EO DELIVERS REFILL BAR TO S.F.
Three years after opening a Mill Valley store and 20 years after its founding, EO Products has ventured into San Francisco with a new 400-square-foot location front and center in the Market, the expansive culinary destination on the ground floor of the Tw
Q: How did the San Francisco store come about?
A: The stores have really come out of relationships. The guys who co-own the Market (Tom Collom and Bruce Slesinger) were friends of mine from Esprit 25 years ago. They opened Small Foods Company and that did very well. Because we have been in dialogue about products in the natural space over the last couple of years, they called me and said, “We are doing the Market. Would you like a space there?” We hadn’t really been intentionally looking to expand retail. It has to be the right opportunity for us.
Q: The stores have been a testing ground for a personal care product-refill system. What’s behind your interest in refills?
A: We have always taken very seriously environmental and sustainable issues. The idea is not to create any new plastic. Designing the refill system was so much harder than we ever thought. My business partner Brad is a quasi-engineer and he can do anything. He started playing with this concept a few years ago. Now it is very clean, minimal and functional and it looks like beautiful beer taps from a microbrewery. You can push a button and refill our top-selling products, and we will expand over time.
Q: What will customers discover in the store from EO Products?
A: In EO, we just introduced Ageless Skincare, which has five very premium synergistic active botanical products. We have a salt bar, so you can blend your own bath salts, and we have 81 essential oils and base oils, which we don’t offer in our regular lines. You can buy rose absolute, you can buy argan oil and coconut oil, for example, to blend your own. You can also buy unscented lotion and put an essential oil of your choice into it. You can refill products that you already bought or you can fill glass jars that you use as your main containers. There is lots of flexibility.
Q: Why don’t more beauty brands use essential oils instead of synthetic fragrances?
A: They are harder to work with. They are much more expensive. The reason synthetic happened is that it was way easier to control, manu- facture and get consistency with. With essential oils, there is an art and science behind blending and distilling them and, to learn it, you have to have curiosity and desire. EO stands for essential oils, and they are at the heart of everything we do.
Q: What do you think customers want from beauty shops today?
A: They want to be delighted and entertained and have an experience of what the products are like. The way we do that is through the way that the store smells. It is a combination of the earth and essential oils coming together. It is almost like when you walk into an arboretum or a botanical garden. It is a connection to nature that is really sensual and alive. It smells different than walking through the first floor of a department store.
Q: What do you hope poeple will take away from their experience with EO?
A: I hope that people really embrace it as a place of community and a place to enhance the quality of daily life and experience our products.