From ritual to olive and June when a brand turning point creates a ripple effect throughout the industry

When Ritual launched its first women’s multivitamin in 2016, the pearl-filled capsules were quickly dubbed “the world’s most Instagrammable vitamin.”

“It was driving me crazy because it was like, we’re the most traceable, science-backed vitamin,” Ritual founder and CEO Katerina Schneider recalled at the WWD Los Angeles Beauty Forum in conversation with Olive & June founder . CEO Sarah Gibson Tuttle moderated by Senior Reporter Ryma Chikhoune.

Schneider and Gibson Tuttle met in 2019 when they co-recorded an episode for “Scandal” actress Katie Lowes’ podcast about mom entrepreneurs, becoming fast friends and exchanging experiences and advice on fundraising, scaling and more .

“We formed a small group of women; we looked at our peers, who are mostly men, and they go on golf trips and they help each other and they inspire each other, and we had these amazing women that we were connected to and we thought, how we lift each other up to the others? And it shouldn’t be a “yes”, that [fellowship] it’s very essential,” Schneider said.

“We’re incredibly transparent. We share numbers, we share granular details — it’s powerful to understand how other people are building their businesses,” added Gibson Tuttle.

The pair also found common ground in their quests to raise the stakes for what can be accomplished in (and beyond) their respective lanes. For Schneider, this has meant committing to ingredient traceability: “100 percent of our ingredients are traceable,” he said. “A consumer can see everything down to the supplier and source of manufacture; it takes time and effort [to share] and it’s what needs to be done”, as well as sustainability, setting a goal to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2030.

“We are one of the first companies in the supplement category to publicly list our carbon footprint by product on our site, a la Allbirds and Oatly,” continued Schneider, who has raised more than $65 million in funding to date .

Meanwhile, Gibson Tuttle, who started Olive & June in 2011 as a salon business in Beverly Hills, took the brand further in 2019 when she launched The Mani System with the goal of enhancing the grooming experience and nail paint at home

“We saw a big hole in the market and in 2019 our revenue doubled our projections for the year; it was clear that we had a product market that was adapting very quickly,” said the founder, who soon after bringing the brand to Target, and last year launched Olive & June at Walmart and Walgreens.

A consistent focus on identifying and addressing other pain points in the consumer journey, such as with the launch of Poppy, Olive & June’s proprietary polish bottle handle that facilitates precise nail painting at home, remains a key differentiator .

“We meet the moment every chance we get,” said Gibson Tuttle, whose decisions are based on sales data, the brand’s and the broader nail market. plus surveys and feedback through Olive & June’s direct-to-consumer service. channel “In addition to innovating on what’s already there…we keep thinking about what’s not available: what’s completely new to the category?”

The approach has allowed the brand to cast a wide net for its target demographic. While Olive & June sees a heavy concentration of Gen Z and millennial shoppers, it considers itself for consumers “ages 8 to 80” and is “seeing Gen Alpha come up in an incredible way,” he said Gibson Tuttle.

“We talk to everyone as if they were our best friend; we do not adapt it to any generation, we only do it to the consumer; they’re smart with nails, they understand nails, and we talk to them the way you’d talk to your best friend.”

Ritual’s subscriber base similarly acts as a “think tank” for the brand, informing the development of Ritual’s Synbiotic+ gut health supplement, which Schneider reports did more than $30 million in sales during the his first year

“We asked them what they wanted to see next, and 95 percent of our customers said they wanted a product around gut health,” Schneider said, adding that the brand’s growth has also evolved its primary consumer, formerly the “millennial mother” and now the “healthy skeptic; it’s not necessarily about their age or gender, but rather a psychographic about people who care deeply about what they’re putting in their bodies.”

Aiming to bring more transparency and rigor to the supplement industry as a whole, Schneider is working with Congress “to give the FDA more, not less, oversight of the industry,” which could help regulate the incorporation of heavy metals, which are toxic. in large quantities, in complementary offers.

It also seeks to combat the smoke and mirrors surrounding clinical trials, which still lack a clear definition and standards in the supplement space. “You have products that say they’re clinically studied, but they actually are [active] ingredients, and these do not always match the dose or form used in the clinical study.”

The change Schneider seeks to champion is one that consumers, whose adoption of supplements has grown substantially in recent years, increasingly express a need for.

“Consumers have had to become their own advocates when it comes to things like safety and efficacy. They’re asking, ‘Does this product work? Is it safe to take this?’ and that’s just not right, that’s where fits Ritual and how we are meeting this need in different categories of the industry.”