From Night Sweats to Innovation: Arielle Cole on Women’s Health & Cooling Sleepwear

Opening Message and Show Intro 0:00

If you're struggling and you are uncomfortable, you don't have to stay with that for the rest of your life. It's not the way that life needs to be. There is help for you out there. Whether it's mental, whether it is hormonal, there is a better way than just being stagnant in your lives. And just ask for help because really there are people out here who want to help you, who know how to you. Life is so much prettier on the other side. Do you feel like your hormones have turned against you? Trust us, you're not alone.

We're Dr. Serena and Dr Heidi and on Hormone Heroines we explore all the root causes that are behind hormone imbalances and we teach you how to thrive through them. Join us for real talk, expert tips and even a few laughs. Hi and welcome back to Hormone Heroines. Today we're going to be talking to a female entrepreneur who built a business to address women's symptoms that no one wants to talk about. Ariel Cole is the founder of Arid Bling, a sleepwear born from her own personal struggles designed for anyone experiencing hormonal shifts from menopause, pregnancy, or stress, as well as those simply wanting a better night's sleep.

Welcome. We're so excited to have you. Thank you for having me. So excited be here.

Ariel Cole's Hormone Journey Begins 1:14

Yeah, so we're super excited about sharing women's stories on our podcast. So we would love to just start with the beginning of yours. Take us back to how everything came about. What were your first symptoms and shifts that you were experiencing that made you realize that something wasn't right? So really I have to go back to when I was seven years old. At seven-years-old I Was diagnosed with hypothyroidism Which actually is like super young to be diagnosed but that so I knew that like I always had to Be in tune with my body from an early an Early age whether I'm looking out to the if I super tired or super sensitive to cold or gaining weight That's just those are just ways like know that your thyroid is kind of out of black So now fast forward to when I was 27, I, was starting to get like just suffering from mental health, really bad thoughts, life just became really, very difficult for me and I really suffered with that for longer than I should have, probably over a year.

And finally, it sought out help. I went to a therapist and a psychiatrist and we started going on SSRIs and then I started on going SSRIs, like all of a sudden you just have to be accustomed to the symptoms or side effects that come with it. And the night sweats were just wild for me and kind of just started this whole journey that I've been on. How did those symptoms impact your day-to-day life, like physically, mentally, and emotionally? I know you're supposed to be able to live with them because it's supposedly helping more than it is hurting, but how did that actually affect your life?

So for me, sleep has just always been super important. Now I was getting woken up in the middle of the night and got sleeping through the nights, waking up drenched, it just took a toll on me day after day of that. I had crazy mental fog. I also was working a nine to five job. But I was in the fashion industry. So I have to show up to work, looking not so hot, feeling not hot. And really like, it took a toll on my mental health again. Things that used to be easy again, were not easy. Like whether it was social aspects, or even just like honestly my job, that became difficult.

So just to kind of summarize everything, it sounds like the medication might've been helping your mental health initially, but it caused a huge disruption in your sleep from all the night sweats that it actually brought down the mental heath, started impacting your ability

From Night Sweats to a Business Idea 3:43

to perform at work. And, you know, being in the fashion industry, not being able to look the part, I'm sure, added an extra layer and complication to everything that was going on. Exactly. And I feel like there's a point in everyone's life where you realize how important sleep was or is. Like in high school, it doesn't matter. In college, It doesn' matter, you can just rally through anything and then it gets to a poin where your just like, I don't get my six to eight hours, however many hours you need.

It really just takes a toll on your day and life just becomes a lot more difficult. Yes, it does. So it sounds like around this time in your life, I was getting to that point where things were really starting to click that this wasn't going to be a temporary issue for you. You've been having trouble with sleep for a really long time at this point. But what made you start taking it seriously now that you're realizing that it's not a contemporary issue? And where did you go from there? So I knew that medication was just the answer for me.

My head was in a much better place than it ever had been, even though I was like suffering from no sleep or anything. It just, I didn't have these scary thoughts. So, knew I had to stay on medication, but then it was, like, so now you have to deal with all these side effects that come along with it. And to me, that just was. crazy that all of a sudden it's just something that you have to deal with. I just knew that there had to be a better answer out there. Like all these women get told like, okay, well, hey, you might be suicidal, but here's a medicine.

And then you're going to gain 20 pounds or you never going sleep through the night again. It's like that's it. So I really just like. my fashion career and like put my a fashion cap on and was like, what can I do to fix this for women? Because if it's, if I'm suffering from this, I can't be the only one. Right. So at what point did your personal experience turn into the idea for Arid Blank? So when I was at this fashion company that I'm working for, I introduced to all these different types of fabrics and everything, and I always just was like, there's got to be a way that technology and fabric comes together.

And there has got be better use for all of this. I kind of just went on like online and was like, are there cooling pajamas? How has technology been brought into fabrications? And I tried a bunch out there, it existed in the marketplace. However, either they didn't work or they weren't cute. And so I was, okay, well, maybe there's something here. I just felt that I pretty stagnant at my job. It was post-COVID, so it was a weird time. And I just was like, you know what, like I've always wanted to do something with the mental health capacity.

And, I felt like this was, okay, let's just try it. That's when I kind of left my corporate fashion job and started making art building become a reality. How did you go from recognizing this problem to actually deciding to build a company? You know, really what gave you that oomph to get over that hurdle and that aspect of your journey?

Building Arid Bling and Normalizing Women's Symptoms 6:58

So, since I kind of had this idea in my head about like, potentially going into like a cooling sleepwear, building a Cooling Sleepwear brand, I just like started talking to a lot of people, you know, like. A lot people don't talk about mental health or especially when this was happening, really no one spoke about it. No one was talking about night sweats. And I kind of just like telling I was just being vulnerable and telling people like what I Was going through and what i was thinking and since those conversations were happening all of a sudden people were like Telling me things even my closest friends that I never knew about them and I just knew that this was Just a bigger problem than just mental health.

It was a problem for women whether it's medication induced up to hormones, upto perimenopausal, menopause, chemotherapy, like just women are sweating at night from like 25 plus and I just wasn't gonna just say like that's the answer. It is what it is. And I learned that there shouldn't be shame around any of this and there's no need for silence. And there is nothing embarrassing about, you know, night sweats or having hormonal imbalances or suicidal thoughts. We're all women and we all have to come together and all really need to help each other and be in it together.

Normalize these things that happen to us and our bodies. that we're all going through, but no one's talking about. Yeah, and I think the important thing is that if we all actually talked about, like, I'm very open, so everybody knows my stuff, but if all talked it, more people would come forward and actually share that they have these symptoms. They just don't want to talk about it because nobody else is talking about. So they think they're just weird or it doesn't happen to anybody else or anything like that.

But literally we go through so much and. I don' think people understand how much women's bodies go. And so I am always very vocal about But like, you know, we have to put it out there so that people know that it's okay to talk about and it is okay. And I think finally we're getting into an era where mental health, the stigma around mental is not as bad. It's still there, but it isn't as good and people can actually talk it now, which is good because it needs to be talked about so you can find a solution and actually get help.

Correct. And everyone's always just like in their heads about it. If you can just find that one person, whether it's a spouse, a best friend, or a therapist, and you just say the first words, you're going to realize that almost everyone around you is honestly dealing with very similar things. It's taking that first step and saying it out loud for the very first time, which is truly terrifying. Yeah. I mean, I think that's part of the big reason why we started hormone heroines is to share stories like yours to normalize everyone's experience.

But I will say that I feel like medicine often does a disservice to women in particular because we often share these things with our doctors, but then doctors either don't have the answer or feel like the answers just live with it. Do you feel you had a similar experience and often felt dismissed when you were trying to address these through that route as well? So I wouldn't say I felt dismissed. I did feel heard by my doctors and all of them, but the answer was it is what it. Um, and so that's kind of when the light bulb went off and it just was like, well, we're like so close, like.

I feel great, but now like how, like do we not complete this like circle? Like now, so that's when my life- You feel right all around.

Product Features and Customer Impact 10:51

Right, that when I was like, I have to do something about this. And I felt like I young enough and hungry enough that the time was right. It was coming out of COVID and things were changing and thing were new and it just all came together. I'm just so thrilled and honored that I am able to speak to women and get women to talk about things that they've never spoken about. Yeah, you know, we, have to, speak a lot to women and we talk about our personal stories a lo, and a of our podcasts are actually just us talking about personal story to kind of let people know that it's safe to do.

I know building a brand rooted in, personal health experience can be really vulnerable. How have you navigated sharing your story publicly? Lucky for me, this brand came out of a necessity of something that I needed. And so the advantage of building a business from experience and just becomes the heart of the brand. There is identity with this brand, there is comfort with his brand and I just want it to be something that women feel comfortable in, something they feel confident in and something helps them.

Why don't you tell us a little bit more about your products that you have with your brand? So, Arab Lane, we're a cooling sleepwear line for women. We use cooling technology within our fabrics itself. So we use synthetic fibers and we manipulate those synthetic fiber even more so that we increase the surface area which increases all the properties of the fabrics. Moisture wicking properties are phenomenal and also our cooling properties. So really what happens is once your body gets warm and starts to produce sweat, when sweat hits the fabric, a cooling evaporation effect occurs.

And then the moisture working properties are just amazing. So I used to obviously have nights sweats and like I would call that a level 10. Like when I wake up like drenched, like need to get in the shower, my sheets are even wet, not just my clothes. And this now keeps me at like a four or five. Listen, there's some nights that I get warmer, but like then it's six. I do not wake up drenched anymore. I sleep through the night, which is mind blowing. We've been sleeping in this now over a year about.

Uh, we just launched in August, but obviously I was sleeping on this before that. And I have to sleep in other pajamas sometimes, because I'm just like, am I just not a hot sleeper anymore? Like, cause I don't like sweat the way I used to, But it really just has helped so many people. We did a pop-up in December in Brooklyn and I had a young woman come in and she was currently going through chemotherapy. So she interested in the product. And I was like, listen, like this is how it works. Like, I really think it would help you.

She bought a set. she came in, the next day crying. I literally slept through the night, didn't wake up drenched and bought another pair. To me, that's what this was all about. Again, making it easier for women to get a good night of sleep, to feel better, what we think are easy things like sleep that become so much more complicated as we get older. Bring it back to the ease of it all. Nice. That's wonderful. I mean, I love hearing stories like that. And I really love seeing women succeed in chasing dreams like this, but then also empowering other women.

So let's talk about a little bit about being a female founder. What has been some of the biggest challenges in building your brand, building the business itself, anything that you want to share that could also be helpful for empowering keep the ball rolling when we empower women. I think it just, you know, following your gut. I knew, I never thought I'd be in a sleepwear business, like ever, but when I got diagnosed with depression, knew that at some point in my life, it was going to help in the mental health space.

Female Founder Advice and Closing Message 15:18

Through that journey, and I ended up here and it's something that I truly believe in, something I needed. And I, think, just again, trusting your guts, supporting other women and just believing in yourself. There are so many days where I'm just like, what am I doing? This is too much to handle. But then I'll wake up, like this morning I woke up from a text from someone that, in the menopause world, and she's like oh my god Ariel, these pajamas are insane, I am getting them for my mom, i'm getting in every color.

And it's moments like that. Then I was like okay. We're doing this another day. It's worth it. And listen, like it's hard. it, it it hard being a woman. being in the business and some people don't take you seriously, but you know what? Like I've been through so much in my like 36 years. I like, this is not something that's going to hold me down. Like we were, we're going big. So. Tell us a little bit more about all your different products. So I think like the most unique feature that we have at Arablane is our lasso pant.

When I started getting my night sweats, my heat was coming from like my legs. And so I start to sleep in pants so that there was a natural divider, which helped, but then my pants would ride up in the middle of the night. And then my legs would start touching again and the furnace would happen. And so then I started sleeping with socks and tucking my pants into socks. I'm like, this is just becoming too much. Like there's gotta be a better way. So I came up with this patent pending feature. It's our lasso pant.

and in the back of the hem is this piece of elastic that comes out. You put your ankle through it and you tighten it. And now your wide-leg pants won't ride up in the middle of the night. Are you kidding me? That's ridiculous. That is so amazing. The simplest thing, but it's amazing! Yeah. I mean, that's why I don't like sleeping in pants is because they always ride out, But that is amazing Yeah, so like that's been like a huge win for us. Um, it changed my life sleeping with now pants. And then what's also unique about us is all of our tops, we have two layers of fabric on the front panel so that it's not so nippily.

So for me, like I spent a lot, I spend a love time with my family over the summer by the beach and they would go down and get a cup of coffee. and then my brother and my dad would be there and be like, Oh my God. It's respectful to be seen. So if you need to go take the kids to school quickly, if need go get a cup of coffee or whatever, like you can run out and like, it's not so like in your face. And then I guess I would just suggest I like people are interested in buying Ira Blaine. Like my favorite thing to sleep in would be the pant and the long sleeve.

The reason for that is because you really want the fabric to all over your body and allow the fabrics to do its job.

Sponsor Message and Show Outro 18:08

But to tell a hot woman that she needs to sleeping pants and long sleeves, I understand is like mind blowing and like it's a little counter intuitive, but you know, correct. So that's like too aggressive. I do suggest people sleep in the pant and the tank top or the short and long sleeve. And then you really do capture all the moisture from those areas. Well, that is super exciting. Just to wrap up, is there any major message you want to leave our listeners with? If you're struggling and you are uncomfortable, like you don't have to stay with that for the rest of your life.

It's not the way that life needs to be. There is help for you out there. Life is so much prettier on the other side. Just it's at one big step, but it really is worth it. And once you accepting up the journey that you gonna be on. I promise it's a good one. All right. Well, thank you so much for being on today. I think your story is a great inspiration to women, not only about persevering through their own health journey, but also if there is something that you want to see in the world, you can go out there and make it.

Thanks again for tuning in to Hormone Heroines. We'll see you next week. Bye. You know how us women are always just pushing through it and then when we go to find help we're often not taken seriously or told oh that's just part of being a woman. Yeah we've lived through, it prioritizing everybody else and our own health falls to the wayside. That's why we started blossoming longevity. by women or women. We created programs that meet women where they are, addressing the root causes and all of the struggles that come with every stage of life, like our vitality program.

It reconnects you with your youth and your life so that you can thrive through the years. And with Clarity, we go beyond the skin to restore your health, clear your complexion so you feel radiant from the inside out. With our Silhouette program, we help you reclaim your strength, optimize your metabolism, and your body composition so that you can feel great in your own body again. And with Harmony, We help rebalance your hormones to heal from within so you feel vibrant and ready to take on the world.

That is why it's time to stop saddling and start flourishing. Visit FlossamingLongevity.com today. Thanks for watching Hormone Heroines. If this episode spoke to you, follow the show and share it with someone who also needs to hear it. And write a review. That helps more people find their way back to balance. See you next week.