Balance Me was started by British sisters Clare and Rebecca Hopkins eight years ago, growing out of their lifestyle and events business. One of their clients at the time, British fashion retailer Topshop, asked them to custom create products for the relaunch of its Oxford Street flagship store in London.
Within a year, the brand was sold on the UK high street and welcomed Sian Jones, who brought her experience in retail and aromatherapy to the team. She shares her story with Cosmetics International.
How did the Balance Me brand concept develop after you joined?We knew that we wanted to create an innovative natural brand that had a strong personal touch. We also decided to take a modern approach to natural beauty by creating products that delivered results. We wanted ‘natural’ to be an added bonus for our customers and for them to feel like they were buying a high performance product first and foremost. To have a place in the beauty industry, we felt that naturals had to become more mainstream and accessible.
Do you think naturals have achieved this yet?I think there’s still a long way to go although we’re definitely on that journey. We take our hats off to big brands that have paved the way in bringing the natural world to the middle market. We believe in making naturals mainstream, but at the same time we’re also determined to offer something really different and results driven.
How did your distribution grow after Topshop?Within that year we went nationwide with John Lewis so it grew quite rapidly. We chose John Lewis as we wanted to make our brand as accessible as possible. Through this partnership, we entered Waitrose [grocery stores] about three years later. From September, we also entered Debenhams, which we are incredibly excited about as beauty is one of their key strategies for growth. In terms of global markets, our first international market came soon after we first launched, which was Denmark. We’re also now in Germany, Austria, Singapore and Hong Kong, and are looking at Eastern Europe.
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