Like most great businesses Melissa’s beautiful Lujo Home was born from a personal story.

For the last seven years Melissa has lived with extremely debilitating symptoms, tentatively diagnosed with early SLE Lupus but not ruling out the possibility of things like MS. (with symptoms starting as early as 21 years old)  It’s a journey of tests and treatments to try get the bottom of her symptoms and ongoing issues that has been a hard, long and tiring road. Battling serious illness is a tough journey, but she is glad of one thing through this challenge, it led her to create her beloved Lujo Home which she officially launched online in 2017.

“I’ve always loved retail; I have worked in it, but I was only ever able to work very part-time due to my illness. My wonderful husband worked away to support us, mostly he was away for four weeks at a time. Even then we would only see him for a week in between.  The idea of Lujo Home came from wanting to build something for my family, something that could keep us together more.”

Melissa says having serious health issues is a real struggle, and you start your day behind everyone else. “You always have to push through that [illness] before even getting out of bed or running your business. Being an invisible illness too, and being on all sorts of dreadful medication it really is tricky, but it is also amazing because it inspires you about life.”

She credits serious illness to really reminding her how fragile and important life is. “I think I even enjoy life a little more than a lot of other people and I have become very passionate about things that I really love.”

“It’s a real reminder on how short life is and how lucky we are to be alive.”

Melissa says the things she sells are things that she has personally loved and that have made a big difference to her own life. “My love of bright shiny objects and things like silk have helped me so much over the last few years. It has definitely played a big part in starting this business. I started with the things I loved because when you’re not feeling too well you must really love something to be able to promote it or sell it. Like my love of silk, because silk has just helped me so much.”

A sleep deprived Melissa had no idea that buying a silk duvet would be the precipice that would change her life and lead her on the path it has. When you don’t have 100% good health Melissa says sleep and comfort become two very crucial things in your life. The silk duvet gave her relief by stopping her from overheating during the night while still allowing her to be warm, meaning she would finally get some peaceful sleep. Something not easily done while living with a chronic illness. It was also beautiful to touch and look at, making her feel more relaxed.

‘I fell in love with pure mulberry silk.’

She had found that pure, mulberry silk wasn’t just beautiful and wonderful to touch and feel, it had beauty and health benefits too. She realised she needed to share this discovery with other people. Not just those that are sick but all kinds of people from corporate couples to exhausted Mums to eco living families. Everyone needed to have access to the benefits.

Her research into silks and manufacturers began and she soon realised that not all silks are equal. “In my opinion you can buy satins and cheap silks but, in my research, what the synthetics are made of was actually quite horrible and synthetics are not something I want to be promoting.  So in my products you won’t find any synthetics.”

The quality really matters to her and she personally uses the products she sells and promotes. “To me it is so important to me to know that your business will be around in 20, 30, 40 years’ time so it is important to have a great reputation. So, you need to have quality products. Some of the products are also new to a lot of people so I make sure I have a lot of information on my website too.”

Melissa says we don’t need to make a massive overhaul of our beauty and home products all at once to see benefits to our health, beauty and comfort either. You can start one product at a time. “If you were going to try just one new product, for me it would be the silk pillowcase. The quilt has changed my life but for an entry level into silk, the pillowcase is something you can really see the benefits from straight away. Even small things like that can make a big difference.”

One look through Lujo Home and you see the coming together of Melissa’s hand-picked favourite things. It’s a gorgeous website full of beauty, self-care and eco-friendly, ethical products in one place. The eco-shopping items offer a range of solutions for your home, gifts and self-care and your beauty routine too.

“For me, being sick as well as being busy, beauty secrets have to be simple so my top beauty secret would have to be a silk pillowcase. It is a beauty secret where you are not doing anything extra in your life. To me that is the ultimate beauty secret!”

Melissa’s love and enthusiasm for her business and products is infectious and her customer feedback reinforces the passion she puts into it every single part of Lujo Home.

“Every single order I pack, I just get so excited. I love to see what people buy and I love hearing back comments and reviews about how much they love it and how things are changing people’s lives in simple ways. I just get so excited by that. It really makes me feel good.

“Lujo Home has enabled me to be able to work properly for the first time in years and build something for my family. It’s also lovely to have all the people involved in my business. A lot of money comes in, but a lot goes out to people as well and I love that.”.

Welcome to Lujo Home.

What makes us different?

Aside from feeling good and nurturing others, Melissa is passionate about quality and that feeling of joy that comes from nurturing and being nurtured.

Her love of people and making connections with others is what drives her to provide personalised customer service and knowing that her products are high quality is what keeps her customers coming back for more.

All of Melissa’s stock is sourced from the highest quality, raw materials designed to have meaningful, durable and noticeable effects.