At Arella, we believe every woman deserves to feel informed, supported and confident throughout every stage of her wellbeing journey.
As awareness of menopause continues to grow, so does the need for trusted guidance and products women can rely on.
As part of Arella's ongoing commitment to supporting women through menopause, founder Laura Capewell sat down with Heather Jackson, CEO and Co-Founder of GenM, to discuss the changing menopause landscape, the role of trusted certification, and why visibility has never mattered more.
Menopause is No Longer a Conversation Happening Quietly Behind Closed Doors
Across beauty, wellness and retail, brands are beginning to recognise both the scale of the menopausal market and the importance of helping women navigate it with greater confidence, trust and visibility.
At the centre of that movement is GenM and its CEO and Co-Founder Heather Jackson, whose advocacy has helped drive greater visibility, accountability and momentum across the menopause sector.
Home of the MTick, the trusted universal shopping symbol designed to help women quickly and easily identify menopause-friendly products, GenM has become an important force in helping brands and retailers better support menopausal consumers.
For Arella, whose flagship products Arella Pause and Arella Collagen are both MTick certified, the conversation feels particularly timely.
Following its launch into Harrods Pharmacy earlier this year, the award-winning British wellness brand is part of a growing shift bringing menopause-friendly products into more visible retail spaces.
At the same time, the wider beauty and wellness industries are increasingly recognising the importance of menopause-focused innovation, from Arella Pause being named a finalist in the Get The Gloss Wellness Awards to Arella leading the introduction of Latest in Beauty’s first-ever menopause-focused beauty box.
Here, Arella founder Laura Capewell speaks with Heather Jackson about the changing menopause landscape, the growing role of trusted certification, and why visibility matters more than ever.
As Arella continues to grow within the menopause wellness space, with new product innovation and retail expansion ahead, it felt like the perfect moment to hear Heather’s perspective on where the conversation is heading next.
From Awareness to Action
Laura Capewell:
GenM has played such a transformative role in changing the menopause conversation in the UK. What shifts have you seen in recent years in how brands and retailers are approaching menopause support and what is next?
Heather Jackson:
The biggest shift has been menopause moving from being an overlooked life stage to becoming a recognised and genuine commercial and social priority. When Sam and I founded GenM, retailers just didn't recognise menopause as something they needed to address.
Today, we're working with leading retailers, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s, Ocado, Boots, and many more brands actively transforming how they can better serve the 15.5 million women in menopause across the UK and 1 billion globally.
What's particularly encouraging is that the conversation has moved beyond awareness and into action.
Businesses are investing in product innovation, improving education for colleagues and customers, creating dedicated menopause shopping experiences and working together across industries to make support more accessible.
Take Sainsbury’s, for example, which created an MTick-certified skincare range specifically to support the menopausal shopper; or Tesco, which has deployed permanent MTick fixtures in response to customer feedback and sales uplift in-store and online.
However, there’s still work to do. Our research shows that the average woman can only name 3 to 5 signs of menopause, and 81% report negative shopping experiences. Women continue to tell us they struggle to identify products that may help manage the many signs of menopause.
The next phase is to make menopause a 365 priority, to make support as visible, educational and normalised as support for pregnancy, skincare or healthy ageing. That's exactly what we're working towards.
Why Trust Matters in Menopause Wellness
Laura Capewell:
The MTick has become such an important symbol for helping women shop with confidence. Why do you think trust and clarity are so important when it comes to menopause-friendly products?
Heather Jackson:
Menopause has 48 recognised signs, and every woman's experience will be different.
That can make shopping for solutions incredibly confusing, especially when women who are already overwhelmed are often faced with thousands of products and countless marketing claims, leaving them unsure what may genuinely help.
The MTick was created to simplify that journey and build consumer trust through robust certification. In store and online, it provides an instantly recognisable symbol that a product has been independently assessed against our evidence-based criteria for one or more menopause signs.
This gives women confidence that there's credible evidence supporting its benefit, so that they can search, source and shop for menopause with confidence.
Trust has never been more important. Women deserve clear, transparent information that helps them make informed decisions without adding to the confusion.
Retail Visibility Changes Everything
Laura Capewell:
We are incredibly proud that Arella Pause and Arella Collagen are both MTick-certified products. What does it mean to see menopause-friendly brands gaining greater visibility in major retail destinations such as Harrods Pharmacy?
Heather Jackson:
It's incredibly positive because visibility matters. Women can't benefit from products they can’t find.
Only a few years ago, retailers didn't recognise the need for menopause-friendly retail at all.
To see brands from our Collective like Arella investing in evidence-led solutions and appearing in destinations like Harrods Pharmacy reflects how far the category has come.
The more brands and retailers embrace menopause as a genuine consumer priority, the easier it becomes for women to find products that may truly support them.
Supporting the Whole Menopause Experience
Laura Capewell:
There also seems to be a growing connection between beauty and menopause conversations. We recently collaborated with Latest in Beauty on its first menopause-focused beauty box. Why do you think women are increasingly looking for beauty and wellness solutions that support the physical and emotional changes of menopause?
Heather Jackson:
Menopause affects every aspect of a woman's daily life.
Changes in skin, hair, sleep, energy, mood and confidence are all interconnected, so women naturally look for holistic ways to support themselves rather than isolated solutions.
We're seeing beauty and wellness industries recognising that women want products designed with these changes in mind.
They don't necessarily separate beauty from wellbeing because the experience itself isn't separated, and there are increasing numbers of products that are designed to support more than one aspect of their menopause, both physical and emotional.
Initiatives like menopause-friendly beauty collections are important because they help normalise these conversations and introduce women to products they might not otherwise discover.
They also reinforce the message that menopause deserves the same level of innovation and consumer choice as every other life stage: beauty plays a huge role in our confidence and sense of wellbeing.
Recognition That Drives Change
Laura Capewell:
Industry recognition also feels increasingly important in helping menopause-friendly brands gain visibility. Arella Pause was recently named a finalist in the Get The Gloss Wellness Awards, alongside a number of other GenM collective brands. How important are awards and industry recognition in helping drive progress across the menopause sector?
Heather Jackson:
Recognition plays an important role by shining a spotlight on businesses investing in genuine innovation and evidence-based solutions.
Awards help raise awareness among consumers, retailers and the wider industry, encouraging more conversations around menopause while celebrating brands that are helping move the category forward. They also create positive momentum, inspiring others to develop products and services that better meet women's needs.
But the real influence of this recognition is education.
Visibility advances understanding of the 48 signs of menopause, which our research shows many women don’t even know about. And it's important to remember: menopause is a societal issue, not a women's issue.
Every moment of visibility in retail, media and public life helps to support our wider mission of educating all of society about menopause to improve the lived experience for future generations.
Growing the Menopause Movement
Laura Capewell:
Both GenM and Arella were ultimately shaped by personal experiences that exposed gaps in support for women. As the conversation around menopause continues to evolve, what gives you the greatest sense of optimism for the future?
Heather Jackson:
Collective action at a scale that simply didn't exist a few years ago.
Over 3,500 products now carry the MTick; over 160 brands and retailers have joined the GenM Collective; major retailers are creating dedicated menopause experiences; and we’re deploying the MTick internationally through partnerships with the likes of Australia’s largest pharmacy network, TerryWhite Chemmart and DFI Retail in Asia.
The momentum behind the MTick continues to grow, but we're still at the beginning.
Every new brand, retailer and organisation that joins the movement helps make menopause more visible, better understood and better supported, transforming society as a whole.
Our ambition has always been to ensure that every woman can navigate menopause with confidence and that everyone else in society understands the importance of menopause education.
Together with partners like Arella and the wider GenM Collective, we're building a future where finding trusted menopause support becomes simple, visible and completely normal.
Building a Better Future for Menopause Support
This conversation highlights how far menopause awareness has come and the collective effort still driving change.
By improving education, increasing visibility and championing trusted products, the industry is helping women navigate menopause with greater confidence.
If you'd like to learn more, explore Arella Pause and discover why it has been awarded MTick certification by GenM.
