Multitasking Skincare Specialist Ducalm MD Launches At Rite Aid With Exclusive New Products

As a bootstrapped brand, Ducalm MD has taken a measured approach to growing its retail footprint, waiting for the right partner at the right time.

After a successful partnership with FabFitFun and Amazon debut, the 3-year-old skincare brand has found the right partner in Rite Aid, where it’s hitting brick-and-mortar distribution with a 1,485-door rollout. The pharmacy chain will sell four exclusive products priced from $12.99 to $29.99: Calm and Balmy Hemp Face Serum, Coco Milky Facial Cleanser, C-Dose Brightening Spa Doses and Afresh Effect Spa Peel Pads, the most expensive item in the collection. 

Though the items in the Rite Aid launch aren’t available for sale anywhere else, they’re being used in facials at the spa inside New York City’s luxury residential complex One Manhattan Square. The relationship allowed the brand to see its products in action. “We care deeply about ingredients and product performance,” says Ducalm MD co-founder Danielle Pitts. “We focus on product feel and skin texture after application. This in-use testing ensures that Ducalm products do what they say, are easy to apply and deliver results in both the short and longer term.”

To educate Rite Aid customers, Ducalm MD has integrated QR codes into its packaging that lead to information about regimens and product tips along with links to the brand’s eight products that aren’t yet at stores. Pitts and founding advisory physician Michael Stone created all of Ducalm MD’s products with a team of in-house formulation chemists and cosmetics industry veterans. 

Since its launch in 2018, the brand has forged strategic partnerships with gyms and fitness studios. When the pandemic forced gyms and fitness studios to close, it went into new product mode. “We had lost the ability to go in and talk with our audience in that way, so it really gave us the perfect timing to expand the line,” says Pitts. “Mike would always say, ‘What we’re doing is going back to basics.’ If I could make very simple products, and we can take the best of your natural products and some of the clinical ingredients I’m using and put them together in one piece, what would that look like?’”

As Ducalm MD was perfecting products, Pitts realized the brand could harness production capacity to pursue retail. The brand decided to go live on Amazon prior to linking with FabFitFun. Pitts says, “Again, it was the right fit at the right time. We did three full deliveries. The first two were of our Walk Out Clean wipes, mid-pandemic, then add-ons. When I shipped the product out, it was the biggest shipment I’d ever shipped as a small company. We were scared.” The two shipments of wipes, 10,000 pieces each, sold out twice. 

Even though Ducalm MD scored with FabFitFun, Pitts knew her brand was small for a major chain like Rite Aid, but its buyers loved the brand. Originally, she says a test at a small number of Rite Aid’s 2,400-plus doors was planned, but both the retailer and Ducalm MD ended up opting for a more ambitious start. “They were looking for better-for-you products,” says Pitts. “We fit that space.” The co-founder adds that making Ducalm MD products widely available to shoppers was an exciting prospect. “This is going to put the product in the setting we wanted to,” she says. “You can buy it anywhere and have it be easily merchandised, easily visible.” 

From initial conversation to shelf, the process took almost a year. Pitts suggests a brand the size of Ducalm MD needs that time to ready its infrastructure to meet the demands of a retailer as large as Rite Aid. A key piece of that readiness for Ducalm MD was selecting a manufacturing partner. “Alignment is very important to us as a company in terms of their ingredient standpoint,” says Pitts. “When you do make your step to larger retailers, that’s when you realize the depths of those partnerships and how you want to be able to rely on them, and it’s a strong partnership. If you go into a store, you guys are going to be together for a long time. So, choose wisely.”

This year has been a breakout one for Ducalm MD. Lifted by the Rite Aid launch, the brand is projected to grow 800% over last year. Pitts says Ducalm MD is also close to onboarding at another large retailer. The brand is fully owned by the co-founders, who have invested nearly $1 million in its development and assets.