Kleonne aims to demystify skincare for confused dudes looking to build routines through careful curation, educational content and a straightforward user experience.
Launched on Sept. 23, the new British e-tailer offers 63 products, bundles and kits across face care, beard care, body care, haircare and hair styling, including from British and American brands such as Clubhouse Skin, Daimon Barber, ByErim and Insanely Clean. Three additional brands are due to join the assortment before the end of the year. Kleonne derives its name from the Greek word “kleos,” which signifies glory, fame and renown and is associated with heroes in ancient mythology.
Kleonne is responding to the rising demand among younger men in the United Kingdom for skincare. According to a survey from YouGov last year, 65% of them aged 18 to 34 years old reported that physical attractiveness is important to them, compared to 46% of all men, and 30% of 18 to 34 year olds have a skincare routine versus 23% of all men. Despite the interest, skincare shopping can be bewildering for men, a challenge Kleonne is hoping to solve.
“Behavior is definitely shifting, especially amongst the new generations. I think that’s mainly also down to social media. It’s made ‘appearance care’ more accepted. Men now expect direction rather than trial and error,” says Alfie Binns, founder and CEO of Kleonne. “There’s no trusted destination where men can learn, explore and build confidence in looking after their skin and just themselves in general. We’re trying to become that trusted interface.”
Binns understands the changing perception of male personal maintenance and the opportunity it presents. A 19-year-old college student at the University of Exeter in England, he comes from a family of eight children with three older brothers who struggled to wade through the online shopping landscape to find the best spot for their skincare and grooming products.
The British men’s grooming market was valued at $10.37 billion in 2023, according to market research firm Grand View Research, and is projected to accelerate at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5% between 2024 and 2030. According to data from British multinational bank Barclays, men’s spending on the pharmacy, health and beauty category increased 58.1% over the last five years in the U.K., while women’s spending grew 45.7% over the same period.
In 2024, men’s spending on beauty in the U.K. jumped by 9.9%, over four percentage points higher than the increase for women at 5.8%. Forty-two percent of gen Z men say they now spend a greater share of their income on beauty, the highest percentage of any age cohort. Millennials came in second at 29%.
Men are leveling up their grooming routines in the United States, too. Data from market research firm Mintel shows that 52% of American men use facial skincare products, an increase from 31% in 2022. More specifically, 68% of gen Z men use facial skincare, an increase from 42% in 2022. In the same survey, Mintel reported that 42% of men between the ages of 18 and 34 prefer to purchase premium facial moisturizers over those from mass-market brands.
“This really has the potential to go somewhere quite big.”
Seizing upon the growth, the men’s market is bubbling with M&A and entrepreneurial activity. Earlier this year, Unilever laid out an estimated $1.5 billion for Dr. Squatch, the unapologetically masculine natural soap brand, and private equity firm TSG Consumer secured a minority stake in Dude Wipes. Men’s skincare brand Geologie was scooped up by supplement and pharmaceutical company Megalabs. Men’s grooming e-tailer The 2nd sprung up this year, too.
Kleonne operates on a drop-ship model, and the brands it carries handle their own fulfillment. It takes a 15% commission for every sale made on its website. In the future, it plans to shift to a subscription-based model. Binns says, “We’re trying to move away from a traditional retail business, which is already so overcrowded especially in the U.K. and the U.S., to create something fresh, educational and approachable.”
When assessing brands, Kleonne has a holistic view, vetting everything from packaging and ingredient quality to shipping reliability and customer service. Binns has researched over 400 brands in the last six to eight months in the process of building Kleonne. He intends to pick up more American brands and eventually split the assortment evenly between the brands from U.S., the U.K. and the rest of Europe. Daimon Barber’s Exfoliating Cleanser, Clubhouse Skin’s Helsinki Moisturizer, Insanely Clean’s Instant Moisturizing Mist and ByErim’s Hair Oil are resonating with customers on Kleonne.
At the outset, Kleonne is relying on word of mouth marketing through Binns’ social network and paid media to jumpstart awareness. It’s spent about a few thousand pounds on Instagram advertisements so far. Going forward, it’s focused on revving up organic traffic via influencer partnerships, search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing. Binns says it’s also hyperfocused on optimizing for ChatGPT searches and ranking for high-intent keywords and phrases like “best face moisturizer for men in the U.K.”
Kleonne is starting a blog to educate customers on how to assemble skincare routines and decode ingredient lists. As Christmas inches closer, it will run an advent calendar-style Instagram campaign with daily posts highlighting its brands, diving into ingredients and touching on the pros and cons of different skincare products. An online skincare quiz and TikTok account are on deck as well. Binns will be featured in TikTok posts.
Bootstrapped to begin, Kleonne has a goal of raising a six-figure amount from angel investors and Binns’ personal network as it scales up in the U.K. before expanding into the U.S. and Scandinavia. He says, “With a big push, this really has the potential to go somewhere quite big.”
