Green juice has been a sidewalk staple of celebrities like Jessica Alba, Michelle Williams, Emma Stone and Reese Witherspoon. Now, it can be their bathroom sink staple, too.
From Shayan Sadrolashrafi and Andrew Glass, co-founders of hair removal startup Wakse, Joos Cosmetics is a new brand focused on superfood-packed skincare formulas housed in beverage-style containers. Launching officially on Tuesday, it’s starting with $48 Clarifying Essence, an alcohol-free product with turmeric to soothe inflammation, combat acne and clear pores, and $68 Superfood Cleanser, a face wash that, according to Sadrolashrafi, “looks literally like green juice” and is brimming with around 30 fruits and vegetables, including kale, cucumber, coconut, grapefruit and blueberry.
Sadrolashrafi hatched the idea for Joos on Christmas evening 2018. “I was washing my face with Andrew’s Everything Cleanser and, all of a sudden, I don’t know what happened, but I saw these juice bottles in my mind and thought, ‘Why don’t we have juice bottles with 100% natural ingredients?’ There’s nothing like that on the market,” he says, referring to the cleanser from another of Glass’s brands, Non Gender Specific. “If you can drink juice, why not put something like that on your face that’s healthy? I called Andrew, and I was just so excited.”
Joos is officially launching on Tuesday with $68 Superfood Cleanser and $48 Clarifying Essence. Future products include $58 Dragonfruit Face Scrub, $80 Indium Earth Serum and $58 OJ Oil Cleanser.
Translating Sadrolashrafi’s juice-centered idea into a beauty brand wasn’t an easy task. Joos’s packaging is fully custom. The cap on its bottles is aluminum to make them completely recyclable, and it features a plug to help preserve the product inside the bottles. Joos depends on cold-processing methods to extract its ingredients to ensure they’re nutrient-rich.
“The formulations were really tough because there are a lot of really unique ingredients, and we couldn’t get some of the raw materials. It took years to develop the formulas,” says Glass, emphasizing, “Everything that’s in the line is in there at the active level. It’s not in there at the marketing level, which is like .01%.” Joos has Skintrition labels on the back of its products that spell out their ingredients and usages. The brand had trademarked the term “Skintrition.”
“If you can drink juice, why not put something like that on your face that’s healthy?”
Pandemic-related delays in manufacturing have also been tough for Joos. Glass and Sadrolashrafi planned to have greater than two products available at the brand’s launch, but delays have pushed back the release of additional products. In two months, Joos is slated to introduce the $58 OJ Oil Cleanser and $80 Indium Earth Serum. In three months, it’s scheduled to roll out the $22 Dope Shot and $22 Detox Shot. Joos’s Shots are potent blends in 2-oz sizes. Its Whole Joos products are in 8-oz. sizes. Glass predicts Superfood Cleanser and OJ Oil Cleanser will be Joos’s bestsellers, but they’ll appeal to divergent consumers. OJ Oil Cleanser could attract skintellectuals drawn to oil cleansers, and Superfood Cleanser is great for skincare novices.
By the spring of next year, Joos expects to have the products Superfruit Enzyme Peel Shot, Dragonfruit Face Scrub and Taro Tea Milk Moisturizer priced from $22 to $58 in its assortment. A deodorant, mask and body care item are due out later in 2022. Sadrolashrafi says the deodorant “has a very unique handle so that you can apply it, and it’s not messy. After you apply it, it’s completely matte, and it smells amazing.”
Joos Cosmetics and Wakse co-founders Andrew Glass and Shayan Sadrolashrafi
Joos isn’t the first brand to do superfood skincare. Over a decade ago, Perricone MD experimented with a short-lived Super by Dr. Perricone line that sold products with superfood molecules in them. Since then, brands such as Youth To The People, Elemis, Teami and ESW Beauty have ventured into the superfood skincare territory.
Glass reasons superfoods are compelling in the skincare space because people associate them with health and anticipates Joos’s core customers will be women highly interested in healthy lifestyles. He says, “A lot of brands, not all of them, are using it just as a marketing tactic, and customers really need to look at the ingredient listing to make sure what’s in there is what they are claiming. For us, it’s really about creating healthy skincare products, even down to how the ingredients are made by the raw material supplier.”
“Now more than ever, clean beauty brands have to be more transparent.”
Joos fits squarely within clean beauty, a category Glass and Sadrolashrafi believe remains relevant despite a backlash against it. “There is some BS in clean beauty, to be completely honest,” says Glass. “It really comes down to whether the brand takes it to heart and is it through and through. For us, it’s about finding really reputable suppliers. We know not only the lab making the formulations, but where each raw material is coming from and where it’s sourced. That is the essence of clean beauty versus having it on a surface level.” He stresses, “Now more than ever, clean beauty brands have to be more transparent.”
Glass and Sadrolashrafi are proponents of kicking off products in subscription boxes to get them into many hands without garnering returns. Joos is heading to FabFitFun. Glass and Sadrolashrafi are proponents of brick-and-mortar retail as well. Wakse is a fast-growing brand at Ulta Beauty, and the chain is on Glass’s and Sadrolashrafi’s retailer wish list for Joos. Discussing retail, Glass says, “For me, it’s an obvious transition for a new brand because you are becoming a partner with a huge company that already has a massive consumer base. You are not starting from zero, and that’s super important for brand awareness.”
For its first year on the market, Joos Cosmetics is projected to close in on $1 million in sales. The goal is for the brand to eventually open in-store shops inside existing retailers and its own stores. They’ll be Joos bars based on a refill concept.
In its initial year on the market, Glass and Sadrolashrafi estimate Joos could close in on $1 million in sales. Sadrolashrafi thinks Joos will ultimately be bigger than Wakse. Last year, Wakse was on track to generate $11 million in sales. TikTok, Instagram and select clean beauty influencers will be key to cultivating brand recognition for Joos. On its TikTok account, Wakse has received 2.4 million likes. “It translates to sales 100% over Facebook and Instagram, and without paying for anything,” says Glass of TikTok. Glass and Sadrolashrafi envision Joos will eventually have its own stores or in-store shops inside existing retailers, but they want to perfect a refill model before opening them.
Meanwhile, along with Glass’s sister Angela Kennedy, Glass and Sadrolashrafi are building yet another brand, upscale fragrance concept Kemestre. Sadrolashrafi points out his partnership with Glass has been successful because he and Glass have distinct talents. Sadrolashrafi is a design and digital whiz, and Glass handles marketing, sales and account management. “It’s been really fun. This is not just work for us,” says Sadrolashrafi. “We are like family.”
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