read NŪR - A LOVE STORY part 2

Part 1/10 – Introduction

February is the month that inspires many to think about love, and our social media feeds become inundated with pictures of decadent chocolate, beautiful sunsets, and lavish proposals, but anyone who has loved knows that love is rarely a perfectly polished IG feed. In fact, love, -- whether for a partner, child, or parent -- is full of hardship, loss and tough lessons.

The birth of NŪR is rooted in a love story. It is a post-recession story of survival and the redefining of a partnership and the meaning of happiness in a new world order. It’s the story of the intensity of fear that comes over new parents when they gaze lovingly into the eyes of their newborn. It’s the story of a mother trying to find space for herself while wanting to give to her family, and the story of a father trying to pursue his own creative dreams against the pressures of providing for his family.

With the backdrop of the Great Recession, the tale begins with a newlywed couple, neither of whom could have ever guessed the impact that this single event would have on their lives when they signed the contract that bound them together through thick or thin.

My name is Anisa Noor, founder of NŪR Skincare, and every day for the next nine days, I invite you to join me as I revisit the journey of a part of my life that tells how and why I embarked on the NŪR project and what it means to my family and me...

Part 2/10 – Our Beginning: Suhail & Anisa

On May 31st 2009 we were married with a small ceremony surrounded by our families. Both of us were mid-level professionals. We moved in to our two-story condominium in Ukrainian Village in Chicago. It was a bit large, but the perfect location to start a family.

Life, however, as they say, had different plans for us…

Our wedding coincided with ‘The Great Recession’ but little did we know that its effects would become the backdrop of the first decade plus of my marriage. The lessons we would learn would have a lasting impact on us and would change us forever.

Part 3/10 – Some Background

Suhail is a solo architect with a small network. He operates a tight ship and likes to keep his work highly creative. At the time we were married, he had three projects, so business was booming.
I was on hiatus from my consulting career as a chemical engineer and had just returned from my fellowship in Cairo where I was focused on studying Feminism in the Modern Muslim world as part of my graduate degree in Middle East Studies. My goal upon returning was to find an NGO to work with that had programs for girls’ education in South Asia. I was just about to re-enter the work force and had several interviews lined up.

However, months went by and Suhail realized that project deadlines were being delayed, and then project funding was indefinitely withheld. Everyone was in the dark about what was actually happening and then suddenly, the developers and banks canceled all of the projects. His firm lost over $150k of the project’s funds in procuring subcontractors and materials.

Meanwhile, all of my job prospects, which seemed so promising at the outset, were put on hold. After filing hundreds more job applications, “hiring freeze” was the typical response I received.
Within a few months, we were running out of our savings and had just a couple of months’ worth of funds in the account left for our living expenses. After those months passed, and just like that, with a twist of fate and despite our most earnest efforts, we went from being two professionals at the peak of their careers to loan modification number 554005435 – with our house in foreclosure...

Part 4/10 - “California – you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave”

We put most of our stuff in storage and moved in with my parents for several months and after exhausting all his contacts, Suhail finally got a call from a potential client in Santa Monica. This was all we had at the time, so we made the move.

The Santa Monica project felt like a godsend, and I had no luck finding work in LA.

By chance, Suhail’s project in Santa Monica was a high-end salon looking for someone to start-up the spa portion of their business. I didn’t know much about esthetics but I loved skincare and often dabbled with my own formulations and worked with some clients in the skincare industry in my days as a chemical engineer. In order to really learn esthetics, I needed to actually work on skin so I enrolled in beauty school to obtain my esthetician’s license. This salon owner introduced me to Dangene, from whom I learned about technology-based facials that focused on results. My job was to reproduce this in the salon in Santa Monica. It was meant to be a side hustle though – and after the economy got better I could re-enter the job market, or so I thought.

So…LA was going to be our home for a while…just until we sorted things out...

Part 5/10 - LA living

It was tough adjusting to a new city, but I suppose in retrospect that was especially true because I was already stubbornly committed to a life that I wanted to carve out for myself. I wanted to regain control of my life. My life and my marriage were already on a trajectory that I had set – I just needed to find a way to get that back. I wanted a home, a picket fence, and 2.2 children, and when none of that seemed attainable I felt bitter. Suhail and I fought a lot. I resented having to move to another city where I had trouble getting around and had no friends.

On top of it all, it seemed I was having trouble getting pregnant. The odds, I was told, were less than 5% - a devastating blow since we could afford neither IVF nor adoption.

We still struggled to pay our basic bills and had nothing left over. It became difficult to make friends when we couldn’t afford to go out when invited.

Life became a series of struggles around basic survival – any dreams we had beyond that were crushed..

Part 6/10 - Family

Finally in 2012, after several months of acupuncture treatments, I became pregnant. It was the happiest we had felt since our wedding. Every week we would reference the size of the embryo and compare it to a fruit. It was the size of an apple seed the week I miscarried.

Months went by and I continued with my acupuncture and herbs and became pregnant again. We didn’t tell anyone and felt afraid to lose the baby the whole term. We didn’t reference the size of the baby from week to week anymore – we just held our breath until she arrived.

On August 8, 2013, when she arrived, it seemed the darkness that loomed over us was forever gone. She brought a happiness that was unrivaled and it seemed nothing else mattered. We named her Leila Noor – which translated to the “light of the night” – because that’s what she was.

Shortly after she was born, I went into mama bear mode and decided that I could no longer work in a traditional 9-5 job anymore while she was young – I wanted to spend every waking moment with her – and Suhail’s project-to-project work was too unpredictable for us to have stability.

And so, coinciding with the birth of my daughter, we embarked on the very first NŪR Skincare location in Los Angeles...

Part 7/10 – The Birth of NŪR

The birth of a child is when you really feel the class divide. If you can afford a nanny, maid, and cook, you may have some semblance of your previous life but if you can’t, ordinary tasks like showering, brushing one’s hair, and sometimes even eating, became difficult to near impossible at times. Whenever the baby slept, I worked around the clock creating and tweaking protocols, ordering supplies, setting up a website, putting together marketing and promotional materials, etc

When Leila was just a few months old, we found a space in a beautiful professional building in Brentwood, just at the border of Santa Monica – it was a single room for treatments in a shared suite with other health practitioners and it seemed perfect for us.

We took out a small loan to get the first machines and for the build-out of the space.

Meanwhile, Suhail was busy designing and procuring materials to build-out the space which would have to be conducted after business hours so that tenants would not be disturbed. We also decided that in order to save costs, he would do the design and build entirely himself. The plan was to take an ordinary office space and convert it into a relaxing, aesthetically beautiful place that was also fully functional.

He started by asking me the typical questions he would ask any of his clients – what’s the aesthetic I’m after, what feelings do I want to evoke, how do I want it to function? That’s about all the input I gave.

Every evening, Suhail would help me with Leila’s bath-time and help put her to sleep. Then he went to work from 8 pm – 3 am, tired, hungry, and working alone, he hand-made NŪR. Every cut of wood, every stone in that space was marked with his blood, sweat, and love.

I would not get to see the space until it was finished – those were the terms. It was meant to be a surprise...

PART 8/10 - The Reveal + Defining the NŪR Philosophy

Leila was five months old when Suhail finished the buildout. I’ll never forget the rush of complex emotions I felt when I saw it for the first time. It was a true labor of love – and it represented what we wanted for our future – a way for me to circumvent having a corporate job and spend time with our daughter – as well as an avenue to create, innovate, and really establish something that was ours.

Our first attempt at marketing was walking up and down Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica with the baby in the bassinet to pass out promotional fliers. I ran in to drop off materials to every hotel, boutique, cycling and pilates studio in the neighborhood.

That year was 2014, and only thirteen people called and came to my studio for a facial, but I made sure every single one of them loved my treatment and saw amazing results. The next year, we had scores of clients, all word-of-mouth.

By year 3 of NŪR, Leila started preschool which meant I could spend more time on the business, just as we were growing. Friends of friends were coming in, eager to start on a series with me because they had heard of the amazing results with our signature hi-tech facial...

Part 9/10 – Will Rogers to Temescal

This hike was one of my happiest memories of LA. Challenging yet not unattainable, roughly four miles with switchbacks and lush green woods, gorgeous cliffs and the most breathtaking views of Santa Monica that you could experience, this was the hike that provided the inspirational backdrop that we needed when deciding what comes next for us. Every week for about four hours, Suhail and I talked in-depth about moving back home and opening our next location. We talked about how the new space should look, down to the very details of colors and cabinets. We reveled in a vision that became one of our primary driving forces. For Suhail, it was all about the design aesthetic and for me, it was all about really transforming the skin, and once we moved, NŪR Chicago was born...

Part 10/10 - NŪR Chicago

We found the perfect space for our studio -- a modern loft-style suite with exposed brick and timber – which is typical of Chicago architecture. The aesthetic embodies our culture, traditions, and history. The location in Ravenswood is historic and community-oriented. The shop-owners in the neighborhood support each other and it feels like we’re back home.

We pay homage to our time in California with the ghostwood tree in the hallway of our Chicago location. It is composed of pieces assembled by Suhail and adorned with dessert succulents. The panels in the space represent traditional Sufi art and the starburst logo is a modified version of a common icon of Islamic art and architecture.

The name, NŪR, means light in Arabic and feels like a metaphor representing a decade-long journey of struggle and achievement ultimately fueled by love.

If you have read the whole story, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a part of our journey. NUR is about family – and we treat our clients as if they are part of our family. We hope you feel the love in the service we provide and the passion we exude in our care for you.

read NŪR A LOVE STORY part 2