Meet The New Nootropic CBD Wellness Brand Noon

For entrepreneurs, the work-from-anywhere movement can mean launch from anywhere.

Distance didn’t preclude longtime friends Cherie Lui, Christine Wong and Jane Wong, who are based in Hong Kong, Canada and the United States, respectively, from joining forces to start Noon, a nootropics-cum-CBD wellness brand influenced by the three friends’ Asian heritage.

It’s kicking off with three products—Rise, Renew and Relax—mixing 300 milligrams to 900 milligrams of CBD isolate with ingredients like goji berry, monk fruit, passionflower and lion’s mane for formulas designed to promote focus, balance and calm. They retail for $80 to $120 and are available on Noon’s e-commerce website. 

Even though their careers and locations diverged (Jane is a designer, Christine went into neuroscience and Cherie is a public relations specialist), the three co-founders shared a search for solutions to stress. Lui turned to traditional Chinese medicine to combat stress. 

“It can address rebalancing things that drugs simply cannot,” she says, adding, “I grew up with different food and tonics and soups, and we all understand how plants as well as food can help to heal and restore our sense of mood and balance. That’s how we came up with the idea of taking centuries-old Eastern wisdom and wellness principles of taking a holistic approach to health and applying it for the modern day. We aspire to change lives through the power of plants.”

Cherie, Jane and Christine spent less than $20,000 combined to develop Noon. They leveraged their unique skill sets to do a lot with what many would consider a song. “Usually, creating and marketing a brand can take a massive amount of money,” admits Cherie. “We were extremely fortunate because we had a very clear vision of what we wanted for the brand.” From its photographer to graphic designer, Noon elected to collaborate with all female professionals. 

To achieve its blends of CBD with other nootropic ingredients and TCM herbs, Noon couldn’t opt for white-label products. Its custom-crafted formulas took years to perfect. “Our product is caramel color because it has those herbs in it,” says Cherie. “We went through six rounds, each round had like three different types of each product to ensure that we have the right consistency, taste and texture, ensuring that we have a product that we were happy with.” She underscores CBD is a nootropic .“It has the power to change your mood, your focus. In that sense, it affects your mind positively,” says Cherie. “Not a lot of people talk about CBD in that way.” 

Noon consciously selected water-soluble CBD isolate, a pure extract that only contains CBD. “With oils, up to 95% or so doesn’t even get absorbed into the body,” says Christine, who serves as Noon’s chief research officer. “It’s not only water-soluble, you can mix it into drinks. You don’t have to put it under your tongue. You don’t have that oily film. It mixes really well, or you can take it directly if you like. There’s actually clinical studies for this technology where absorption is up to 15 times faster and better. I think a really important feature of our product is you can customize it to your personal rituals, and you can adjust [dosage] more quickly. You don’t have to wait two hours to see if you feel something.”

Jane notes the isolate format will allow for easier international business when Noon is ready to expand. She also emphasizes the brand’s formulas retain beneficial plant compounds associated with full- and broad-spectrum CBD. “We didn’t want the THC portion, but we wanted to incorporate other whole plant benefits,” she says. “Our product actually contains terpenes that you would find from hemp along with nootropics. So, even though we use CBD isolate because it’s the purest form and it’s reliable, we still have those whole plant benefits.”

The brand is launching in direct-to-consumer distribution to establish a deep connection with its early customers. A subscription option and bundles will roll out soon. Noon anticipates omnichannel distribution in its future. The brand is interested in partnerships with retailers in the luxury cannabis space and experimenting with concept pop-ups. 

“For us, being able to own what that looks like is quite important,” says Jane. “We’re trying to promote healthy, good rituals. When we think about launching our own wellness event, part of our thinking is to align with other Asian-owned brands that are in this space and bring all these voices together to create something really unique.”

With forthcoming initiatives, the Noon co-founders will strive to cultivate a social aspect around CBD similar to what happens around THC. “CBD right now is very individual, very private,” says Jane. “Just as edibles have taken a really interesting turn where people are sharing them, I would love to have CBD be like THC. It’s in your pocket. It feels accessible. It doesn’t feel like you’re going to take this drug and people feel afraid of it. We’ve been thinking about different formats and new delivery systems since day one, something that’s more portable and more social is definitely in our pipeline.”