Launching At Walmart, Clean Age Is Carving Out A Space For Gen Z In Mass-Market Personal Care

Before it launched in 2020, Clean Age, a gen Z-focused personal care brand created to be better for consumers and the planet, drew up a retail-centered distribution plan to secure a large grocer, large big-box outlet and large drugstore. CEO and co-founder Rachel Peters explains, “If we could get those three things, we would have proliferation across the United States, and so any advertising we did or sending people into stores, it would be easy for our consumer to find our product.”

Now, Clean Age has all its retail distribution targets covered. In March 2022, it landed at Kroger-owned Fred Meyer and followed it up by breaking into drugstore Rite Aid. Next month, it’s rolling out to 1,865 doors at Walmart after winning the big-box giant’s Open Call Golden Ticket competition. The Walmart rollout will bring Clean Age’s store count to over 5,000, which includes independent grocers as well as Walmart, Rite Aid and chains under the Kroger umbrella carrying its deodorants.

“Why I love partnering with Walmart is we really believe that better products should be available to more people, and Walmart really affords us the ability to do that,” says Peters. “Our deodorant’s price point is $9.99—$9.98 at Walmart—a great price point for natural deodorant. There are a lot of natural deodorants out there at $12.99, $13.99, $14.99, so we feel like we’re bridging the gap for people between deodorants they’ve always used at around $6 or $7.99 to make the switch to natural without taking the financial risk.”

She adds, “We know that, in a slowing economy, Walmart’s personal care sales actually go up while there are other major retailers that happen to decline during that time. So, from a timing standpoint, it was really great for us, and I will tell you they’ve been a remarkable partner to work with start to finish.”

As it expands at retail, Clean Age is on track to generate between $1.2 million and $1.4 million in revenues this year. The brand is the first developed by Verify Venture Studio, an investment firm and incubator established by Peters with chief strategy officer Kirk Dahlgren, former operations director at Nike Valiant Labs, the incubation arm at Nike, COO Emily Crotty, a former owner at Anytime Fitness, and chief digital officer Keith May, former digital marketing director at Nike. Peters previously consulted for companies such as Nike and Procter & Gamble. Brady DeLong, former COO, national sales director and marketing director at Hen of the Woods, has joined her at Clean Age as VP of sales and operations.

The brand has three deodorants: Fresh, Waves and bestseller Citrus. Peters, a mother of four, says Clean Age kicked off with deodorants because, when parents consider purchasing deodorants for their kids, they’re open to a whole range of products. “At the moment you buy your kids deodorant, you are entering a whole new phase of parenting,” she elaborates. “There is an emotional switch going on in the household.”

“We really believe that better products should be available to more people, and Walmart really affords us the ability to do that.”

Leading up to the launch of Clean Age, the brand did a deep dive into the preferences of gen Z and gen alpha consumers. It learned they have a penchant for clean, vegan and cruelty-free formulas, and gender neutrality. Peters reports, “They said, ‘We don’t want lavender to be only for girls or cedar to be only for boys. They are found in nature, and they should be for everybody.’ So, all the products we ended up designing are gender neutral. We say, ‘They’re made for anybody, no matter how you identify.’”

Clean Age’s aluminum- and baking soda-free deodorants contain Epsom salt, arrowroot extract, candelilla wax, tapioca starch, and coconut and sunflower seed oils. They’re housed in recyclable twist-up, soft-touch cylinders consisting 90% of Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper. The non-paper part is a plastic inner lining.

“It’s not the ultimate solution,” says Peters. “It’s far less plastic than everything else out there, but not fully paper yet because we didn’t want to do the push-up because retailers were telling us, ‘Hey, all those push-up deodorants that end up on the shelves, we clean them up off the floor all the time because consumers are trying to smell them, and they push up from the bottom, and they just fall out of the tube.’”

Clean Age also did a deep dive into retailers’ preferences. Peters snapped pictures of retailers’ shelves to study their merchandise to assist Clean Age in fashioning packaging that stood out. For example, she says, “Our Citrus deodorant is the only yellow deodorant on the shelf.” Clean Age stands out, too, because it can participate in retailer’s promotions throughout the year, whether they’re tied to the New Year, Earth Day, Women’s History Month or Pride Month, to name a few yearly occasions.

On top of participation in retailers’ promotions, Clean Age is executing geo-targeted advertising and engaging 100 to 150 influencers to post content highlighting its availability in stores. Peters says, “I think why retailers like to work with us is because we aren’t advertising against them. We’re always sending people in the store and telling people that where we want you to be buying us is in the store.”

To get Clean Age off the ground, Verify Venture Studio injected $400,000 in pre-seed capital into the brand. The brand is in the middle of raising a seed funding round. Its goal is draw to $1.6 million, and it’s already reached $950,000. Peters has discovered it’s tough to nail down funding for a consumer packaged goods brand in the current environment.

“All the products we ended up designing are gender neutral. We say, ‘They’re made for anybody, no matter how you identify.’”

“There is a lot of skepticism around, can you build a successful CPG brand? So, we really have to talk to a lot of people,” she says. “I mean it’s probably eight-to-one conversations to investment because you have to talk to a lot of people to find those who believe in CPG and believe that this industry can be successful and make money.”

Clean Age is certainly not alone in trying to attract gen Z customers together with the emerging gen alpha cohort (or, crucially, their parents) at mass-market retailers. Miles, Stryke Club, Play Pits and Bubble are among its peers in the teen and tween segment. Peters suggests retailers should think about assembling a section of beauty and personal care products concentrating on merchandise for kids. Clean Age sits in Walmart’s natural personal care assortment. She says, “There’s a real need for this consumer to feel seen.”

On its website, Clean Age’s selection extends beyond deodorant to hand sanitizer, bamboo toothbrushes and mint toothpaste tabs. The tabs are destined for retailers in nine months to a year. Peters mentions they help stave off toothpaste messes teenagers produce. “If you want to see a parent lose their mind, just ask them about their kids’ toothpaste tube habits, and they will gladly go on and on,” she says. “So, we really were trying to solve that issue in the household and make brushing your teeth this kind of novel, interesting experience.”

Walmart has been updating its beauty and personal care assortment with brands the likes of Olive & June, PaintLab, Pursoma, The Hair Lab by Strands, Pardon My Fro, Curie, Current State, Madison Reed and Luna Magic along with Clean Age. From a distribution perspective, Clean Age’s launch at the megachain is a huge step for the brand, but it’s far from done with store expansion.

“We want to be in 90% of the places that families buy their daily goods,” says Peters. “So, for right now, that looks like obviously Walmart. Other retailers will come after that. Then, having a really strong presence on digital marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart.com and Target.com is super important to us.”