New Supplement Brand Eden Takes A Cool, Clear And Comprehensive Approach To Hormone Health

Before nutritionist Katie Fitzgerald started trying to get pregnant eight years ago, she didn’t give too much thought to her hormones. She’d always had regular periods and barely ever even dealt with PMS. Fitzgerald says, “Things just seemed normal. So, when my husband and I struggled with infertility, it was a big surprise.”

As she underwent four rounds of IVF and suffered five miscarriages, things became not so normal. Fitzgerald was emotionally and physically drained, and compensated by seeking almost every treatment and supplement in existence. She experimented with acupuncture, infrared saunas, adaptogens, probiotics and minerals.

“I was taking fistfuls of pills throughout the day. It was an obscene amount. My husband looked at me like I was nuts for taking all these supplements. He said, ‘Are you sure this is OK?’ It looked like I was overdoing it, and that’s certainly what it felt like. It wasn’t a sustainable way to return to feeling well,” says Fitzgerald. “I wanted to find something that was comprehensive, high quality and really hit all of the bases for me, but it just wasn’t out there.”

With new supplement brand Eden, she’s created what she believes was missing from the market: a wide-ranging blend of 28 ingredients—everything from ashwagandha to zinc—designed to support hormonal health, and speak to modern consumers with digestible education and cool packaging. Selling on the brand’s website, its debut supplement is priced at $46 for a bottle of 120 capsules or $39.10 per month on subscription.

“In general, supplements targeted at women are outdated in a lot of ways. It’s the same old industrial things, perhaps relabeled. For hormonal health, they’re either for just one population like post-menopausal women or they feel condescending. Like, ‘Oh, here’s this mineral with a pink label,’” says Fitzgerald. “It always seemed like there was something missing from the supplements I found. Of course, I could have included 10 more ingredients in Eden, but nothing comes close, in my opinion, to how comprehensive Eden is compared to what was available.”

“Nothing comes close, in my opinion, to how comprehensive Eden is.”

Upon beginning to formulate Eden early last year, Fitzgerald drew up a checklist of the ingredients she considered important for hormonal health, and most of what was on the checklist made it into the supplement. There’s folate to build DNA, B vitamins for metabolism, reishi for stress reduction, turmeric to fight inflammation, and bromelian for digestion. Over the course of the formulation process, Fitzgerald discovered black pepper is an absorption aid and added that in, too.

“I want Eden to be part of a healthy lifestyle, not just another bottle of empty promises. What I find that’s important in supplementation is getting what you need. Included in Eden isn’t anything different, but it’s the right micronutrients in the right amounts for efficacy,” says Fitzgerald. “The vitamins and minerals I chose aren’t only the vitamins and minerals necessary for hormonal balance, they’re also the same vitamins and minerals that are hard to get from diet alone.”

She thinks women searching for better supplements than the standard multivitamins they’ve been downing are a key audience for Eden. People reluctant to buy into supplements because they’re skeptical of their claims or wary of low quality are its audience as well, says Fitzgerald. To convince them to test Eden, the brand stayed away from huge, compressed horse pills. Its relies on cellulose-based gel capsules that are easy to swallow and can be taken without water with no aftertaste. The recommended dosage is four capsules daily, and the capsules are encased in a lightweight bottle that can be popped into a woman’s bag, so she can be consistent with her supplementation no matter where she goes.

As a nutritionist, Fitzgerald counseled women coping with symptoms of hormonal fluctuations often unaware they’re were related to hormones. As examples of the symptoms, she recounts they’d tell her, “‘The more I exercise, the less weight I lose. All of a sudden, my hair is thinning. No matter how much I eat, I’m still hungry. I have no energy. In my 30s, I have acne or I can’t pick up my head off the desk when I have my period.’ They said, ‘I’m not going through menopause,’ but that’s not what we are talking about. There’s so much more to hormones than periods and menopause.” To clarify the enormous role of hormones, Eden has a “Hormones 101” explainer on its website and an extensive blog diving into the various conditions hormones affect.

“Self-care shouldn’t be a full-time job, and that’s what it was for me. If I could have had something like Eden as a one step to feeling better, it would have helped me go on to the next thing in my life instead of feeling scattered.”

The brand is careful not to demonize hormones. It has right-side up and upside down smiley faces on its sleek taupe packaging to illustrate the ups and downs hormones trigger. “One of our catchphrases is being ‘happily hormonal,’” says Fitzgerald. “The body has ebbs and flows, and hormones are a part of that, but hormones are amazing. Much of what I heard in private practice was, ‘Ugh, my hormones,’ but I would say, ‘No, no, no, they are responsible for what makes you a woman, and they provide the potential of what your body can do.’”

Fitzgerald teamed up with Peter Boyles, former director of consumer marketing at Blippar, to develop Eden. The two connected over LinkedIn and instantly hit it off. They shared an interest in wellness that they desired to turn into a larger entrepreneurial endeavor. Boyles brought digital expertise that complemented Fitzgerald’s nutrition and sales background. Prior to becoming a nutritionist, she worked in legal service sales. They invested $30,000 to realize Eden and expect it to generate a low six-figure total in first-year revenue. The brand is sticking to online distribution at the outset. Fitzgerald explains, “We really couldn’t keep our costs competitive if we were in brick-and-mortar.”

If she had Eden during her battle with infertility, Fitzgerald, now mom to three-month-old twin boys, believes she’d have been a lot less worried about searching for remedies for her strained body and mental state. “Self-care shouldn’t be a full-time job, and that’s what it was for me. If I could have had something like Eden as a one step to feeling better, it would have helped me go on to the next thing in my life instead of feeling scattered and that what I was doing was cumbersome,” she says. “And maybe I would have felt that I wasn’t alone because there was something for hormone health, which is so necessary.”