Hybrid Skincare-Makeup Brand Daybird Wins Over Urban Outfitters And Poosh Buyers

Nearly a year after launching, makeup-cum-skincare brand Daybird is entering its first retail partnerships with Urban Outfitters and Kourtney Kardashian’s Poosh.

Both will carry Daybird’s sole product, Tinted Skincare, an all-in-one serum, moisturizer, foundation and SPF 50 sunscreen. It comes in four shades and is formulated with 2% niacinamide and .5% bisabolol, a chamomile extract. Urban Outfitters has the product priced at $40, and it’s $39.50 on Poosh and the brand’s direct-to-consumer platform.

Co-founders Whitney McElwain and Veena Krishnan started Daybird in 2022 out of a shared frustration with prevailing beauty expectations. They refer to the brand as a member of the anti-beauty beauty club. McElwain says, “We create functional makeup for those who are breaking up with societal standards and redefining them on their own terms.”

Daybird’s Urban Outfitters relationship was kicked off by a buyer from the chain sliding into Daybird’s DMs. The Poosh partnership followed Krishnan and McElwain pitching the online lifestyle content and commerce destination for an editorial piece.

While retail was on McElwain and Krishnan’s vision board, they didn’t think it would happen so quickly for Daybird. To respond to retail interest, they had to cobble together a sell sheet and brand book. “We were in reactive mode,” acknowledges Krishnan.

Daybird’s Tinted Skincare is the first sunscreen featured by Poosh. “The head of e-commerce [Meredith Michaels] as well as the co-founder [Sarah Howard] were champions of the product,” says Krishnan. “They hadn’t found a tinted skincare and SPF product that hadn’t broken out their skin before.”

The new retail partnerships give Daybird a chance to expand its customer base. McElwain identifies Daybird’s customers as largely female zillennials looking to minimize their beauty routines. She says, “They aren’t visiting a dermatologist. They just need a quick recommendation from a friend or someone that they trust.”

Daybird isn’t simply passively letting Urban Outfitters’ and Poosh’s customers come to it. The brand has seeded products to college campus representatives, pushed out email campaigns to spread the word about its presence at Urban Outfitters and Poosh, and focused social media posts on them.

Going into the partnerships, shade-matching was a concern for Daybird. Krishnan and McElwain hope Poosh and Urban Outfitters customers will find their way to Daybird’s Instagram and TikTok accounts, where the brand has content showing the product on different skin tones.

The brand has also teamed up with Poosh to make the e-commerce site’s return and exchange policy in line with Daybird’s policy allowing customers to exchange any shade. McElwain says, “Ensuring that we can still deliver on that customer experience was really important for us.”

Daybird is on track to exceed $500,000 in 2023 revenues. Since launch, it’s received over $300,000 in investment from angels and grants. Its largest investors are two customers who reached out to the brand because they loved its product.

Prior to Daybird, Krishnan was in marketing at several startups and an engineer at ExxonMobil. McElwain was previously an investor with Listen Ventures and held positions at Curology, 1-800 Contacts and Red Bull. The pair, who both have MBAs from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, take a test-and-learn approach to their business that’s guiding Daybird’s distribution strategy. They’ve heard horror stories about emerging brands biting off more than they can chew with retail partnerships, and they want to avoid that.

“We think of it as a walk, jog, run-type strategy,” says Krishnan. “We think about, with every phase, what are some of these key learnings that we can apply to the next phase or to any future opportunity?”

The considered approach applies to Daybird’s assortment expansion, too. Krishnan and McElwain are paying close attention to the brand’s customers and their feedback will direct forthcoming products. The products are expected to stay in the hybrid arena.

“We hear from our customers all the time how they’re finally wearing sunscreen every day because our product has it in it,” says McElwain. “Those are the types of goals that we’re trying to achieve with any new product development. How can we give them back that time and that space?”