The coasts don’t have a monopoly on clean beauty. In Oklahoma City, makeup artist Chelsey Ann Cobbs is leading consumers into the segment at her new store Salt&Water, which has begun with a pop-up before it settles into its permanent location in January.
The 1,300-square-foot pop-up stocking 50 brands is just blocks away from the shop’s nearly 2,000-square-foot ultimate home in the historic Film Row district downtown, where it will showcase 80 brands in a one-time film vault where Paramount Pictures stored movie reels. The storage rooms are being transformed into treatment rooms for an aesthetician, nutritionist and massage therapist while a hairstylist using organic hair color brand Oway will be doing hair in the retail space.
When it comes to clean beauty, Cobbs, formerly a Bobbi Brown educator for the Midwest, reports, “I’m in Oklahoma, so there’s nothing here. Being a makeup artist, I need to touch and feel and see color. As awesome as people are at online color swatching, it’s not the same as swatching on your skin.” She wasn’t convinced clean cosmetics could rival their conventional counterparts until she thoroughly tested them, and Kjaer Weis, RealHer, Noto Botanics, The Browgal and Plume met her standards – and she believes they will meet the standards of customers at Salt&Water.
Beyond color cosmetics, Salt&Water’s assortment ripples into the building blocks of self-care practices whether they be serums, dry brushes or tongue scrapers. Cobbs explains, “It’s a sampling that helps you turn the really mundane things that we have to do every day into little acts of ritual from brushing your teeth to styling your hair to making your home smell good to putting lipstick on.”
Cobbs, who switched to clean beauty after overhauling her diet and home cleaning product purchases, didn’t originally set out to create a self-care destination. She expected to open a tiny makeup studio with a limited range of clean beauty products. With encouragement from Katie Selvidge, a mentor, business coach and founder of lifestyle publication Cottage Hill, Cobbs’ vision for Salt&Water grew. A poetry book Selvidge showed her with the phrase, “Saltwater heals,” motivated the store’s name.
“I’m in Oklahoma, so there’s nothing here. Being a makeup artist, I need to touch and feel and see color. As awesome as people are at online color swatching, it’s not the same as swatching on your skin.”
Cobbs asked Laura Linsenmayer, founder of the store Roots The Beauty Underground, and Laura Lemon, founder of Lemon Laine, for advice on brands to include at Salt&Water. She was intent on representing a plethora of brands and prices in the shop’s selection. Cobbs says, “I sent my branding deck to 300 different companies, and started picking and choosing from them. I wanted to make sure I had face cream at multiple price points for multiple age groups.”
Prior to launching Salt&Water, Cobbs imagined its customer base would be largely aged from 18- to 42-years-old, but she’s finding its demographic reach is broader. “I’ve had 35-year-old men coming in for themselves, 16-year-olds getting face wash, and clientele in their mid-50s,” says Cobbs. “My big hope was that it incorporated men and made them feel welcome. I’m shocked that’s happening.” She points out Clary Collection is popular with men at the outset.
Inside the store, products are primarily arranged by type. Facial hydrators such as face oils and moisturizers are together; facial treatments such as masks and serums are together; and body and bath offerings such as scrubs and bath salts are together. Two tables are filled with home and aromatherapy products and, in the permanent space, there are two main rooms: one dedicated to makeup and the other wellness. There’s also a sizable island for makeup demonstrations and discussions.
Designed with Sara Kate Little, Salt&Water has a gender-neutral modern apothecary look. Inspired by the Japanese wabi-sabi concept, Cobbs describes the surfaces in the shop as meant to improve as they wear. Stone, marble and wax canvas are integral materials at Salt&Water. Not surprisingly, tones of salt and water are prominent. The fixtures are easy to rearrange to prepare the location for events. Events with health coach Emma Ryan and doula Jordan Shenberger are planned.
“A retailer has an amazing opportunity because we see more people than anybody else in the service industry, and we can present people what they need. I had no idea of some of the stuff that’s happening in Oklahoma City. It is happening here, but there’s no one single place where you can hear from people like a doula or nutritionist.”
“A retailer has an amazing opportunity because we see more people than anybody else in the service industry, and we can present people what they need,” says Cobbs, talking about Salt&Water’s events. “I had no idea of some of the stuff that’s happening in Oklahoma City. It is happening here, but there’s no one single place where you can hear from people like a doula or nutritionist. I want to be able to move the furniture out of the way and give them a platform.”
Cobbs budgeted $200,000 to erect Salt&Water’s platform for self-care. So far, she’s spent about $110,000, and inventory accounts for a hefty portion of the expenses. Cobbs took out a line of credit at a bank to assist with the financing of Salt&Water. She anticipates the store will cross into the black in three years. As she establishes Salt&Water, Cobbs continues to pursue her freelance makeup career.
In the early goings at Salt&Water, incense from Golda has been a surprise hit. Other hits are Alex Carro’s Face Cream and makeup from Kjaer Weis. “Golda’s incense has been a magical little gift to our city. Nobody had experienced incense like that,” says Cobbs. “It’s a smaller community, so I think people’s experience of incense has been more hippie and not necessarily as a luxurious, amazing-smelling incense.”
Cobbs figures about half of the initial customers are familiar with brands Salt&Water carries. The rest require extensive education on them. “A woman came in and she said, ‘Oh my gosh, I was waiting for someone in Oklahoma to carry Province Apothecary. I have eczema, and it’s the only line I can use.’ They have a fantastic eczema balm, and she knew exactly what it was,” she recounts. “Then, I’ve gotten, ‘What the heck is this?,’ from a couple of people, including my dad, but it’s OK. As soon as I convince him, I will know my branding strategy has worked.”
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