Beacon Award Winner Me Cosmetics Is Ushering In A New Hair And Scalp Complexion Product Category
Me Cosmetics founder and CEO Camille Barreto is among an estimated more than 50% of women experiencing hair loss at some point in their lives. Dealing with it for over 25 years, she often resorted to MacGyvering camouflage by crushing up eyeshadow and applying it to her scalp. She’s known other women use root cover-up sprays for spots that have sparse hair.
The options simply weren’t that great, and Barreto believed she could do better. She soft-launched Me Cosmetics in November 2021 with $60 The Scalp Foundation Can’t Stop Me Now, which is currently available in nine shades. The Beacon Award-winning product conceals thinning hair, evens out hairlines and hides bald spots. In addition, Me Cosmetics has three tools: a $45 foundation brush, $18 eyebrow brush and $7 makeup removal towel.
During the pandemic, searches for hair loss products surged as people suffered from stress-related hair issues. Topical products and supplements in particular were all the rage, but Barreto, an angel and seed investor who spent most of her career in finance at companies such as Citi and Credicorp Capital, decided to take a different tact. She says, “In parallel to the tremendous work being done by companies dedicated to regrowing hair, there is a huge opportunity to create luxury cosmetic solutions for those with this beauty concern.”
Me Cosmetics’ early going has validated Barreto’s thinking that hair cosmetics is a huge opportunity. The brand’s 2022 exceeded its forecast by 300%. But getting there hasn’t been easy. Not everybody understands what scalp foundation is, and Me Cosmetics is heavily focused on education via its website, social media accounts and advertising. Quick Instagram Reels showing the product in action have proven to be successful along with jumping into conversations on Reddit about women’s hair loss.
The brand engages in targeted digital marketing primarily on Google. Barreto explains that consumers aren’t necessarily hunting for what the brand offers at Sephora. Instead, they’re hunting privately online. She says, “It is a very vulnerable experience for people, especially women, to talk about hair loss.”
While Barreto initially conjectured that women around her age—she’s 47 years old—would primarily be drawn to Me Cosmetics, the brand has discovered through its ads that there are as many 25 to 35 year olds interested in the topic as there are consumers 40-plus. Barreto theorizes postpartum hair loss is partly the reason for the younger crowd’s interest. She says, “This is a fantastic solution for those ladies experiencing that because their hair will generally regrow on their own.”
Informed by learnings from its ads, Me Cosmetics tapped 37-year-old “Vanderpump Rules” star Scheana Shay last year to be a spokeswoman. The television personality gave birth to a daughter in 2021 and had been open about her postpartum hair loss. Barreto says Shay called her partnership with Me Cosmetics one of the most natural partnerships she’s been involved in.
Me Cosmetics recently went live on Flip, a beauty-focused social commerce platform that Barreto describes as ideal for the brand’s highly demonstrable product. She says, “If you see the before-and-after or if you see a video of somebody using it, in 20 seconds, you can figure out exactly what it is. The power of the transformation is this huge punch as long as it’s visual and especially if its in video format.” On top of Flip, the brand is featured on 40 Boxes, an e-commerce destination by Tory Johnson, curator of the “Deals & Steals” segment on “Good Morning America.”
Barreto is considering distributing Me Cosmetics to makeup artists, hair salons, aestheticians and wig shops, and has fielded requests from them to carry its merchandise. “Their format of distribution lends itself very well to a successful conversion rate with these types of products because these are people of trust and confidence for their customers,” she says. “Folks are already talking to them, and they’re open to receiving information in those situations.”
To date, Me Cosmetics has been self-funded. Barreto plans on pursuing external capital when it accelerates growth with larger retail partners. For now, she’s concentrating on direct-to-consumer distribution as the brand raises awareness. “When you’re launching new product categories such as this or The MakeUp Eraser and the Beautyblender did in their day, there isn’t a lot of data,” says Barreto. “You have to collect it, and the best way to do that is to have that direct interaction with your customer.”
Customers repurchase Me Cosmetics The Scalp Foundation at a rate of between 20% and 25%, according to Barreto. “It’s a very long-term, mutually fruitful relationship,” she says. “We make them feel so wonderful and regain confidence about something that’s they’ve been super anxious and self-conscious about for a long time.”
Barreto highlights Me Cosmetics’ customer service as having a significant impact on conversions. Its outsourced customer service team is made up of people who’ve confronted hair loss themselves. The biggest challenge they encounter is shade matching concerns, and Me Cosmetics has developed a shade-matching program to combat them.
“It’s very easy for them to be empathetic because they get it,” says Barreto of the customer service team. “They’re very humane in the whole interaction that they have with the user, and they really partner with them as a co-collaborator as opposed to just a salesperson.”
Barreto stresses that Me Cosmetics is a cosmetics and not haircare brand. That means shampoos and conditioners aren’t in its pipeline. Instead, color cosmetics and skincare products are in it for forthcoming releases. Before they’re out, Me Cosmetics is working on expanding The Scalp Foundation’s shade range and its selection of application tools.
It will cast a wider net for customers, too. Barreto says, “We have specifically marketed to folks who identify as female at this point in time because we’ve found them to be the most underserved, but we will actually be targeting and starting to market to men because it is a very gender-inclusive brand.”
For men, the hair loss issues extend beyond the scalp into the facial hair area. Barreto says, “There are some complexion products out there for men but they are generally not great quality products or they are not waterproof very often, which is a problem that [former New York City mayor Rudy] Giuliani brought to the surface for many of us.”
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