Ogee, Melanin Haircare And Kate McLeod’s Crawl-Walk-Run Approaches To Succeeding At Retail

As direct-to-consumer distribution has gotten trickier, beauty brands are crashing physical retailers’ doors, but brick-and-mortar distribution isn’t an automatic winner and failing at a big chain can spell the end of a brand.

Given the steep consequences of tanking at large stores, Melanin Haircare, Ogee and Kate McLeod have pursued careful distribution strategies. The three emerging brands are in major retailers the likes of Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Bluemercury. However, they purposefully didn’t begin there.

During an In Conversation webinar episode last month, Beauty Independent talked to the brand’s co-founders—Whitney White, Mark Rice and Kate McLeod—about their intentional paths to retail. Below, find out more about those paths. 

Kate McLeod

McLeod, a former banker and pastry chef, started producing solid moisturizers in the kitchen of her Williamsburg apartment in 2018. In 2020, Kate McLeod opened a workshop in New York’s Hudson Valley called the Butter Atelier in a reference to cocoa butter, the main ingredient in the body stones, which allowed the brand to ramp up its production keep up with the new demand. Having production in-house allowed the brand to avoid pandemic-related supply chain snarls.

In 2022, the year Kate McLeod landed on Sephora’s website, its sales were roughly $10 million. During the year, McLeod and Kate McLeod co-founder and COO Nichola Tucker Gray committed to building the brand’s team and infrastructure to achieve aggressive sales targets this year. 

When Kate McLeod entered Sephora, McLeod says it wasn’t ready for a store rollout. It wasn’t a supply issue. Rather, McLeod explains the brand needed to nail down its approach to storytelling for customers who couldn’t learn about the story straight from McLeod. 

Kate McLeod has sold out on QVC, where McLeod can deliver the story directly. “I am there to tell and to show it’s different and that resonates and people want to then try it.” she says. On virtual or physical shelves, she says, “We’re a plastic-free brand, the packaging, it’s very pared down, there’s not telling the story immediately in your face.”

McLeod visited Sephora locations to understand how the sales associates should communicate about her brand. “What that really made me ask is, where am I taking people? And it’s not just a marketing exercise for me,” she says. “What is my main thing that a salesperson can understand, that they can then tell to someone else that ignites a level of interest and curiosity and wow that is really different?”

Ogee

Rice, formerly publisher of V Magazine and co-owner of fashion and luxury goods brand John Galliano Paris, launched Ogee in 2017 with Abbott Stark, who has a background in organic formulations and working with private manufacturers. As clean beauty was gaining ground, the pair developed Ogee to be an organic prestige skincare and color cosmetics brand. 

Throughout its tenure, Ogee has depended on DTC distribution as its main sales driver. Recently, the brand expanded from DTC in a significant way into Bluemercury. Rice says Ogee’s ability to foster a community of customers and content creators has been critical to the brand. Influencer marketing in particular has been important. A year and a half ago, it brought influencer marketing in-house. It hired two influencer partners to manage social media. 

“We wanted to have our personal touch and control over the whole process,” says Rice. “It’s really been amazing how effective this has been.” He adds, “We’ve really built a lot of our products and whole product lines based on a lot of what our customers and our social media influencers and ambassadors are telling us.” 

For example, Ogee’s The Blender Brush and The Precision Brush were informed by influencers and customers using its products. They’d been constantly asking about which brushes to apply them with. As a result, Rice says, “We were like, ‘Well, we have to fast-track a brush,’ and then they were like, ‘Well, what foundation can I use with this?’ We were like, ‘Let’s get a stick out in complexion colors.'” Ogee has introduced nine complexion color sticks and will be adding another 11 this September.

Ogee has raised $14 million in three rounds, including a round pre-revenue. At the urging of its investors, about a year and a half ago, the brand mapped out a road to profitably with an omnichannel strategy. Previously, it had primarily concentrated on fueling revenue. Ogee is currently profitable. Riche says, “Investors are changing all the time, even within a year they might be saying really strong statements about what they’re looking for and then this year it’s like it’s totally different because they’re reacting to the market.”

Rice encourages founders to take as many investor meetings as possible because investors can offer key advice to fledgling brands. “They have their pulse on the market, and I found those people, whether they invest with us or not, to be a great resource for a lot of things and even helpful in putting me in touch with other people for things.”

Melanin Haircare

White was a natural hair vlogger prior to launching Melanin Haircare in 2018 to maintain her fans’ textured hair without having to spend a ton of money. Her 1.3 million YouTube followers are instrumental in steering the brand’s product pipeline.

“Being able to poll directly to my audience and see what they’re thinking or what they think about a certain idea or maybe what their struggles are…that has been so helpful to get that immediate response back and know where my efforts will be best used,” says White, suggesting brands that don’t have followings akin to hers tap Shopify analytics for insights into what consumers are searching for on their sites. 

In 2020, Melanin Haircare arrived at all Ulta doors. White lauds Ulta for being supportive of her young company by keeping purchase orders manageable for it. Melanin Haircare kicked off at Ulta with a limited selection of three stockkeeping units. 

“They have a lot of resources in line to support the new incoming brands,” says White. “They are very forgiving and flexible knowing that we’re new to this market and we might need to figure things out a little bit.”

Melanin Haircare raised capital in 2020 to fortify its operations and support its retail presence. Along with Ulta, the brand is sold at Selfridges, Cult Beauty and Sephora online.