Color Cosmetics Specialist Clove + Hallow Grows Its Team, Wins On Amazon And Launches In Lord & Taylor

Three-year-old clean color cosmetics line Clove + Hallow is hitting its stride. 

Founded by makeup artist Sarah Biggers, the vegan and cruelty-free line is currently available in 115 retail doors around the world, including clean beauty chains Aillea and The Detox Market as well as Forever 21’s beauty concept Riley Rose. This month, Biggers will debut her collection on Lord & Taylor’s website and in 10 of the department store’s locations across the country. 

“We’re at their top-performing beauty stores,” says Biggers of the launch. “How they choose where we’re going to go is, what are their buyers asking for? Are they looking for and currently shopping clean beauty? Are they big into indie beauty? Then, which stores are big beauty stores in general.”

Biggers will play an active role in introducing Clove + Hallow to Lord & Taylor shoppers by attending events and leading in-store trainings. “I really enjoy helming Clove + Hallow, not just behind the scenes. I’m a makeup artist, and I love to talk about the product,” she says. “They want me at events, they want our brand at their founder panels and their trend shows. Those are things I love to do.”

Biggers expects to double Clove + Hallow’s 115 door count within the next 12 months—and not just stateside. The brand expects to complete its European Union certification in the next month, allowing Biggers to work with distributors across Europe and Mexico, and enter international stores that have approached her wanting to carry Clove + Hallow.

“By the end of 2019, we expect to have quite a few European retailers and distribution partners,” says Biggers. “We already had a line of about 15 waiting. Some are distributors, some are bigger retailers, some are one-off boutiques and spas, and they want their piece of American indie clean beauty.” Clove + Hallow will hit the United Kingdom and France to start, and Biggers hopes to expand to Germany soon after.

Clove + Hallow has grown to 10 full-time employees in the past year as Biggers bought marketing functions in-house that were previously handled by agencies. The company has registered triple-digit growth annually since its launch and is on track for over 300% growth in 2019. The brand’s current revenue is 50% e-commerce, 35% retail and 15% through the company’s fastest-growing e-commerce channel, Amazon.

In response to success on the platform, Biggers and her team have been revising Clove + Hallow’s Amazon strategy. “We have our own storefront and, as of right now, it is our only authorized seller on Amazon,” says Biggers. “We work with an agency as well as use our in house resources to manage everything from marketing to inventory to the product listing optimization.” Clove + Hallow premiered on Amazon in May of 2018. Since then, the brand has only had one month without a month-over-month revenue increase.

Clove + Hallow is seeing a healthy flow of organic traffic to its Amazon storefront, but also dabbling in paid and sponsored ad campaigns. Biggers explains, “Being a small brand on a big platform and not having a ton of reviews means you have to do [paid advertising] to get to the top of mind for people.” The ad spend is paying off: Clove + Hallow sees an average of 350% return on marketing investment.

“We’re putting more focus on it now,” says Biggers of her brand’s Amazon business. “For us, that means putting more of our marketing budget to work and dedicating more of our in-house resources. With the agency we work with on our Amazon products, we moved from a small contract to a more full-scale service. It has really strong returns for us compared to our other channels, which are also strong, but Amazon seems to be crazy receptive to us right now.”