Glotrition Rises At Retail Along With Interest In Wellness

Glotrition is increasingly on the ingestibles menu at retailers.

The inside-out beauty brand will premiere on QVC’s Beauty iQ offshoot Feb. 5 after recently landing in the new wellness sections at Anthropologie and Nordstrom. The home shopping network will feature Glotrition’s 2 Step Inside | Out Treatment System containing its signature Collagen Peptide Drink Mix as well as the Age Defying Topical Serum.

“On Beauty iQ, you can get a 15- to 20-minute segment as a new brand and, especially for us, that’s great because this is a product that requires a bit of explanation. We are asking you to rethink the way you are caring for your skin,” says Lisa Pineiro, a former health and science television news reporter who launched Glotrition in 2015. “We’re introducing you to a new step – the missing link in skincare – that leads to the skin you’ve always wanted.”

Pineiro didn’t set out to make Glotrition a retailer favorite at first. After spending $30,000 to get the brand off the ground, she initially targeted spas. “That was the most tangible way to sell. I could walk in and talk to the spa director,” says Pineiro. As interest in wellness surged, retail and home shopping television entered the distribution picture. Glotrition headed to QVC UK and Soft Surroundings, a retailer catering to a mature audience that hasn’t been as receptive to its concept as millennials tend to be.

Nordstrom came calling last year and put Glotrition online. Pineiro reports it promptly sold out three times. The brand was then picked up for the department store’s Well Beauty outposts that are rolling out to 38 locations this month. Glotrition is also available on Athropologie’s website and in the retailer’s expansive wellness assortment at its Palo Alto store.

The road to Beauty iQ was lengthy. It took a year to ready Glotrition for its debut on the network. Pineiro details the rules governing claims for topical products and supplements are distinct, making garnering approvals an arduous task. “It’s almost as if we had to go through the process twice,” she says. Glotrition secured Product Central LLC to assist it in sorting through the process. Pineiro reasons, “There are just some things you can’t do on your own.”

Pineiro credits Glotrition’s breakthroughs at upscale retailers at least partially to a packaging overhaul the brand underwent in 2016. Pineiro’s fiancé Scott Ryan helped pay for the overhaul with a $100,000 investment. She elevated Glotrition’s clean design and heightened its lifestyle-focused messaging. Biotin and hyaluronic acid were added to a drink formula that centers on a patented collagen peptide called Verisol.

“I was trying to make sure the product fit in the world I knew it could live and thrive in,” says Pineiro. “I never believed this was the type of product that would be sold at a drugstore. I never saw it as a product that would do especially well in a vitamin store. I felt this was a brand that needed to be at luxury retailers, and we needed to convince the buyers for those retailers that ingestible beauty is a legitimate category its consumer would buy into.”

Consumers won’t buy into a supplement if it’s too difficult to take. Glotrition’s powder blend is dished out in 30 packets. It recommends users consume a 6-gram serving daily. Pineiro likens the taste to SweeTarts. “If it doesn’t taste good, you’re not going to drink it everyday, and you’re not going to see the amazing benefits for your skin,” she says.

Glotrition’s ease of use is a direct result of Pineiro’s mission to avoid swallowing a bunch of pills for skincare purposes. As a reporter, she covered the science behind beauty advances and learned from experts that nutritional supplements could enhance the appearance of skin. Armed with that knowledge, she fortified her beauty routine with supplements and her skin glowed, but she couldn’t stomach the onerous routine. “I’m a bad pill taker,” she states.

Pineiro decided to take matters into her own hands and developed a nutritional beverage that generated the desired skin outcomes without the pill popping. Glotrition is made in labs in Salt Lake City, where Pineiro was a reporter, and Dallas, where the company is headquartered. In 2017, she reveals Glotrition’s sales skyrocketed 300%. “I’m hoping we can recreate that same growth this year, maybe even in the first half of the year,” says Pineiro.

Now that Glotrition has amassed a venerable retail base, Pineiro is turning her attention to boosting recognition. “What’s becoming clear to me is that it’s all about training and brand awareness. You can have the most amazing product in the world, but, if it gets into a retailer and sits on the shelf, you won’t be invited back,” she says. “My job is to wear more of the marketing hat and get the brand out there.”