in New Zealand. It seems to be in our blood to help the little people. Which, coming from the media industry, is a nice change.”
Despite her initial trepidation about setting up her own business, it’s clear she’s very pleased to have made the move. When asked whether she’s generally happy with where she’s at right now, personally and professionally, she says she is ‘ecstatic’.
“It’s the best life I could ever have hoped for. There’s not one piece of work I do that I think is a real drag. I love being my own boss, not having to manage staff and being able to spend so much time with my family.”
She says the business’ relatively small size suits her lifestyle and values well, although she’s open-minded about its future.
“I’m not particularly interested in selling the brand off but if someone were to come along and develop it with us, that would be great. But I’m happy with things as they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in 10 years’ time, I’m riding my bike to the market to sell the products.”
Her dream is to have a small farm property ‘somewhere up north or out west’ which enables her and Paul to be almost entirely self-sufficient. But the demands of the business and youngest daughter Pearl, 12, suggest they’re not likely to go bush for a little while yet.
“Pearl would consider it child abuse to move her out there now so we’ll wait until she’s finished school. And we’re so busy with the business right now it’s enough of a challenge keeping up with our small urban garden.”
Wendyl appreciates the irony of the fact that, having given up her corporate career for a more chilled-out lifestyle, she frequently finds herself flat out.
“I have to work hard to protect the lifestyle I enjoy and not get too busy again. It’s important to keep feeding the green goddess.”
Time out at the caravan is perfect soul food of course but Wendyl finds that sometimes simply knowing it’s there is enough.
However she spends her time at the caravan – whether it is enjoying a glass of wine with Paul on the beach, watching BBC adaptations of Jane Austen novels with Pearl during the school holidays or sharing meals and gossip with her parents in the neighbouring caravan– it always proves restorative. But it’s often when she’s there alone that she feels the most inspired and simply happy to be alive. When, as she writes in A Home Companion, it’s “just me, the sea, the sand and that trusty Formica table – bliss.”
www.wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz
Lorna Thornber