After 28 Years At Estėe Lauder, Alexis Szabo Starts Prestige Butt Care Brand Coco Fesse

After 28 years at The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc., where twerking and “asstitude” were hardly common topics, Alexis Szabo felt the lure of entrepreneurship and decided to chart his own path, first as a consultant and then as a brand founder.

Last month, he officially launched Coco Fesse with a single $49 product, Twerk Crème. Encouraging customers to cultivate an “asstitude,” the brand’s website describes the product as giving booties a “firm, buttery-soft feel, and a glorious golden sheen,” and fading “the appearance of cellulite and uneven texture.”

“From a young age I always liked to create my own products,” says Szabo, a Paris native based in Los Angeles who whipped up his own fragrances at as young as 7 years old. “The corporate world has become more and more averse to risk and to letting creativity flow. For that reason, a lot of brands in all categories have become bland. As a brand founder, I knew I could fight the battles to get what I desired as a concept, formula and packaging.”

Coco Fesse occupies a space Szabo, formerly in roles at Smashbox, Clinique and MAC, refers to as the “derriere care market.” Although it’s been emerging for a while, he points out it’s not crowded with brands. Still, there are brands entering it. Along with Coco Fesse, nascent brands MyBum and Gente are playing in the caboose category.

“If you take out Sol de Janeiro, you are limited to very few brands, almost all pharmaceutical, that cater purely to treat the appearance of cellulite,” says Szabo. “So, if you look at the prestige cosmetic market, then only Sol de Janeiro is making a dent, a large one.”

Coco Fesse’s target customers are women aged 18 to 35 years old. “Our message to her will be one of exuberance, body positivity, confidence and enjoying the sensory experience of caring for yourself and your skin as well as excellent results,” says Szabo. “We are also a style-savvy lifestyle brand that cares deeply about our oceans and environment, and we will convey that message wholeheartedly.”

A key differentiator for Coco Fesse’s Twerk Crème is its consistency. Szabo characterizes it as “super-fast absorbing, yet very rich.” The cream has a gourmand scent with notes of coconut, jasmine petals, sandalwood and almond. As it sinks into the skin, it leaves a subtle shine behind. The packaging consists of a jar made from 100% ocean-bound plastic and a bamboo cap. A bamboo spatula is included.

Szabo came up with the idea for Coco Fesse in July 2020 when the coronavirus was raging and began discussing it with product development and fragrance suppliers the next month. Twerk Crème is formulated in Thailand. It features Thai coconut oil, vitamin E and caffeine. With coconuts a chief inspiration, Coco Fesse takes its name from the French words for “coconut butt.”

Amid pandemic lockdowns, fine-tuning Twerk Crème’s formula was tricky. It was particularly challenging to infuse it with just the right amount of shimmer to produce a golden hue flattering to all skin tones. Szabo approved the formula in April 2023 and final product in October 2023. Twerk Crème soft-launched in February this year.

Coco Fesse leans on third-party support for product development, packaging, legal, creative, warehousing, distribution, e-commerce, public relations and social media. Declining to share how much it cost to erect self-funded Coco Fesse or sales projections, Szabo says, “Third-party support makes it much easier on overhead costs at the beginning.”

Coco Fesse currently sells exclusively via its website, but Szabo envisions broader distribution in the future and hopes to partner with specialty and general merchandise retailers in stores and online. He envisions international expansion once the brand is established in the United States. Coco Fesse’s product pipeline contains items to complement Twerk Crème.

Although butt-firming creams aren’t novel, Szabo detects a rising interest in the derriere category that stretches back to people’s fascination with ample bottoms such as those associated with Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian. While the reversion to super-skinny looks and the explosion of Ozempic has diminished that fascination, the bum market is helped by the body care segment’s sales surge and the popularity of products like the aforementioned Sol de Janeiro’s Bum Bum Cream.

“When you watch today’s music videos or performances at music awards or simply go on social media, you can easily notice that the derriere is still going in the spotlight,” says Szabo. “I therefore see a bright future in that category if it is done well and tastefully. Also, let’s not forget that products for that part of the body are also very adequate for most of the rest of the body.”