A core premise of 10-year-old Raw Sugar Living is "democratizing clean beauty," says CEO Michael Marquis, by "doing things at scale at an appropriate cost." Marquis spoke to Global Cosmetic Industry on the eve of the brand's expansion into pet care, Fur Kids, and following the recent launch of new sustainable packaging innovation for deodorant, as well as expanded hair care offerings. To make it all happen, the brand focuses on clean, sustainable and high-tech product innovation at a highly accessible pricepoint. Here's how the brand does it.
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A core premise of 10-year-old Raw Sugar Living is "democratizing clean beauty," says CEO Michael Marquis, by "doing things at scale at an appropriate cost." Marquis spoke to Global Cosmetic Industry on the eve of the brand's expansion into pet care, Fur Kids, and following the recent launch of new sustainable packaging innovation for deodorant, as well as expanded hair care offerings. To make it all happen, the brand focuses on clean, sustainable and high-tech product innovation at a highly accessible pricepoint. Here's how the brand does it.
Clean Beauty is for Everyone
The focus on pricepoint is critical. Historically, "clean beauty" has been the domain of prestige brands. Raw Sugar Living's approach, on the other hand, taps into growing interest in clean beauty among middle- and lower-income shoppers.
In fact, per Social Standards, terms like “pricing” are increasingly common in Instagram clean beauty conversations. On TikTok, terms like “discount” and “affordable” are popping up in clean beauty chatter.
For these reasons and more, it's no surprise that the brand recently landed on Circana's "New Product Pacesetters" list of fast-growing product launches.
Here's how the brand does it.
Inside Raw Sugar Living's Retail Strategy
Raw Sugar Living's launch strategy is well-aligned with these dynamics.
"The brand was founded in partnership with Target as an exclusive," explains Marquis. "As it grew, the consumer wanted it in more places."
And so Raw Sugar Living now retails across Amazon, Target, Walmart, CVS, Sally Beauty, its own direct-to-consumer channel and more. At the same time, the brand has expanded beyond the United States to Canada and Mexico.
With that greater scale has come more national advertising and much greater consumer awareness.
How the brand is merchandised is core to its success. As Marquis notes, Raw Sugar Living doesn’t want to be hidden away in clean or natural sections of stores. Rather, the brand insists on finding a home on conventional beauty and personal care aisles.
Raw Sugar Living Makes Play for Clean Mass Pet Care
Today, Raw Sugar Living spans body care, deodorant and hair care—and now pet care. Marquis notes that the brand saw an opportunity to break into "clean mass pet care." The result is its Fur Kids range, which is debuting strictly DTC for now before expanding to Amazon in September.
Marquis views the pet sector as an emerging niche, with humans still representing the biggest growth prospects for the company.
The Fur Kids range comprises:
- The Fur Kids Sensitive Skin Shampoo + Conditioner, featuring soothing oatmeal as well as calendula, chamomile, green tea, apple cider vinegar and an aloe scent.
- The Fur Kids Shiny Coat Shampoo + Conditioner, featuring baking soda, aloe, coconut oil, and a coconut-mango scent.
- The Fur Kids Freshen Up Pup Wipes for Dogs, a waterless solution comprising chamomile extract, aloe, niacinamide and tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E).
Maintaining & Scaling a Clean, Sustainable Ethos Across Categories
Across categories, Raw Sugar Living focuses on delivering cruelty-free products featuring ingredients derived via its Cold Press Technology packaged in components such as 30% PCR plastic bottles (which are scheduled to go 100% PCR by 2030) or a mix of biodegradable paper and recycled plastic, as with its latest deodorants.Raw Sugar Living
"Clean for all" is about ensuring products are available for everybody, says the brand's VP of marketing. Allison Carey. This means "more value for a better price."
Carey notes that this requires the brand to launch with purpose and attention. For instance, a decade ago, Raw Sugar Living identified white space in the body wash space; in 2018, it saw a need for clean hair care.
"Getting these products in mass, outside prestige" was key to the brand's mission in each case, Carey adds.
Across categories, Raw Sugar Living focuses on delivering cruelty-free products featuring ingredients derived via its Cold Press Technology packaged in components such as 30% PCR plastic bottles (which are scheduled to go 100% PCR by 2030) or a mix of biodegradable paper and recycled plastic, as with its latest deodorants.
According to Carey, the Cold Press Technology "gets a higher level of ingredients that shoppers don’t often see."
The brand also avoids animal testing and animal by-products, while delivering consumers education around clean concepts.
Marquis notes that the brand maintains an internal clean compliance standard that guides all of its development work. He adds that, as the brand has scaled, deploying sustainable packaging has become increasingly easy.
The company has also shifted its manufacturing and logistics to centralized locations in the United States to ensure efficient shipping across the region that cuts down on the brand's overall carbon footprint.
Meeting Consumers Where They Are
When Raw Sugar Living initially launched a sustainable deodorant, the brand deployed products in an all-paper tube. While the design was plastic-free, consumers were put off by the "Push Pop" style of package. The reality, per Marquis, was that shoppers were still accustomed to oval shapes in the deodorant category.
"You have to meet them where they are," says the CEO.
For example, he says, things like shampoo bars are not yet ready for mass, despite their obvious sustainability advantages.
Instead, Raw Sugar Living focuses on innovation that aligns with the current consumer mindset.
With its latest deodorants, the brand was able to deliver a 100% recyclable hard paper shell package and a familiar twist-up base format —of course with an oval shape.
While shopper expectations could one day change, allowing for plastic components to be phased out, for now step changes are key to Raw Sugar Living's scale up within a key category.
Notably, the brand is forecasting its updated deodorants, exclusive to CVS as of press time, to sell more than 500,000 units by the end of 2024.
High-tech Innovation at a Mass Price
Beyond the packaging, the brand focused on optimizing its deodorant formulas. Carey notes that the brand avoided baking soda and aluminum in favor of an odor technology that leverages zinc in place of aluminum and arrowroot powder as an alternative to baking soda.
A careful approach to ingredients is standard across the entire Raw Sugar Living brand, says Carey. By tapping skin-friendly ingredients, the brand has been able to launch products with strong efficacy, including hair care such as the Not So Dry Shampoo, featuring vegan biotin, tapioca and rice starches, and bamboo extract to absorb excess oil and rebalance the scalp.
The recipe, per Carey, is "high tech innovation at a mass price," no matter the category.
'Clean' is Still Relevant; So is a 'Wow' Price
While many media outlets have been declaring "clean beauty" passe, Marquis argues that clean is "a word that shoppers are using." He adds, "It’s still relevant to consumers. It’s here to stay."
Marquis adds, "You have to live in your values ... great products and wowing them with pricing."
The executive explains that Raw Sugar Living's expansion beyond Target was driven by a consumer shift toward millennial moms who "are looking for non legacy brand solutions."
That sentiment has made the brand successful in venues such as CVS and Walmart.
At the same time, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are perhaps more focused on self-care, which gives Raw Sugar Living more opportunities to deliver its core principles to more product sectors.
But whatever the brand does next, the brand won’t drive into anything that will take them outside the clean space.
As Marquis puts it, they will "stay true" to clean beauty.
