Get to know us

Baléco, the company behind The Unscented Company brand, was launched in November 2011 by Anie Rouleau. Her vision, right from the outset, was to offer B2B businesses a turnkey solution to reduce their plastic footprint.

Our goal: Making it simple for our customers to conveniently refill from the office to their home, hence OH. Our first customers were daycares, yoga centers, offices, and schools. Quickly, our customers wanted to purchase our products from retail stores.

Our commitment to never test on animals was made early on in the business. We chose the well-known Leaping Bunny Certification as a seal of approval.

From the very beginning, B Corp values were at the heart of the company. Choosing to become B Corp Certified was a natural step in building the business with a solid foundation, enabling us to set the highest standards for the future.

OH was great and allowed us to test our business concept. Secretly, The Unscented Company had always been in the back of Anie’s mind just waiting to happen. A bold name that would always ensure we remain who we are: unscented and unstoppable!

The one and only Patch officially joined the company in February 2017. And he made quite the entrance too! After 2 years of R&D, he also launched his very own Dog Shampoo Bar in 2020.

OMG! Our first BIG order: The Unscented Company products were launched in 280 Bulk Barn stores across Canada.

Gwyneth Paltrow & The Unscented? Yes, that happened. Our products being featured on Goop in January 2019 was a stepping stone for our company and gave us quite a bit of media coverage, both locally and in the US.

If you live in Montréal and love local food, you probably already know about Lufa Farms, and likely order from them. Their mission? Build a better food system. How do they do it? By building and farming on rooftop greenhouses, partnering with local farmers and food makers, and delivering baskets as quickly and efficiently as possible to the growing community of Lufavores. 

The perfect fit with our brand and mission; we’re proud partners!

The Unscented Company on national television! 

Anie Rouleau appeared on Dragons’ Den with the brand and did a refill on live TV. In collaboration with Dragons’ Den, Canadian Tire then surprised us by listing our product line in Canadian Tire stores across Canada. 

As Anie Rouleau said it at the time, ‘‘My business took a major shift in 15 seconds!’’

Launch of our TUC Body collection, our first addition to the product line since the launch of the company. 

Our inspiration came from the mountains, their calm, peacefulness and overwhelming feeling of well-being. The idea for the design came from a trip to Vancouver. We decided that our new products were the perfect place to pay tribute to the immense beauty of Canada’s nature with a truly inspiring packaging. We set out to create a breathtaking mountain image and reached out to Valérie Derome-Massé. She loves nature as much as we do and especially likes photographing sunrises in the fall when fog is created by the evaporation of the warm lakes. She went out to Lac Ouimet in the beautiful Laurentians with her drone and captured this amazing shot that is now on our products.

It’s December 2019, and The Unscented Company now has 8 employees and a loyal customer base. 

Our concept is proven and we’re very excited for big projects in 2020!

Anie is back on television, this time at Dans l’œil du dragon, the QC version of Dragons’ Den. Filmed months before, little did we know that we would have our first Zoom watch party, in the comfort of our own homes! We received a huge wave of support from across the province, and the whole team was packing orders in the warehouse!

The beginning of the pandemic was a huge shift in priorities at The Unscented Company. 

The world needed soap and sanitizer, and we were on a mission to help! We teamed up with our neighbours Paul and Victoria at Cirka Distilleries to create a hand sanitizer that was Health Canada approved and made from only 3 ingredients. 

A unique collaboration we could have never of dreamed of, that allowed us to provide our local community with sanitizer in a time of need. The rainbow branding reminded us that ‘‘everything would be OK’’.

A smart cardboard box? 

Designed by our in-house architect and self-proclaimed box expert Manhal Alkhalil, our 10L refill box was completely redesigned to make it the coolest refill box on the market.

It’s made in Canada from 100% recycled cardboard and glue-free, just like origami. It has a handle for easy transportation and, what’s more, it even has an integrated feature that tilts the bag to increase refill speed and reduce waste. 

It’s strong and meant to be shipped across the country, allowing more and more Canadians to refill at home and in store. Now that’s smart!

And what a better way to do so than by launching our body care products at Whole Foods in the Northeast region? A dream come true!

The Unscented Company is considered one of Canada’s Top Growing Companies by The Globe and Mail. 

What a year!

After finding the mountain in the Laurentians for our body care line, we really wanted to find THE Canadian wave that would pay tribute to our identity. A photographer and surfer living in Nova Scotia, Catherine is the artist behind the new TUC wave that will now be found on our home care products. 

‘’When you’re out there among the waves, you really feel that you are part of a whole. You realize how powerful the pull of the ocean is, but also how sensitive the balance is, and that it can actually be disrupted by your own presence. It's a conflict that can be difficult to bear, but one that leads us to a firmer understanding of our collective responsibility in the equation.’’

- Catherine Bernier

TUC is proud to be part of the incredibly diverse and truly inspiring Women Owned business community. Our Founder and CEO Anie Rouleau is a true believer in women leadership, and regularly acts as a mentor for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

We’re proud to say that 12.6% of our purchases come from women-owned businesses.

Our reason for existing finally on film.

‘’I've always wanted to build a company with a powerful and inspiring mission and purpose, more than just a soap company. Since the beginning of The Unscented Company, I've dreamed of putting our essence in motion, because video is such an impactful medium and can really take you on a journey. Finally, in 2021, the timing was right! That's why we turned to the team at Orkestra to help us make this project a reality.” - Anie Rouleau

Every word has its place. Every sentence conveys our identity. “We must redefine our notion of clean. Let’s do without artificial fragrances and products that accumulate in our soils and rivers. Let’s make long-term choices, so that efficiency becomes synonymous with sustainability.’’

Developing a new market is no easy task! To help get things moving in the United States, and along with our photographer Valérie Paquette, we went on a road trip to NYC for a few days. Our goal? Meet with both long-time and new partners to get the lay of the land and connect with the local community.

How amazing was it to see our products in downtown Manhattan at Chelsea Market! 

USA to be continued…

Our products now carry the "Manufactured in Quebec" label, a certification from the organization Les Produits du Québec that aims to recognize Quebec's know-how, a tangible sign of our commitment to offering natural, eco-friendly, and locally made products to consumers in Quebec.

For a product to receive the “Manufactured in Quebec” certification, its last substantial transformation must have taken place in Quebec. At Unscented Co. this is done in Beloeil, on Montréal's South Shore. It's here, at our partner's plant, that we receive our raw ingredients and do everything, all the way down to bottling in the plastic bottles they manufacture on site.

Exhibiting at Natural Products Expo West was on the Unscented bucket list, and it’s in March 2023 that Anie, Halina and Pier-Anne finally flew all the way to Los Angeles with our brand-new booth. It’s hard to explain how excited we were to see our products at local top-end retailer Erewhon!

Our journey in the USA continues!

Diving into a whole new category with the launch of our Kids + Baby line.

No matter who we are or where we come from, we’re all a bit alike in the bathtub. It’s where you get water in your eyes for the first time, learn to float, and make your first foam hat. Our range of kids’ products take you on a journey to a world where anything is possible.

Whatever the adventure, our bath products are a gentle way to introduce kids to water and let their imagination run wild.

Each of these moments allowed us to move forward a little bit more. To fulfill our mission a little more. To make our vision a little clearer. 

What’s next? New products that are always true to who we are and that will help you simplify your life, and reduce our collective impact.