Scalp Care Brand Act+ Acre Enters Sephora
According to industry sources, the brand could garner more than $10 million in retail sales its first year with the retailer.
Act+Acre is headed to Sephora.
The scalp care brand, founded by hairstylist and trichologist Helen Reavey, will now be available at 235 Sephora doors nationwide. To start, six of the brand's stock keeping units, including Cold Processed Hair Cleanse Shampoo, $32; Restorative Deep Conditioning
Hair Mask, $38; 2% Stem Cell H2-Grow Complex™ Scalp Serum, $86; BHA Salicylic Acid Scalp Renew Exfoliator,
$48; Vitamin E Scalp Detox Oil, $48, and Fulvic Acid Volumizing Dry Shampoo,
$26, will be available at brick-and-mortar stores, while 16 products will be available online. Three exclusive products that are extensions of one of Act+Acre's hero skus are set to launch with the retailer in October, according to the brand.
According to Colm Mackin, Act+Acre's chief executive officer and Reavey's husband, the brand's unique value proposition ignited this partnership with Sephora.
"Scalp is not actually a subcategory of hair. It's its own category," he told WWD. Reavey seconded this notion.
“When we started out no one was talking about scalp care," she said. "We launched Act+Acre not to create a brand, but to create a category that focused on the root of hair and scalp issues, rather than a quick fix."
While the brand had been in conversation with Sephora for awhile, their pitch to create the scalp care category in retail sealed the deal. According to the brand, increased interest in scalp care also resulted in a larger, nationwide Sephora rollout.
"We flew out to San Francisco and we pitched to them what this would look like," said Mackin of the Sephora partnership. "We're not a one-size-fits-all. We're not a hair care brand. We are a scalp care brand. We want to help you develop this over the next two years to be its own category and we feel that's like a moment where we really connected about growing this year."
With this, Act+Acre will be merchandised in the hair care section as part of Sephora's Next Big Thing wall.
"We are thrilled to introduce Act+Acre to our clients as we continue to grow this important, emerging category of hair wellness," said Jennifer Lucchese, vice president of hair care merchandising at Sephora.
While scalp care has become a major trend — the hashtag on TikTok has 1.7 billion views and several brands have recently launched scalp serums — Act+Acre has positioned itself entirely within this category.
That emerging status led Act+Acre to create a snappy, engaging video for Sephora employees to learn about scalp care, as well as teach the team how to analyze the scalp with a microscopic camera for in-store events. The brand hosts scalp clinics at its Lower East Side concept space periodically, as well. However, according to Reavey, the Sephora customer has such a strong understanding of skin care that educating on scalp care is a seamless transition.
"Because the Sephora members know already so much about skin care, we actually find it really easy there to talk to them about skin care and relate that to the scalp because it really is an extension of the face," said Reavey. "As we grow out our educators…the scalp specialists, we will be going in-store, building that team to be sure that we are providing the right education."
Reavey and Mackin noted that their approach to education always starts with meeting the consumer where they are and helping them understand their own scalp needs.
With scalp care and the "skinification" of hair well established, Act+Acre has experienced significant growth over the last year and is now also available at Cult Beauty U.K., Heyday and Neiman Marcus. According to industry sources, the brand could garner more than $10 million in retail sales its first year with Sephora. According to the brand, the business is expected to double over the next 12 months.