The Beauty Accelerator™ – Profile of the 6 Finalists

Events and Initiatives

20/10/2020 by The Red Tree

The Red Tree and SFC Capital have announced that 6 brands will appear in The Beauty Accelerator™ 2020 Final. In this article we profile each of the finalists ahead of the Final on Wednesday 21st October and Thursday 22nd October.

Centred is a concise and considered collection of super-charged, plant-powered hair and scalp heroes. The brand combines wellness with haircare offering straight talking and supportive advice for stressed out hair, body and mind. After working in the fashion industry for 10 years and following a few particularly stressful months, Founder and CEO Laura Tudor began to experience the physical effects of stress on her body, resulting in dramatic hair loss. She started to research the causes and looked for natural products for hair loss, but struggled to find products that ticked all the boxes. Laura was looking for natural, vegan and cruelty free hair products. Married to award winning hair stylist Kieran Tudor, Creative Director, Josh Wood Colour, and ambassador for CENTRED, together they developed a product range that has enabled Laura to regrow her hair and both her hair and scalp are healthier, stronger, longer and thicker than ever before. Through CENTRED they are now on a mission to help others achieve the same. They have designed the CENTRED range to restore balance to your hair care routine with every detail carefully considered.

www.wearecentred.com

Cutbox will provide convenient, affordable, high quality haircuts through leveraging technology, superior in store processes and highly motivated employees. Osajie Oboh, CEO, Louis Angel-Scott, COO, and Jack Garvin, CTO decided to set up Cutbox after becoming frustrated by queueing for a haircut whenever they visited a barbers. Their backgrounds in logistics, corporate finance and technology respectively give the founding team well rounded and relevant experience. The app enables customers to queue for their haircut remotely via their smartphone or tablet and following a successful trial, they expanded this to other barbershops. They noticed that the industry is significantly behind others in terms of basics such as locating a good store or simple customer service. Having investigated both domestically and abroad, they saw a very clear opportunity to build the UK’s largest barbershop chain. Cutbox will provide affordable, high quality haircuts through leveraging technology, superior in store processes and highly motivated employees. Their technology makes shops more profitable, marketing to customers directly through the technology via push notifications straight to the phone. In addition, they have plans to rapidly scale stores via exciting retail partnerships.

Faace offers a solution to skin that’s been disrupted by life. Having found a white space in how people talk about their skin in real life, Faace provides a straightforward solution through a capsule collection of masks that are gaining traction in the UK and internationally. Founder Jasmine Wicks-Stephens has been working in the beauty industry for 14 years, and runs her own successful PR agency. She could time her cycle just by looking at her skin and waiting for the disruption to unfold – the classic ‘period faace’. Working in the beauty industry, she has been lucky enough to be able to hunt out products to help pacify the problem. After the birth of her son 2 years ago, any good skin habits she did have went out of the window and she knew something had to change. She needed a product that she could slap on and leave to do its work whilst being super low maintenance and affordable. The solution is Faace. Fuss-free, does-what-it-says-on-the-bottle beauty. Rather than focusing on the end result (glow/hydration/skin tone) she wanted an up-front solution that focused on exactly how her skin was looking, and one that would sort it out quickly. Jasmine worked with her husband, a designer to develop the brand identity and used her industry contacts to fine tune the products which have since been acclaimed by key opinion leaders to retailers alike.

www.wearefaace.com

Fussy makes living sustainably part of your morning routine. Unveiling deodorants first, the aim is to develop a range of refillable personal care products that are delivered straight to your doorstep. With over 15 years of building brands between them, creatives Eddie Fisher and Matt Kennedy have developed their own refillable deodorant brand called Fussy in a bid to help the environment, one armpit at a time, whilst encouraging the world to cut down on single use plastics. The last 18 months have been spent in partnership with a top London design agency and one of Europe’s leading cosmetic chemists to ensure Fussy is the most sustainable, convenient and effective refillable option available. Eddie is a Creative Director at award-winning agency Lucky Generals with 12 years’ experience in world-leading advertising agencies from W+K London to VCCP. Having won multiple industry awards, he has led global campaigns for a multitude of brands from Nike to Amazon to Coors Light. Matt is an ex-Creative from an advertising agency too. With a background in design and engineering he has created multi-million pound campaigns for various brands from M&S to Pantene to Birdseye, and recently sold a sake brand to restaurant chain Sticks ‘n’ Sushi. He also used to run a soap company. Fussy is not only good for you, it’s good for the planet and beautiful to look at and use. Partnering with Empower, every unit of Fussy sold will fund the collection of 1kg of ocean-bound plastic. Having just raised over £70,000 on their Kickstarter campaign they are well on their way.

www.getfussy.com

Glaize is a DTC nailcare brand using technology to transform gel manicures. Glaize uses computer vision to design made-to-measure gels personalised to your hand and delivered to your letterbox. The product is easy to apply, lasts 2 weeks and is easily removed. The high quality, toxin free product makes Glaize an easier, faster and safer way for women to shop nailcare. Created by Gina Farran, CEO and Co-Founder together with her business partner Chris Mosedale, COO and Co-Founder after meeting on the Antler Accelerator programme. The team noticed that the manicure process has hardly evolved since the invention of nail polish in the 1920’s. Together they are determined to reinvent the nail care industry with Glaize.

Gina has a background in a corporate finance and has experienced the pain of missing nail salon appointments due to work commitments, as well as the unpleasant and lengthy process of painting her own nails. Chris brings to the team a wealth of knowledge in technology and manufacturing.

The Glaize process is straightforward and involves taking four photos of your hands with your smartphone on a standard card. These images are used to create your made-to-measure gels which are easy to apply (just stick on), even easier to remove (simply peel off), chip-free & long-lasting. Glaize is also free from nasties – Pre-UV cured, toxin-free, cruelty-free, vegan, odourless and is kind to your nails.

https://glaize.co/

On Beaute is disrupting how consumers reach and buy beauty. It is the first of its kind to provide condensed and calibrated product recommendations via an affiliate model that provides cash back to consumers. Led by a founder and team with a combined beauty and tech experience of 39+ years. Founder Chanella Buck has over 8 years of e-commerce experience at the largest leading companies in beauty, including LVMH and Estée Lauder Companies. Chanella believed that consumers deserve better and set out to provide a more efficient and transparent way of buying beauty products. Together with her team including Nao Yoshino, CTO, and Laura Elliot, Creative Advisor, On Beaute is disrupting how consumers research and buy beauty and, in Chanella’s own words, it is what rottentomatoes.com does for the film industry meets Quidco of the cashback industry. On Beaute is aiming to be the first independent beauty platform that allows customers to shop with transparency and trust and without bias and advertorials. It will also be the first beauty platform offering cashback when you shop, whilst providing a luxury, premium environment, saving you both time and money. On Beaute will also collate and score industry expert reviews and provide a free comparison engine.

www.onbeaute.com

The Beauty Accelerator Final™ is a joint initiative between The Red Tree, the UK’s leading international beauty brand consultancy, and SFC Capital, a leader in the UK’s early stage investment world, that will see one Finalist receive £150,000 equity investment, plus the knowledge and expertise of The Red Tree applied over 12 months to take the brand it its next stage and beyond. The Beauty Accelerator™ Final will be held over two days on Wednesday 21st October and Thursday 22nd October, with The Beauty Accelerator™ 2020 Winner announced shortly after.

The Red Tree is the UK’s leading international beauty brand consultancy and a powerhouse of ideas, insight and inspiration. For an informal discussion on how we might help you, please contact us.