Indie brand founders are difficult the established order.

“I take advantage of the tag line, ‘I like my products, how I like my people, nontoxic,’ which is a nod to surrounding yourself with talented conscious leaders and businesses,” said Dorian Morris, chief executive officer and founding father of Undefined Beauty. “Because that’s where you’ll be able to make a change.”

Joining Morris at WWD’s L.A.B. Forum in Los Angeles were Fiona Co Chan, CEO and founding father of Youthforia, and Lesley Thornton, holistic aesthetician and founding father of Klur. They sat down with Monica Arnaudo, chief merchandising officer of Ulta Beauty, who dug into how each founder is redefining the sweetness industry. 

“I’m not going to redefine beauty alone,” Thornton said. “After I can encourage and educate my customer to feel confident, they’re going to define beauty on their terms. That’s not going to come back from the brands, that’s going to come back from the patron.”

Morris brought up inclusivity and never just by way of skin tone, but pondering more broadly. “It’s about economic inclusivity by way of ensuring that products are inexpensive because there’s numerous individuals who need to do higher for his or her skin, but they will’t afford it,” she said. “There’s also age inclusivity. There’s this mindset around graceful aging and propelling and empowering people through that lens.”

While the positioning of every brand is different, similarities abound. Each has recently gone into retail. Youthforia is now in Ulta, Undefined Beauty can be at Ulta along with CVS and Goal, amongst others, while Klur is at Credo. “Driving our business to Ulta means changing our organizational structure; it means leveraging a full omnichannel marketing strategy,” Co Chan said. “And for me, it means creating numerous content specific to Ulta. We’re a part of their Sparked program, which is for emerging brands they usually’ve been great partners as we transition from a completely digital [direct-to-consumer] brand and going into full-on retail.”

To that end, Klur opted not to leap into all 200 Credo doors instantly. “I’m attempting to grow on the pace of my consumer,” Thornton said. “So if the shoppers are sending DMs or emails and I hear that we want a day cream, then you definately’ll get a day cream. Credo has allowed us to roll out in a way that the brand is recognizable. It’s getting the support that it needs. But additionally, because I’m so heavily influenced by my background as an aesthetician, I can physically get into the stores, I can fly across the country, meet the sales associate, shake hands, and do the education and events. I personally couldn’t do an Ulta immediately. We’re not at that place. But essentially, the way in which that we’ve been capable of succeed at Credo is because we picked a retailer that aligned with our values and already had our customer.”

“I’m self-funded,” Morris added. “I’m a team of 1, so I don’t have any employees. And I haven’t spent any money on marketing. So all of my growth has been organic. I take a look at my retail partners as an extension of marketing support. This is definitely my 12 months of no. I’m being slightly bit more strategic by way of retail. I operate by closed mouths don’t get fed. I’m all the time going to ask the query and can press for higher terms and higher exposure,” she said. “We don’t have deep pockets just like the L’Oréals of the world. And so we have now to be very scrappy. It’s about retailers recognizing that we have now strings that we’re going to flex which might be going to be slightly bit different than the larger brands and giving us the runway and support to permit us to bring our brand to life.”

Meanwhile, all three firms have a really different approach to product development, but as indie brands, they each take an issue solution approach from each their communities and private experience.

“For each product category that we’re going to enter, I take into consideration whether or not we are able to introduce a recent form factor,” Co Chan said. “We did that by making a blush oil and made that color changing.” She also gave the instance of Youthforia’s Each day Protective Primer, which was Co Chan’s answer to her sensitive skin. Her whole proposition is creating makeup you’ll be able to sleep in, so she infused ingredients that stops the skin’s inflammatory response. “No one asked for this, but I needed it,” she added. “We see customers that use this product as a skin tint alternative. It has an ingredient that relieves redness and it’s very easy to make use of.”

Morris, alternatively, created her number-one sku by accident. Her lab sent her the flawed formula, but she leaned into it and evolved it. “I’m so glad that I leaned right into a mistake, which is now my hero product,” she said. “If it hadn’t been sent by mistake, my business could be in a really different place. And that was driven quite a bit by the amazing exposure and organic influencers within the sunscreen space. So there’s slightly little bit of listening to my consumer, but in addition leaning in when I feel there might be a great whitespace opportunity.” Morris can be expanding categories. This summer, she’ll offer each scalp and hair care.

While Thornton not sees clients, she still uses her aesthetician prowess to tell recent products. “Should you’ve ever been to a spa, they’re going to present you a client form,” she said. “I still have all those client forms and I’m going through them and take a look at what it was that folks needed. And also you’d be really surprised to seek out out that what people needed 10 years ago, people still need today. It doesn’t necessarily change; formulas can just be more sophisticated. However the needs of the patron, particularly, has not modified.”