March 09, 2022Interviews

LESSE Skincare Founder Neada Deters Shares Her Passion For Animals

WO(MAN)'S BEST FRIEND

Neada Deters

The Pagerie Pet is not only your son or daughter, but closest confidant. Introducing Wo(man) ’s Best Friend, a series that reveals our favorite Pagerie companions and the personality traits that make them one of a kind.

Neada Deters knows how to build a thoughtful beauty brand. The skincare brand founder launched Lesse in 2018, an essential and refined skincare collection that never compromises on quality, efficacy, consideration for the environment, or that luxury feeling we all look for when we start and end our day. “It became essential to me to create a better option catered to what people are looking for in beauty today,” said Neada. “I always found beauty to be very exclusionary as someone of a mixed background and I really wanted to tackle that and show you can still have an extremely elevated approach.”

Her love for the brand that she’s built from the ground up is apparent, and so is her affection for her canine companion, Alfie.

“My love for Alfie is limitless and unconditional,” said Neada. “I’m such an animal person. I always have been. I have fostered 14 dogs as an adult and Alfie has brought so much joy to my life. It’s constant therapy being around him. He’s so soothing and he really puts things in perspective by showing me how you can find joy in the small and simple things.”

To that end, Neada and her family are big proponents of road trips and Alfie is on the same page. “He is such an incredible road tripper,” she said. “He loves to post up in the back of the car and I’ll lift his bed up slightly and wind his window down a touch. He loves the breeze coming in through the window, running through his hair. He’ll sit tight and be very happy for a 12 or 16-hour drive. We’re big, big nature fans and we like to get out there and he compliments our love for that.”

We can’t forget to mention where the name Alfie originated. Alfie was named after a gangster in the show Peaky Blinders, which according to Neada is the exact opposite of Alfie’s personality. “Alfie is not a gangster at all,” laughed Neada. “As a puppy, he was this tiny little cuddly ball of fluff, and we thought it was so funny to think of that being his namesake.”

MEET NEADA'S CANINE COMPANION

Alfie

Breed: Alfie is an Australian labradoodle. Australian Labradoodles were bred to provide a hypoallergenic option as a service dog. So if someone required a service dog, but had allergies, there wasn’t really a solution there. So they put a poodle with a labrador along with a few different other breeds and the Australian Labradoodle was created a few decades ago and has been bringing joy to the world ever since.

Cutest quirk: We call it flying into the metaverse. He lies upside down like he’s flying into outer space and will sleep with his paws straight out.

Favourite human food: Cheese. If we have parmesan pulled out, he’s sitting there better behaved than he ever is.

Daily uniform: He likes to be in the nude.

Go-to outdoor activity: We live across the road from a trailhead into Elysian Park. So we hike Elysian Park every day. Alfie loves it.

Preferred luxury item: Alfie has a love of mid-century furniture. It’s one of his favorite things. He likes to drink an absorbent amount of water and then drag his wet beard all over my vintage mid-century furniture.