British Curly Hair Brand Boucléme Makes Its US Debut At Bluemercury

Boucléme is entering retail in the United States via a new partnership with Bluemercury.

The British curly hair brand’s five bestsellers—Curl Cleanser, Curl Conditioner, Curl Cream, Curl Defining Gel and Super Hold Styler—will be available in 28 doors and its full 14-product assortment will be stocked online. Stocked at Selfridges, Marks & Spencers, Cult Beauty, Boots and Feelunique in the United Kingdom, Boucléme’s American presence at Bluemercury aligns with its premium positioning. The brand’s prices primarily run from $30 to $40.

“Our price points aren’t necessarily cheap and wouldn’t necessarily fit in somewhere like a Target or Walmart for instance,” says Michele Scott-Lynch. “[Bluemercury] is looking to expand their textured hair category, and one of our key focuses as a brand is growing globally, so it seemed like a great launching platform for us to grow the brand in the U.S.”

While Bluemercury has had products for curly hair from brands such as Bumble and bumble, Living Proof, Oribe, Seen and Christophe Robin, Boucléme joins Holy Curls and Sunday II Sunday in a push by the Macy’s Inc.-owned retailer to add brands specifically concentrating on consumers with textured hair to its assortment. The brand is arriving at Bluemercury at a moment in which the retailer is gaining traction. In the first quarter this year, its comparable-store sales on an owned plus licensed basis increased 25%.

In the U.S., Boucléme plans to mimic the distribution approach it pursued in the United Kingdom characterized by launching initially at relatively niche, conscious prestige retailers and expanding from there. Sephora and Ulta Beauty are among dream retail partners for the brand in the U.S. Next up for international distribution will be Australia and European markets it’s currently not in.

“Bluemercury is putting our brand in the place where we will have the store exposure and will be available for people to actually go into stores and try the products and smell the products,” says Magdalena Moregiel-Sadiku, senior sales manager at Boucléme. “This is the first opportunity for people to actually hear the name and then see it on a shelf and it becomes tangible.”

In the U.S., Boucléme faces a beauty landscape teeming with textured haircare brands. Amid the crowds, Scott-Lunch notes Boucléme’s formulations containing 92% to 100% naturally derived ingredients and fragranced with essential oils help the brand stand out. “Normally, in haircare, brands use synthetics, and they tend to be what people call ‘exotic’ scents like coconut,” she says. “Surs are all fresh and natural and also have a therapeutic stimulating, uplifting and balancing benefit.” Boucléme’s packaging includes a minimum of 30% post-consumer recycled content or PCR.

Scott-Lynch continues, “I really want our products to work for people, but, for me, it needs to go beyond that. So, we will source products from fair-trade cooperatives to make sure that farmers are being paid fairly, and we work with charitable partners because I’m not in this just to make loads of money. It’s really important to us that, even though we’re a small brand, we’re doing as much as we can.” Boucléme’s charity partners are Trees for the Future, a nonprofit that plants trees in developing countries, and Malaika, a nonprofit that strives to improves access to education, water and healthcare in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s village of Kalebuka.

Scott-Lynch started Boucléme in 2014 with 50,000 pounds, around $60,000 at today’s exchange rate, and three products. It was born out of a personal need and spread mainly through word of mouth. Boucléme began investing in performance marketing in the past three years. Often having experimented with countless textured haircare products, its customers respond to reviews from people they trust and follow on social media. “It’s really driven by people hearing from other people that they’ve tried it, they liked it, it works,” says Scott-Lynch. “It’s very results-driven.”

After the pandemic hit, Bouclème introduced 30-day challenge kits featuring products assisting people with wavy, curly or coily hair with embracing and enhancing their particular pattern—and the kits proved to be a hit. Simultaneously, the brand encouraged customers to send messages to experts it had. on hand to answer any questions that might pop up. The efforts, coupled with a surge in consumer interest in prestige haircare, led to Bouclème’s sales quadrupling, and its team escalating from five to 11 people. It’s since registered 30% year-over-year sales growth.

Scott-Lynch is realistic about the consumer shopping tendencies and economic conditions that were part of Bouclème’s surge as the pandemic took root shifting and attempting to respond to the shifts. “There are so many challenges in terms of inflation, fuel increases, mortgage increases, people’s spending habits have changed,” she says. “In the U.K. and Europe, people’s main focus is really traveling. They’re investing in that, and there isn’t necessarily a surplus of cash in a household anymore. So, we are trying to kind of navigate our way through the other side of the pandemic in which nothing can be taken for granted right now, I’d say, so it is much harder.”