Flamingo, Harry’s sister, gets ready to shave
Brittania Boey, left, and Allie Melnick, brand leaders for Harry’s new brand Flamingo
NEW YORK — Harry’s has carved out a niche selling men shaving razors direct to their doors, elbowing in on an industry long dominated by names like Gillette and Schick.
In the process, the company says it found that 1 million women were using its products, too.
So its logical next step is Flamingo, a direct-toconsumer hair-removal and body-care brand for women that launches Tuesday.
Flamingo’s leaders say their aim is to make women more comfortable talking about shaving and waxing.
“We want to normalize the fact that women might have hair here or there, and if they choose to remove it, we want to support that,” Allie Melnick, the general manager for Flamingo said.
Flamingo is the first brand to emerge from Harry’s Labs, an offshoot of the company that has chipped away at the market share of industry giant Gillette, capitalizing on consumer frustration with pricey razors. Harry’s received $112 million this year to develop new brands.
Flamingo offers a fiveblade razor, waxing kits, shaving gel and body lotion for women. The products will be sold on Flamingo’s direct-to-consumer website, a space where the brand’s leaders, Melnick and Brittania Boey, hope to open frank conversations about women and body hair.
The duo says Harry’s internal research shows nearly all U.S. women choose to shave or wax away some of their body hair. They say Flamingo wants to offer products and tips to help women do that.
Harry’s launched as a direct-to-consumer company in 2013. It has since expanded into body care for men and sells its products in Target and Walmart. Along with rival Dollar Shave Club, the company shook up the $2.8 billion U.S. men’s shaving industry, forcing Gillette to slash its razor prices and revamp its marketing strategy.
Harry’s remains a relatively small player, with 2 percent of the market, according to the Euromonitor International market research firm. But its direct-to-consumer model has helped create a sense of intimacy with its customer base that bigger brands find hard to replicate.
Flamingo hopes for the same success in the $1 billion U.S. women’s shaving industry, where Gillette holds 50 percent of the market, according to Euromonitor.
Several new online brands have already seized attention, if not yet significant market share.
Among them are Angel Shave Club, which donates part of its sales to the Malala Fund to promote education for girls abroad. The startup Billie made a splash since launching last year with ads showing body hair — including a gif of a woman shaving her toe — while declaring war on the “pink tax,” the notion that women typically pay more than men for the same product.
Flamingo mirrors Harry’s in pricing and the simplicity of its offerings. It has one five-blade razor with a handle that comes in three different colors, priced at $9. Cartridge replacements are $2.25 per blade. It’s a deliberate contrast to the array of women’s razors from Gillette and No. 2 player Schick, which range from disposable razors for around $1 a piece to higherend razors at 4$ or $5 per blade replacement.