HigherDose Gears Up for Retail and Service Expansion
Wellness brand HigherDose, known for its at-home, technology-based products, is expanding its footprint with new retail partnerships in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., as well as a new lymphatic drainage facial treatment in its New York studios.
HigherDose was founded in 2016 by Lauren Berlingeri and Katie Kaps with the goal to bring chic, infrared sauna locations to New York. Berlingeri had tried out an infrared sauna and fell in love with the benefits — detoxification, relaxation, brighter skin and reduced muscle tension.
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HigherDose has two sauna outposts, one at the 11 Howard Hotel and one in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. The brand also has an exclusive partnership with 1 Hotels, through which its products can be rented at the wellness concierge at several locations.
However, the brand gained real traction when it launched its first product, the Infrared Sauna Blanket, $599, in 2017. It continued launching at-home products, including the Infrared PEMF Mat, $1,095, and the Red Light Face Mask, $299. In the last year, HigherDose has entered into the ingestible category with chlorophyll Detox Drops, $29, magnesium-based Chill Chews, $39, and High-Dration Powder, $39, “all designed to enhance the benefits of the tech” said Kaps, the co-chief executive officer. With its new retail partners, HigherDose is bringing several of its products to a broader market.
“Our evolution from being actual spa locations to selling direct-to-consumer was definitely in the spirit of reaching mass audiences, scaling, getting in front of more people. Our retail expansion is a natural extension of that, because we’re going to have a physical presence in markets that are maybe not as familiar with HigherDose,” said Kaps.
In order to showcase its ever-expanding product line, HigherDose is partnering with several retailers through the end of the year. To kick off its retail expansion, the brand will be featured in Pop-In@Nordstrom, an enterprise of themed pop-ups the retailer hosts throughout the year. With this partnership, its Red Light Face Mask, Infrared Sauna Blanket and PEMF Pro Mat will be available in nine cities throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as on nordstrom.com from Oct. 7 to Jan. 8. “People will be able to go into Nordstrom and get introduced to the brand, touch and feel the products and become customers in a whole new way,” said Kaps.
The brand is set to offer products online with Neiman Marcus and Saks. By Dec. 1, the majority of HigherDose’s product offerings will also be available at 20 Bluemercury brick-and-mortar locations. The brand will continue international expansion, as it launches at Harrods this November. At WWD’s CEO Summit this May, Berlingeri and Kaps said they had sold more than 100,000 units of wellness tech. With this continued expansion, the brand expects its retail business to double yearly for the next several years.
HigherDose chief growth officer Lisa Pounds said the brand received “great reception from buyers who are really looking for wellness technology and looking beyond just skin surface beauty.” While the brand is also launching a lymphatic drainage facial treatment at its New York studios, more expansion is on the horizon according to Kaps. She said HigherDose’s future includes larger investment in research and clinical trials, “more expansion into retail, more expansion overseas, more b-to-b [business-to-business] partnerships” and “expanded product offering, going into new categories.”
