Magazine Headline: S-Beauty Rises

Call it the hygge effect. Scandinavian beauty is having a moment, and recent brands are percolating. Industry executives say their lure is manifold, from their eco-friendly positioning to minimalist aesthetic. Here, a take a look at some notable entrants.

Tiny Associates

David Hjalmarsson believes biotech and skin microbiome are game-changers for the sweetness industry. So for the Stockholm-based skincare brand Tiny Associates, he zooms in on those.

“We try to make use of as few nature-derived ingredients as possible and campaign for synthetic ingredients, which biotech ingredients could be described as being,” the founder explains.

“The storytelling around it’s interesting and the sustainability impact of biotech might be significant,” continues Hjalmarsson — who says he’d like Tiny Associates to change into the proof of concept.

The brand — with five skincare products and three oral skincare supplements — was born in South Korea, but its lab has at all times been in Sweden, where the chief is now based.

Tiny Associates soft-launched 10 months ago on tinyassociatesskincare.com. To this point, the bestsellers are The Face Serum (a 30-ml. bottle is 750 Swedish kronor, or $71.75) and The Face Cleanser (at 390 kronor per 150-ml. bottle).

“We need to global distribution in additional area of interest premium doors,” says Hjalmarsson, adding hand and body care are also in view.

He teased some collaborations are upcoming with other like-minded firms.

LastObject

LastObject was established in Copenhagen out of a frustration with single-use products.

“We desired to do something that had a giant [environmental] purpose,” says Isabel Aagaard, who cofounded LastObject with two other product designers and serves as its chief creative officer. “We desired to create something that replaced 1000’s of something else.”

The trio crowdfunded in 2018, launched a cotton swab then branched out into other products, equivalent to tissues, rounds and the LastSwab Beauty Trio Pro, a makeup kit containing three tools, priced at 24 euros.

Next up: eco-friendly laundry detergent that’s sheet-based and compact.

LastObject sells in beauty, lifestyle and natural-organic stores; pharmacies, and bigger chains, equivalent to Sprouts and Anthropologie. The U.S., France, U.K. and Australia are its largest markets.

BIOpH

BIOpH is a Swedish medtech brand for healthy skin, which launched in 2021 as a part of Biocool AB, an organization with chlorine-free water solutions.

BIOpH counts 12 different products, with formulas which are MDR [medical device regulation]-compliant and center on a patented Swedish innovation.

“The treatment is predicated on a granule activated in water, creating an oxygen explosion,” explains Malin Combes, who heads up international sales at Biocool. “BIOpH believes within the skin as a highly competent organ. Due to this fact, we deal with removing what shouldn’t be on the skin, reasonably than adding recent substances.

“BIOpH creates an optimal environment for the skin to heal and repair itself,” she says. “Our medtech products create a milieu on the skin disliked by unwanted bacteria, viruses and fungus. As a substitute, we create the optimal condition for the skin to be healthy.”

Product prices range from 10 euros to 70 euros.

Within the Nordic region, dermatologists, skin therapists and podiatrists use and sell the products. So do the brand’s website, biophplus.com, in addition to clinics, spas, pharmacies and other online beauty platforms.

Unifrom

In creating his brand, Haisam Mohammed thought concerning the fragrances his father used to bring him from Africa and the Middle East as a boy in Stockholm. There was also the odor of the high-rise buildings Mohammed lived in as an art director, where the stairwells captured the scents of food cooked with spices by families from the world over, or burning incense.

“It’s something that I felt as home, as something beautiful,” he says, explaining he wondered whether as a passion project he could take such a scent and make perfume out of it.

Such experimental pondering birthed the roll-on perfume oil Maghrib, with notes of apple, tobacco and sandalwood, for which Mohammed took pre-orders in Stockholm clubs he frequented.

Unifrom, which officially launched in January 2020, has grown to 5 perfume oils (each 10-ml. bottle goes for 65 euros), a house fragrance collection and a solid perfume — all with non-alcohol-based formulas.

“I never desired to be a classical perfume house,” says Mohammed.

Except for direct-to-consumer selling, Unifrom just launched wholesale, with retailers equivalent to Browns Fashion.

Colekt

“Colekt is the Scandi take and clean beauty approach in fragrance and skin look after a recent and long-lasting conscious lifestyle with an elevated design expression,” says Ellen af Petersons, who cofounded Colekt with Susanne Vennerstrand in Stockholm in 2020.

Af Petersons says that the brand “has an open eye for impressions and expressions from the world over,” and gleans inspiration from art, fashion, design and architecture.

Colekt’s Scandinavian heritage is obvious in ingredients, equivalent to red algae and mallow leaves, and inspirations. La Chambre scent, as an illustration, nods to August Strindberg’s book “Röda Rummet.”

The brand’s three fragrances are created with a Grasse, France-based perfume house, while its seven skincare and three body care products are developed with “eco-beauty” chemists. Three candles round out the gathering, which can add a recent perfume line, body soap and sweetness balm, amongst other products, this 12 months.

Colekt products (a 50-ml. cologne sells for 230 euros) can be found in high-end beauty and fashion stores and luxury malls, equivalent to Galeries Lafayette, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

(M)anasi 7

Susanne Manasi, a makeup artist by training, launched her brand in 2018 with 10 product types and 23 stock keeping units she considered to be essential, like an allover color, a face powder and mascara. Today, she has about 45 skus, including two allover glosses and an eyebrow color.

The product formulas are a mixture of color pigments and naturally derived oils, waxes and butters.

“Quality has at all times been our number-one most important thing when it comes to effect and endurance,” says Manasi.

(M)ansai 7 plans to launch two skin and body care products under the Microbioskin label, focused on the microbiome exclusively on its website, manasi7.com, March 6. Five more products will probably be introduced in the road all year long.

The (M)ansai 7 brand’s products (a 5-g. allover color cream is 39 euros) are supposed to be mixed and matched. They’re present in 20 countries, with the U.S. being its biggest market.