Clean beauty retailer Trellis Beauty has become Clean(er) Beauty Shop.
The rebranding effort began a year ago, but founder and CEO Tracy Trellis Flores says Trellis was destined for a shakeup since it launched online in the fall of 2017 with seven brands before opening a brick-and-mortar outpost with 20 brands such as Meow Meow Tweet, SkinOwl, Spela Cosmetics and Elate Cosmetics the following year in March at Raleigh’s bustling Lafayette Village.
Today, it carries over 30 brands, including bestsellers Lilfox, Plantkos and Shikohin, at the flagship store and has a shop-in-shop location premiering on March 18 inside Charley Madelyn, a fashion boutique in Cary, N.C. A location in Arizona is next on Clean(er)’s expansion roadmap.
“It was always my intention with my business plan to create this environment that fostered closeness and community experience and was fun, bold and nonjudgmental,” says Trellis Flores. “Those are all the values that we started off with five years ago, and they aren’t drastically changing with this rebrand, they’re just being amplified.”
Clean(er) is amplifying empowerment, education, inclusivity and high-quality product brand pillars. A mission from the outset, Trellis Flores remains committed to introducing Raleigh customers the best of clean beauty, and the new name doesn’t signal a shift in ingredient standards. The trademarked -er at the end of Clean(er) is supposed to be a nod to out-of-the-box thinking.
Still, clean beauty retailers are redefining themselves in a retail environment that’s been transformed in recent years as large chains like Target, Walmart and Sephora have increased their clean beauty offerings, and clean beauty has come under fire for lacking clarity and fearmongering. Despite the criticism, clean beauty sales are accelerating. According to market research firm BrandEssence, the global clean beauty market is forecast to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 13.1% to go from $6.46 billion in 2021 to nearly $15.3 billion in 2028.
At Clean(er), Trellis Flores says, “There’s still going to be the obvious ingredient non-negotiables like parabens and propylene glycol, but we’re going to tailor that verbiage a little bit differently and bring what we call ‘mindfully created’ products and services to the forefront. As we evolve as a brand, our brands will evolve and our assortment will slightly change, but not too much that we’re taking away top-selling products.”
The rebrand is rolling out in three phases over the course of several months. Phase one entails nailing down Clean(er)’s refreshed look and communicating about the rebrand to customers. Phase two entails fully updating the website in the second or third quarter of this year. The final phase entails social media and web maintenance tasks like retagging posts and revising search engine optimization (SEO).
“We have built a million-dollar brand from what we’ve done. We’re in our scalable phase now.”
Trellis Flores enlisted external marketing and graphic design agencies to hone the new Clean(er) identity, a move that would’ve been financially untenable a few years ago as Trellis was building its coffers. She declined to comment on the cost of the rebrand, but underscores the business is 100% bootstrapped and solely owned by her. Clean(er) was announced via Instagram on Jan. 30, and Trellis Flores reports follower feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
After a forced shutdown in 2020 for coronavirus precautions, Trellis, now Clean(er), has notched high double-digit yearly growth. Prior to the pandemic, it was notching triple-digit annual growth. To complement its beauty products, it’s added steaming, facials, makeup consultations, brow waxing and spray tan services. Trellis Flores refers to the business’s facial steam bar service as the country’s first.
Early last year, Trellis Flores decided to get in on the booming med-spa industry and rented out 825 square feet of the flagship store to Blossum Aesthetics Co., a local med-spa specializing in dermal filler and facial balancing services. The lease left Clean(er) with roughly 400 square feet for beauty product merchandising. The goal of its Blossum partnership is two-fold: Give customers access to an enhanced menu of services and learn if Clean(er) med-spa services could be viable in the future.
“We have built a million-dollar brand from what we’ve done. We’re in our scalable phase now,” says Trellis Flores. “We’ve proven our track record with sales. We’ve proven our track record with experience. We’ve proven our track record with finding the best clean beauty products and offering services with the best aestheticians in the area. We’ve proven ourselves with pretty much our whole brand model.”
Clean(er)’s 350-square-foot shop-in-shop at Charley Madelyn will feature steam services and a selection from its clean beauty assortment. The concept will provide Clean(er) a suburban presence for the first time and replace the retailer’s short-lived second location in Boxyard RTP, a converted business park in Raleigh, that opened in late 2021 and closed a year later. Trellis Flores says she will reevaluate the Charley Madelyn arrangement in three years.
“That’s a big part of the vision of our retail expansion, these local business partnerships in neighborhoods that have disposable income with customers that value self-care and want to buy clothes but get their facials done at the same time,” says Trellis Flores. “We’re really excited to test that out.”
At Clean(er)’s impending Arizona flagship, there will be a greater focus on steam services, It’s expected to have eight chairs for services rather than the four that are at the Raleigh location. It will also have dedicated space for a strategic med-spa partner. Trellis Flores hopes to boost service sales from 40% of Clean(er)’s total business to 50% with the new location.
Long term, Trellis Flores aims to turn Clean(er) into a franchise concept that others can replicate. She says, “It’s very important for me to keep in mind my journey and where I came from financially when building a business and a brand, and I want it to be accessible to individuals that have a passion for clean beauty, being a business owner and wanting to grow a business.”
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