Building a Wellness Brand from Personal Experience
Emma Heming Willis and Helen Christoni didn’t set out to create a supplement company. They set out to solve a problem they lived — the brain fog, exhaustion, and emotional toll of caregiving, and the lack of products designed for women in that phase of life.
Brands looking to verify ingredient safety can use Qalitex’s cosmetic testing services — ISO 17025 accredited and FDA compliant.
Make Time Wellness was born from that gap. At Expo West 2025, Nour Abochama sat down with the co-founders to explore the brand’s origins, the science behind their formulations, and why they believe brain health deserves the same attention as skin health or physical fitness.
The Caregiving Context
Caregivers — whether for aging parents, spouses with illness, or children with special needs — face a well-documented toll: chronic stress, sleep disruption, neglect of their own health, and elevated risk for depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline.
Emma and Helen speak openly about how their experiences informed Make Time Wellness. The brand isn’t positioned as a solution to caregiving stress — that would be reductive. But it is designed for women who are often last on their own priority list, who need support for focus, energy, and emotional resilience, and who deserve products formulated with their specific physiology and life stage in mind.
Brain Health as a Category
The brain health supplement category has grown rapidly, driven by aging demographics, increased awareness of cognitive decline, and emerging research on nootropics, adaptogens, and neuroprotective compounds.
Make Time Wellness focuses on women’s brain health — acknowledging that hormone fluctuations, stress response patterns, and nutritional needs differ between sexes. Key ingredients in brain health formulations often include:
- Omega-3 fatty acids (DHA/EPA): Critical for brain structure and function; inadequate intake is common in Western diets
- B vitamins: Support neurotransmitter synthesis and energy metabolism; B12 and folate are particularly important for cognitive function
- Adaptogens (ashwagandha, rhodiola): Modulate stress response and may support focus under chronic stress
- Antioxidants (vitamin E, flavonoids): Protect against oxidative stress in brain tissue
Nour brings her expertise in ingredient safety and testing to the conversation — what brands owe consumers when making brain health claims, and how third-party testing builds trust in a category where quality varies widely.
Ingredient Safety and Transparency
For any supplement brand, especially one targeting health conditions (brain fog, focus, stress), ingredient verification and transparent labeling are non-negotiable.
At Qalitex Laboratories, we routinely test brain health formulations for identity (is the ashwagandha actually ashwagandha?), potency (is the omega-3 at the labeled amount?), and purity (heavy metals, microbial contamination). Brands that skip these steps — or that use proprietary blends that obscure dosing — are not competing on the same playing field as brands that invest in verification.
Emma and Helen discuss Make Time Wellness’s commitment to quality and transparency — and why it matters for a brand built on trust with women who are often skeptical of supplement marketing.
The Expo West 2025 Context
Expo West is the largest natural products trade show in North America. For emerging brands, it’s a chance to connect with retailers, distributors, press, and peers. For established brands, it’s a pulse check on category trends and competitive landscape.
The brain health and women’s wellness categories were prominently represented at Expo West 2025. The conversation with Make Time Wellness captures a moment in the industry’s evolution — from single-ingredient supplements to formulation approaches that address the whole person.
Key Takeaways
- Make Time Wellness was founded to address the brain health, energy, and emotional support needs of women — often caregivers — who have been underserved by the supplement market
- Brain health formulations should consider sex-specific physiology, hormone influences, and stress response patterns
- Ingredient verification (identity, potency, purity) and transparent labeling are essential for trust in the brain health category
- The natural products industry is increasingly recognizing brain health and women’s wellness as distinct, growth-oriented categories
This article is based on Episode 35 of Nourify & Beautify. Watch the full conversation on YouTube or listen on Podbean.
