Yubi Beauty Offers A Hygienic Alternative To Smearing Foundation With Fingers

Yubi Beauty is your fingers, only better.

The new cosmetics tool brand from M&A attorney Adiya Dixon Wiggins is launching with two ergonomically-designed applicators to smooth makeup on faces with precision and without worries about hygiene issues. The applicators come in brush and sponge options that hug hands with ring-shaped grips.

“Cosmetics formulas are healthier, more sustainable, and there is a greater range in the diversity of shades to make products more inclusive, but we haven’t had a comparable level of innovation in the tools that we are using,” says Dixon Wiggins, who named Yubi Beauty for the Japanese word for finger. “Women I’ve talked to during a few years of research expressed frustration with using what are effectively paint brushes. The tools Michelangelo used centuries ago are the same ones we use to apply makeup.”

In a quest to update applicators, Dixon Wiggins began 18 months ago tinkering with old makeup brushes, glue guns and string in her basement to fashion a prototype for Yubi Beauty’s products. Once she had it in reasonable shape after about eight months, she took the prototype to the Columbus, Ohio firm Applied Experience to perfect for beauty routines.

“They do a lot of mechanical engineering and robotics. I remember going to them with my prototype and being prepared to be laughed out of the room, but, to their credit, they listened and were very excited about the opportunity to try something new,” recounts Dixon Wiggins. “It’s an engineered product that’s novel and meets specific needs. They viewed it with the gravitas they would view a robotics opportunity.”

With gravitas comes cost. Dixon Wiggins acknowledges that the investment it took to create Yubi Beauty’s applicators exceeded her expectations. The total amount crossed into six-figure territory, although she declined to specify the exact figure.

“They [Applied Experience] said, ‘Plan to spend at least $200,000 before you go anywhere with this.’ I thought, ‘You can’t be serious?’ That’s the running figure most folks are told to be prepared to spend before they get a product meaningfully in people’s hands,” shares Dixon Wiggins, adding, “You get to certain points, review your finances, think about the road ahead and ask yourself, ‘Do you still believe in this knowing how much investment there has to be?’ At every check point for me, the answer has been, ‘Yes, of course!’”

The applicators she developed with Applied Experience can be paired with a wide range of cosmetics products from foundations to powders. The brush is constructed out of 275,000 synthetic bristles while the sponge is made from latex-free material and intended for lighter application than its brush counterpart. The brush is priced at $39 and sponge at $29. A set with both brush and sponge heads is $55.

Dixon Wiggins studied the cosmetics tools segment carefully to determine Yubi Beauty’s pricing. She envisions lower-priced possibilities in the future as the brand stretches into retail. “One of my brand inspirations is S’well. They do a fantastic job with tiering. They have beautiful, customized water bottles available on their site, and they have the lower-priced line Sip by S’well at Target,” says Dixon Wiggins. “I very much want to get my products into anyone’s hands who uses cosmetics. We will get there eventually with a tiered pricing structure and slight variations on the products.”

She’s confident Yubi Beauty can cascade across the retail landscape because she considers beauty enthusiasts spanning demographic divides as the brand’s customers. “Rather than looking at traditional demographics, I’m looking at common interests,” says Dixon Wiggins. “My target audience is women and men who are busy, and like to apply their cosmetics with their fingers. They’re concerned about healthy skin, and that’s not limited to age, income, region, educational background or ethnicity.”

At the outset of Yubi Beauty, the brand aims to reach those customers via its own e-commerce. Dixon Wiggins suggests broader retail penetration could be on the docket for its second year in business. At the moment, she’s concentrating on search engine optimization, and Yubi Beauty’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to communicate the brand’s positioning, inform customers about its offerings and raise awareness.

“This year is about establishing Yubi and getting the word out about our tool that people can use to easily enhance their cosmetic application experience,” says Dixon Wiggins. “We want to be a partner in beauty for men and women who want to look great.”