Lauren Perez Unveils Argan Oil-based Anablue Hair Care Brand
Lauren Perez is the latest influencer to get into the beauty game.
Perez, a designer and creative director for the likes of Alo Yoga and Good American, as well as an influencer in her own right, is introducing her first play in beauty. Called Anablue, the brand is debuting on its website Wednesday with a pre-wash hair oil, a scalp cleanser and a hair serum. They range in price from $25 to $42.
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Perez drew inspiration from her own Moroccan heritage, she told WWD. “As a child growing up in a Moroccan home, my parents were immigrants coming to the States, and they wanted me to preserve my culture and where I came from,” she said. “My dad had so many ties to Morocco still, and one friend has a farm in Morocco that still sends us oils. We got a lot of argan oil and prickly pear oil, and I would experiment with them in my house.”
After cooking up products in her kitchen, including the treatment oil — the brand’s hero product — she started offering samples to her friends. The creation of Anablue is just a formalized version of that homemade ethos, as it relates to her business plan.
“We’re going to launch [direct-to-consumer] first because I want to build the core Anablue family,” she said. “Eventually, when we build that community, I would love to do brick-and-mortar. I would love to be in European and Moroccan stores, and I can see our product in spas.”
Moroccan argan oil is the hero ingredient throughout each of the products. The treatment oil combines it with prickly pear seed oil, rosa damascena oil and geranium oil; the scalp cleanser pairs it with Himalayan pink salt.
“All three of these products work incredibly on their own, so as much as they create this harmonious routine together, they work just as well separately,” Perez said, who only uses the full system on a weekly basis. Her goal is to make preventive hair care as common as it is in skin care.
“It’s an extremely low-maintenance routine that I’m presenting to the industry and there’s not that much to it. If you just did this once a week, you would see the results,” she said. “The skin care industry has done such a great job at marketing, and hair care has just sold products that repair damaged hair. But if you have a routine that keeps your hair healthy first, it’s less product.”
Product marketing will follow suit. “It’s very organic marketing, just about your hair and different textures,” she said. “It’s a lot of videos, and a lot of how-tos. I want people to understand the step-by-step and the education behind it. It’s educating our customer.”
Perez didn’t comment on sales, but industry sources estimate the brand will reach $5 million in its first year.
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