Lux Perry is reimagining period pain relief

Lux Perry has dealt with chronic pain their entire life. Upon realizing existing options to relive pain from periods just weren’t cutting it, Perry set out to create their own solution. Founded in 2020, somedays uses the latest research on chronic pain to treat the root cause of period pain. The Vancouver-based company sells bath soaks, lotions and to add pleasure to your pain relief routine.

Here, we chat with Perry, the co-founder and CEO of somedays, about starting their own company and what it’s like to jump headfirst into entrepreneurship — without a business or corporate background. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us a bit about yourself:

I've had chronic pain my entire life and it’s one of the main reasons I wasn't able to get post-secondary education, get a corporate job or follow a “regular” career path. I think that chronic pain makes you really creative because you have to figure out ways to navigate the world, whether that is your career path or day-to-day living. 

I've been finding solutions for myself for over a decade. So I thought, “we need more options on the market and there's no reason that I can't be the one to do that. How do I turn this into something that I can share with other people?”  

For people who menstruate, what are the current pain-relief options on the market?

The current options are mainly Tylenol or Advil. I've used them in the past, but the problem with those medications is that they can disrupt the microbiome in your gut, which inhibits healthy hormone balance. And so there's actually this cycle that happens where if you take those medications regularly, which is the case for many people, it can disrupt other balances in your body. That means you're actually worsening the problem long-term and increasing your dependence on these drugs. Another option on the market is the TENS machine, which sends electrical impulses to your brain and disrupts your pain receptors. Those don't work for people with chronic pain, because when you experience pain regularly, your body becomes hypersensitive. So those options don't work for me. 

What is Somedays doing differently? 

For one, we take chronic pain very seriously. 

Every time you get your period, you're anticipating cramps, you're anticipating these mood shifts, you're anticipating this negative experience. And so we take natural pain relief and we infuse it with something more pleasurable, like a spa experience. We infuse things like topical creams and bath products with pain-relieving ingredients. The idea is to merge pain relief with something that can help reassociate the experience of having a period in your brain. If you can actually undo those chronic pain pathways and relieve pain long-term, the idea is to eventually actually not experience pain at all. 

And as I mentioned before, I don’t have a corporate background and that has turned out to be beneficial for me. It means that I have no framework for how things are supposed to look, which means I'm not hindered by what I'm supposed to do or the normal chains of command. Somedays isn’t built around a traditional structure — there's no hierarchy here and we’re a very collaborative and creative team. 

Tell us about your business model: 

We’re an e-commerce company so we sell direct to consumers. In the future, we plan to move into wholesale, but right now we want to focus on building a deep connection with our community. Our community is really important to us, so being able to speak to them directly, and being able to get feedback from them is really important to us. We are an end-to-end producer and retailer, which means that we take raw ingredients and make our products and package them in-house.  We fulfill our own products or we fulfill our own orders and we do all of our own marketing, as well. That means that we can control the ethical production of our products and iterate new products quickly. That way, we can also ensure that everybody is paid a living wage and working in a healthy environment too. 

As for funding, we bootstrapped for the first year and went through our first raise last year. We'll probably fundraise again next year. 

What's your advice to new or aspiring founders? 

Don’t wait for perfection: If you wait until something is perfect to put it into the world, it’s too late. You have to be able to look back on the first iteration of your product and be embarrassed. And if you're not embarrassed, you waited too long to launch. You should be able to do that with very little money just to test your product and then iterate from there. It's all about adaptability, 

Be open to learning: You don't even need to go to school to be passionate about learning. You don't need somebody to tell you what you need to learn. You just need to have the desire to get out there and soak up information. 

What are some of your favourite books and podcasts?

Books: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is one of my favourites. Also, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. 

Podcast: Don’t Keep Your Day Job with Cathy Heller and My First Million (although I wish there were more women guests on the show) with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.  I think it's really important, especially if you don't come from a corporate background or you don’t come from a wealthy background, to listen to people talk who have money. Otherwise, it’s difficult to imagine how much money there is to be made, what scale people operate businesses on, and how many people there are in the world that you can reach with your messaging, product or mission. 

How do you typically start your mornings?

My mornings are generally prepped for the night before by writing out my to-do list. It’s a good nighttime practice so that you're not swirling around in your brain about all the things you have to do the next day. In the mornings, I wake up with the sun. In the summer that’s 5:30 or 6 am, and in the winter, that might be 9 or 10 am. Then, I get into my routine and I just sort of do the same thing every morning. I drink a smoothie, take my dog Dwayne for a walk, and listen to a podcast.  I try really hard not to look at my phone or social media first thing in the morning. 

What are some of your work-from-home essentials? 

Headphones and, of course, a proper chair. For the longest time, I was working from my couch thinking “this is fine.” But, alas, I ended up with the craziest back pain of my entire life. Making sure that I have proper seating, a proper desk area, and a door in that office so I can leave it closed after I’m done with work is key.