Creating your own beauty brand is super exciting! From body butters and perfumes to lip glosses and face masks, there are so many things you get to test, perfect, and ultimately give to the people.
It’s truly an interesting experience, through and through.
And not only does it give you the freedom to be as creative and experimental as your heart desires, but it also doesn’t take a lot of money or time to get the business off the ground!
But like all business ventures, there are some serious practical things to contemplate and consider before you even think about getting into the industry!
Interested in starting a beauty brand of your own? Here are 3 things you need to know first!
Private Label vs White Label vs Handcrafted: Do you know the difference?
When you run a business that relies on you supplying products, how and where those products are made is incredibly important.
And as a small business, you may be inclined to think that everything is expensive to produce or that you’ll have to make it all on your own.
This is both correct, but also incorrect at the same time.
There are actually 3 different ways to have your beauty goods made and distributed: white label, private label, and handcrafted. Here’s what you need to know about each option:
White Label: Let’s say you want to start a beauty brand, but you don’t know the first thing about making cosmetics.
So instead of winging it, you hire a manufacturer who specializes in developing the items you wish to sell, and all you have to do is develop a design for the label and packaging they place your goods in. This is an example of a white label process.
Private Label: Let’s say you’re coming out with a line of body butters.
You take your own body butter recipes and packaging designs and hand them over to a manufacturer to mass-produce your products following your exact guidelines, and then ship them over to you when they’re all good and ready to go. This is an example of a private label process.
Handcrafted: As the name states, handcrafted goods are just products that are fully made by hand or just simply from your own resources.
You come up with recipes and formulations, create and source packaging materials, and even sell everything yourself. This is actually a common, cost-effective route for many startup beauty brands.
Which option is right for you depends solely on your wants, needs, and goals, so make sure you do the necessary research to see what is the best choice for you.
Are any of your ingredients more harmful than helpful?
I cannot stretch this enough: when starting a beauty brand, research is your best friend! Because cosmetics go on your skin, they have the ability to be incredibly harmful if you end up putting the wrong mix of ingredients on your face and body.
Of course you should do your due diligence and go through a full testing phase. But equally important, make sure you do research on the ingredients you plan to use in your products because they may cause a lot more harm than you even know.
For example, let’s say you had the idea to create a glittery bath bomb for your beauty brand and found this shimmery ingredient called mica.
You have 100s of bath bombs made before you find out that mica is not only harmful for the environment, but is possibly the reason for some real health issues like shortness of breath, weakness, and lung scarring.
Just by using this one ingredient, you’ve put everyone’s health at risk, wasted a ton of money, and may have put yourself in the position for some serious legal troubles later down the line.
Is it worth it? Not in the slightest. So make sure you do that research!
Find a beauty niche and stick to it.
Now this piece of advice sounds like a no-brainer, but a lot of people have no real clue how important it is to create a consistent brand identity.
Your customers have to be able to successfully identify you and what you’re offering in order to figure out your value to them.
If one day you’re selling beard serums catering to a black male audience and then you all of a sudden pivot to pink lip glosses for teens, people are not going to make of your beauty brand.
Additionally, you likely won’t be able to keep simple things like colors, logos, and the look of packaging consistent across the board if you want to appeal to everyone.
So what do you do? Come up with your niche and stick to it. First, figure out what your audience and what they like.
Then, take your research and come up with your own branding (this includes color palettes, logos, and pictures for the website!).
Finally, don’t forget to add your own creative elements and make it your own.
You don’t have to do this alone, and in fact, it would probably be a good idea to enlist some help.
No matter what path you decide to take, make sure you do what?
Your research.
