In A Crowded Face Mask Market, Touch Of Urth Breaks Through With Bright Colors And Beneficial Ingredients

Monte Honarchian and Lerno Esmaeilian aren’t exactly what you’d call beauty junkies. Before the 21-year-old friends began developing clay face mask brand Touch of Urth, their skincare routines were nonexistent.

“I always thought that the more you mess with your face, the worse it’s going to get,” says Esmaeilian. “After trying out different skincare products and our masks, I realized they can really help. My view on skincare has totally changed.”

Esmaeilian and Honarchian, who met four years ago while working as lifeguards at the Burbank Community YMCA, aren’t just out to change their personal views on skincare. They’re out to change the beauty industry’s views writ large. They believe most beauty packaging is too boring and formulations are overstuffed with unnecessary ingredients. Their antidotes to the status quo are Touch of Urth’s vivid boxes and pared-down ingredient decks.

“Since we were so foreign to the industry, we came in with a lot of unique ideas. One of them was to make this colorful set of masks. There are a lot of brands out there that are sleek and black, but a rainbow brand like ours has never been seen,” says Honarchian, emphasizing, “One of our major selling points is that you can actually read all of the ingredients on the back of the box, and there’s no more than six ingredients other than the clays.”

Honarchian and Esmaeilian invested $20,000 to bring Touch of Urth to life over the course of two years. Honarchian is a student at University of California, Irvine due to graduate in months with a political science degree. Esmaeilian is a consummate entrepreneur, and he’s dabbled in e-commerce and clothing businesses. As early as elementary school, he had a capitalist mentality and hawked pencils to his classmates.

“Since we were so foreign to the industry, we came in with a lot of unique ideas. One of them was to make this colorful set of masks. There are a lot of brands out there that are sleek and black, but a rainbow brand like ours has never been seen.”

Esmaeilian convinced Honarchian they should partner to create a skincare brand. A picky consumer, Esmaeilian pays close attention to the food he eats and personal care items like toothpaste and shampoo that he buys. He didn’t think the skincare segment had sufficient options speaking to his level of concern. Esmaeilian says, “What happened is we noticed a lack in the skincare industry for products for the conscious consumer. In that void, we saw an opportunity.”

Touch of Urth’s powder face masks avoid parabens, phthalates and gluten, are cruelty-free and housed in recyclable packaging. Five of the seven masks are vegan. The powder formulation allows customers to activate the masks when they want in the way they want. Touch of Urth recommends many mixers for them from green juice to goat milk. Once mixed with the desired liquid, the masks are designed to be left on the face for 10 to 15 minutes and rinsed off with warm water.

The debut face mask range covers an array of skin issues with an array of ingredients. For instance, Saffron Dune is intended for sensitive skin. It contains organic turmeric root and mustard seed. Ebony Dusk, the mask Honarchian and Esmaeilian project will be Touch of Urth’s bestseller, has activated charcoal for detoxification as well as organic blue-green algae, vitamin C ester, and DMAE bitartrate. The names of the products combine a hue and an aspect of the earth. There are no immediate plans to expand the product collection, but Honarchian mentions Touch of Urth could move into a mask in a new format in the future.

In addition to the bright packaging, Touch of Urth’s boxes feature a seven-layer graphic meant to evoke the earth’s layers. Esmaeilian and Honarchian are convinced the design is a cut above the rest in the skincare arena. “A funny thing we do is we go to stores and go straight to the skincare section and, when we look at, we just see everything is almost a blur because the products all look the same,” says Esmaeilian. “If we imagine our product there, it’s going to catch eyes. It’s pure eye candy.”

“One of our major selling points is that you can actually read all of the ingredients on the back of the box, and there’s no more than six ingredients other than the clays.”

Touch of Urth is definitely Instagram fodder. To reach customers, the brand is currently revving up Instagram and Facebook advertising. Google ads and influencer marketing are on the docket. Touch of Urth expects to target a broad group of influencers across the beauty, fitness and wellness categories. For its initial year on the market, growing brand awareness is Esmaeilian’s and Honarchian’s biggest goal.

At the moment, Touch of Urth is sold on its website. Eventually, Esmaeilian and Honarchian envision it possibly selling in beauty specialty stores such as Sephora and Ulta Beauty. At $36 for a pack of seven, they priced the masks to be more expensive than comparable drugstore offerings and competitive with comparable prestige offerings. Esmaeilian and Honarchian are staying off Amazon for now. Esmaeilian says, “We want to have a direct connection with the customer. The problem with Amazon is that we have no control with what happens.”

Esmaeilian and Honarchian can control the quality of their products. They promise their instantaneous results will persuade even the most skeptical men that masking is a positive experience. “When a guy for uses a face mask for the first time, we become fascinated,” says Honarchian. “We have given the masks to friends throughout the years and watching them start touching their face in awe is priceless. We have never seen our skin so clean. That’s the unique aspect of it.”