Wellness gurus cash in
CARLA OATES
CHEMICAL-FREE beauty, crystal facial-rollers, and “glow” powder supplements.
“Wellness” is the self-care buzzword that has quickly become a lucrative and growing global industry.
And it’s raking in serious cash for Australian moguls who are selling their products off the wellness message.
These are the Australian entrepreneurs – from supermodels and ecommerce executives to Byron Bay locals – building multimillion-dollar empires off the back of it.
Carla Oates
She has built a multimillion-dollar empire, according to Forbes, off the back of her “beauty begins in the belly” trademark.
Based in Bondi Beach, Carla Oates – a former stylist and beauty writer – is the brains behind The Beauty Chef, a line of powders, liquids, sprays and lip balms positioned around boosting gut health.
She founded the business in 2009 from her bedroom, and grew it into a multimillion-dollar empire stocked at Selfridges, on luxury fashion site NetA-porter, as well as Anthropologie and Gwyneth Paltrow’s influential website, Goop. The brand has amassed a 167,000-strong following on Instagram.
Oates’s products include the bestselling Collagen Inner Beauty Boost ($42), Glow Inner Beauty Powder ($65) and a Well Spray ($29), and she’s written books including The Beauty Chef Cookbook and The Beauty Chef Gut Guide.
“What sets The Beauty Chef apart from other brands in the market is our holistic view of health, beauty and wellbeing,” Oates told News Corp Australia.
“Unlike other probiotic supplements, which often only contain one or two strains of bacteria, our unique bio-fermentation process, Flora Culture, involves introducing 14 species of bacteria and beneficial yeasts into our ingredients to ferment for a period of six to eight weeks.
“This results in a potent, natural and food-based probiotic that nourishes the gut and promotes radiant skin from within.”
So how does The Beauty Chef define “wellness”? “I’m such a big believer in wellness is beauty and beauty is wellness,” Oates said.
“When I launched my first inner beauty product back in 2009, it was a challenge to break into the mainstream beauty market.
“The feedback from a business perspective was that the idea was a little too left of field. Lacto-fermentation and the benefits of probiotics as well as gut health were only just beginning to be understood in the health arena, but it was a very new concept for the beauty world.
“Ten years later and consumers are spoiled for choice.”
Miranda Kerr
Supermodel Miranda Kerr went from the runway to a full-fledged business powerhouse with her take on the wellness movement: Kora, a line of organic skincare.
The former Victoria’s Secret Angel, 36, has a net worth of $US45 million and 12.1 million followers on Instagram and launched the brand to huge success in 2009.
Kora is now stocked in 200 retailers across Australia (including David Jones) and in the United States, where it is available at Sephora.
Speaking to News Corp Australia, Los Angeles-based Kerr said the brand – of which she self-funded 95 per cent – had been developed with a “holistic approach to overall wellness” in mind.
Kerr’s take on wellness is to “feed your mind with positive affirmations and self-love, feed your body with the nutrients it needs to function at its best and feed your skin with products to help detoxify, nourish and to revitalise”.
Julie Stevanja
She’s the brains behind Stylerunner – the $50 million Australian activewear empire, stocking PE Nation, Adidas and her own line of athleisure wear.
In August, Sydney-based Julie Stevanja – who has an Instagram following of 614,000 and counting – expanded her business into the wellness sector, with the launch of stylerunner.com/wellness.
The former corporate banker described the launch – billed as #JustAddwellness – as “one of the strongest category launches we’ve seen to date”.
“I think there is a trend of consumers looking to trusted retailers to sell them a wider assortment of offerings – it’s more convenient, it’s faster and it’s more efficient than fragmented shopping across multiple sites,” Stevanja told News Corp Australia.
Stylerunner’s Wellness offering is in a similar vein to overseas models seen on luxury shopping site Net-aPorter and American fashion chain Urban Outfitter.
“On category growth, consumers are continuing to become more and more educated on how to look after themselves, how to achieve optimal performance and how to recover better,” she said. “They also understand that they’ll receive benefits not only from working out and purchasing new activewear, but also achieve results faster when they supplement with protein powders, magnesium, superfoods, vitamins.”
Stevanja said she expanded Stylerunner into the wellness space after market research revealed an overwhelming response in 24 hours.
“We found a huge level of interest from our customers in terms of purchasing wellness products,” she said.
“Our customer is already interested in proteins and supplements, so launching wellness was a natural progression.”
Stylerunner’s Wellness e-store stocks a curated product range including The Beauty Chef, Mayde Tea, Bear, Inca Organics, Life Botanics, Vida Glow and The Healthy Chef, as well as crystal face rollers and sculpting boards by Theseeke.
Danielle Egan
Non-toxic, ethical and vegan. Danielle Egan owns Sienna Byron Bay – a line of nail polishes (minus the nasties) considered a market leader in toxin-free polishes.
Founded five years ago, Sienna is, of course, manufactured in the Byron Shire.
Egan, 36, is an entrepreneur and former clothing designer, who took her original ambition of becoming a mobile nail technician and turned it into a full-fledged brand with more than 30,000 Instagram followers and celebrity clients, including Barely Famous star and producer, Erin Foster.
Egan started selling the polishes at the Byron Beachside Markets in 2014 with 13 colours. The range now includes about 70 products (priced from $25 each), with stockists in 20 countries. “The main difference is that we are ethically and sustainably produced, as well as being vegan, inclusive and Australian made,” Egan told News Corp Australia.
It’s a beauty-based spin on the wellness industry. “The formula is free of nasties and we are proud to say we have the cleanest formula on the market,” she said, of the Sienna Byron Bay line.
Egan said her business was evolving with plans for a US expansion.
“We’ve come a long way since our launch and we are growing,” Egan said.
“We’re market leaders in Australia and are currently working exclusively with one of the biggest eco-beauty companies in the US.
“We have the cleanest formula on the market, and we depend on science to make sure the polish will still give a luxe, durable finish.”
Given “wellness” is a buzzword-ofthe-moment, Egan had some advice for consumers when navigating which products to purchase.
“Keep an eye out for companies that are honest and ethical, this way they know they are getting what they pay for,” she said.