Clean beauty brands have entered juice bars, yoga studios, groceries, fashion boutiques and more. Floral shops, with their deep connections to plants, are a fitting distribution partner to add to the retail mix.
The Girl Floral, a blooming brick-and-mortar lifestyle concept in the Canadian city Cambridge, incorporates 15 clean beauty brands into an assortment that also spans bouquets, baubles and blouses. It’s 1,500-square-foot space in the downtown area cultivates a comfortable, almost throwback ambiance with wicker chairs and baskets, blush-colored walls, worn hardwood floors, a vintage chandelier and pegboard display filled with beauty merchandise.
“It’s all items that bring you happiness. If you gift them to somebody else, you’ll bring a smile to their face. You might give them a flower one week and, the next, maybe a cool new lip scrub,” says The Girl Floral founder Sarah White, commenting, “When customers come in, so many people will comment, ‘Oh, it’s so pretty in here. It’s so welcoming.’”
The Girl Floral’s petal-to-beauty product move, while rare, isn’t completely unique. The San Diego store En Concordia has paired plants with beauty products, too. The combination speaks to millennials’ passions for houseplants and better-for-you consumer goods. (The Girl Floral’s customers are primarily professional women aged 25 to 45 years old.) It makes business sense as well as beauty products command higher margins than flowers, and both beauty products and flowers are integral to weddings.
The Girl Floral’s clean beauty selection widens its audience. “There are some people who come in for the flowers, but others people come in after seeing the beauty on Instagram,” says White. “It’s a great crossover. If someone doesn’t know about the beauty and comes in for a bouquet, I will show them different beauty items, and it builds their interest.”
“It’s all items that bring you happiness. If you gift them to somebody else, you’ll bring a smile to their face. You might give them a flower one week and, the next, maybe a cool new lip scrub.”
White gravitates to flowers from local growers to stock in her store, and she takes a similar approach to beauty. Basd, Mellow, Niu Body, Bkind, WooWoo Laboratory and Eluo are among the Canadian beauty brands available at The Girl Floral. Beauty products are arranged by product type (i.e., cleansers, moisturizers and toners) on the shop’s beauty shelving.
A Canadian headquarters isn’t a requirement for entrance into The Girl Floral. White hunts on social media for brands from the United States, New Zealand, Australia and European countries. Currently, she’s considering increasing The Girl Floral’s ingestible beauty and tea offerings. White isn’t big on super expensive products and tries to keep the shop’s clean beauty range accessible.
Testing beauty products prior to ordering them is critical to White. “People looking for clean beauty really want to know if you like the products. They ask, ‘How did the product help you?’” she says. “Having the ability to tell them what I liked about a product helps them find a product they can relate to.”
Currently, clean beauty constitutes about a third of The Girl Floral’s revenues. Flowers and apparel account for most of the remaining turnover. The Girl Floral matches beauty products to relevant plants and flowers to make the connection between the two categories obvious. It may, for example, pick up room sprays, candles or toners with lavender, eucalyptus and rose, and feature those fresh ingredients in its bouquets. On its website, The Girl Floral sells bundles combining bouquets and beauty products.
“People looking for clean beauty really want to know if you like the products. They ask, ‘How did the product help you?’ Having the ability to tell them what I liked about a product helps them find a product they can relate to.”
White, 27, a former teacher, had been doing floral design and delivery out of her home for two years prior to opening The Girl Floral in October. She has two brothers, and her family often referred to her as “the girl” as result. The nickname stuck, and White felt using it in the store’s name gave it a personal element.
E-commerce is a climbing contributor to The Girl Floral’s sales, although it’s responsible for a minority portion today, but White relishes the relationships that can be developed in a physical retail environment. In the neighborhood where The Girl Floral is located, she says people are out and about shopping and commiserating, and the local merchants are a supportive group. White hopes to ramp up the schedule of events at the location to augment store visitation.
For its initial year in operation, White’s goal is for The Girl Floral to break into the black. Eventually, she plans to expand it to other Canadian cities. White says, “My husband always calls me fearless. When I want to do something, I just do it. After my first year, I will start researching and planning what’s next.”
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