Beauty Con-Fessional Series Part 1: Why We’re Here

By Claude de Jocas

A few weeks ago, a few members of our team sat down for a brainstorming session. Our goal was to come up with ideas for a series of blog posts that would showcase our deep expertise in the beauty industry – expertise that isn’t necessarily reflected in Volition’s portfolio today, but which our team is proud to have honed through over a decade of collective experience working with top beauty companies.

The first question we are usually asked as investors when we reach out to a beauty brand is whether we have real domain expertise in the industry. It’s the right question, and we understand why companies ask. Beauty is its own animal. Arguably more so than any other consumer category, beauty has a unique combination of industry-specific platforms, influencers, content codes, distribution channels, and buying behaviors that must be understood.

Even more importantly, beauty is not a monolith. Makeup, skincare, fragrance, hair care, hair color, body care, nail… each category has distinct nuances. Blurring the lines can be a genius way to differentiate a brand (Briogio’s brilliant “skincare as haircare” approach comes to mind), but this only works when it’s done with intention.

As the CEO and/or Founder of a Beauty brand, you absolutely need to be working with investors who have a deep appreciation of these subtleties. And frankly, it’s up to us to prove to you that we have that knowledge. So, that’s why we’re here. We wanted a way to be able to share where our heads are at when it comes to beauty investing.

Introducing Volition Beauty Con-Fessionals

The beauty industry has gone through a lot of transformation in the past decade, and each evolution has come with its own catchphrase. The emergence of brands sitting in between luxury and mass price points led to the rise of “masstige” beauty. 

Taking a page from Zara and H&M’s playbooks, brands like NYX and ColourPop shortened product development cycles and pioneered “fast beauty.” Cutting through the jumble of natural, green, and organic, “clean beauty” has emerged as the industry’s preferred standard to signify the elimination of specific ingredients. Investors and others have written many fantastic articles on each of these trends.

We feel like we have something new to add to the conversation. The shift that we believe is most impactfully re-writing the rules of beauty today is the blurring of two sales models that for decades have been staunchly separated: professional and consumer distribution channels. The result is the rise of a fascinating cohort of beauty brands that have found a niche in both worlds. The implications are staggering… and arguably the most disruptive force in the industry since the rise of e-commerce.

Naturally, we needed a catchphrase of our own to coin this trend. Enter “con-fessional” brands – a hybrid of “consumer” and “professional.” These are the brands that are defying industry standards: bridging the gap between retail and salon experiences, working with the industry’s top artists and stylists alongside TikTok influencers, and spreading their marketing dollars everywhere from salons and industry events to Amazon and Netflix. 

We’re excited to use this series to share examples of brands that are executing on this strategy flawlessly, and why we think they’re important.

Who We Are

Susie Harbour, Mary Kate Marino and I make up Volition’s beauty investing team. We wanted to share some background on our respective experiences in the industry.