Green Beauty Conversations by Formula Botanica

One of the questions we are most often asked at Formula Botanica is whether it's worth hiring a designer to help with branding your beauty business. With start-up beauty brands pressed for cash flow and with the proliferation of free or low-cost design apps and programs, it's tempting to think we can do it all ourselves. In this episode of Green Beauty Conversations, we answer most of those FAQs, and hope to clarify why and when you might wish to outsource to a designer. We go behind the scenes of a typical branding process to talk you through what you can expect from a graphic designer or branding agency, and how best to work with them in smooth collaboration. Our guest is Nancy Poller founder of Aligned Design Co, which is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs with their branding from initial discovery phases to fully-fledged visual interpretation. Nancy has a long-held passion for the beauty sector, having, as she admits, spent hours trawling the aisles of Space NK and top department store cosmetic counters. She has developed a keen eye for what's trending and shares some good advice on how to stand out from the pack of competitors. Nancy kindly shares her Workbook on Brand Discovery, which might prove food for thought before you hire a designer. It helps you dig deep into what your brand stands for and is a mini version of Aligned Design's Client Discovery process. In this episode, you'll hear about: The ingredients of brand identity; The latest trends in beauty branding and why it might not be a good idea to follow them; Why your competitors are a great resource in helping you define your brand; How to decide on which brand designer to hire, whether freelancer or an agency; and What to expect when collaborating with a designer in branding your beauty business. Key take-aways from this episode on branding your beauty business include: What part of the branding process you can do yourself, and what is best outsourced; Why you need to budget for a professionally-designed logo, even if they look simple and easy to do yourself; Why and how your branding contributes to defining your tribe and your business vibe; and Understanding that your branding is meant first and foremost to resonate with your customers and retail partners. For more gems from Nancy on how to go about branding your beauty business, find Aligned Design Co here: Aligned Design Co website Aligned Design Co on Instagram Aligned Design Co on Facebook Aligned Design Co on Twitter Nancy Poller on Pinterest Listen, Download and Subscribe to Green Beauty Conversations Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don't forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

As we watch indie beauty brands crushing it on Instagram with amazing eye candy images and gathering tribes into the tens of thousands, we may think that kind of brand visibility is an impossible dream for our own beauty businesses. While it does, of course, take hard graft to get that kind of brand awareness, you can go far if you know from the start how to define, style and build your brand on strong foundations. Our guest in this episode of Green Beauty Conversations offers some invaluable advice and practical to-do's on branding a beauty business for success. Joining us is professional photographer and branding guru Briena Sash, founder of Wellness Stock Shop, which is an extensive resource of stock photos tailored to the needs of the natural beauty and wellness industry. Briena has joined us for a branding webinar in the past at Formula Botanica, but here, for the first time, she shares three key branding exercises to work through before you rush out to hire a graphic designer or talk logos! Listen in and then download the workbook Briena has kindly shared with us and put your new insights to work. Even if your brand is up and running, there is plenty here to help you hone your beauty branding strategies for greater success. In this episode, you'll hear: How both visual and emotional elements combine to form the essential building blocks for branding a beauty business. Why you need to invest up front, as early as you can, in defining and styling your brand. But why you need also to dig deep and map your brand voice yourself before hiring a graphic or brand designer. About how branding is never static, and why you need to revise, refresh and rethink your branding periodically. Briena shares three practical exercises in the Branding Workbook accompanying this episode. We recommend you take your time working through it. Key take-aways from this podcast include: Successful beauty brands are those that connect with their customers and audiences on an emotional level. Visual branding - from the fonts you use to your Instagram images and packaging - derive from and support your brand voice. They are powerful, but they aren't the first things to start with in a branding exercise. Branding a beauty business is more about developing a lifestyle people enjoy or aspire to! Think of your brand as a personality: what kind of person is it, and what kind of people would be attracted to chatting with it? Above all, think of your customers and potential customers. What are their needs and how do your products solve their issues, light their fire and inspire them? Find the Wellness Stock Shop: Wellness Stock Shop website Wellness Stock Shop on Instagram Wellness Stock Shop on Facebook Wellness Stock Shop on Pinterest Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don't forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

We kick off a series of podcasts on branding indie beauty businesses with a marathon interview packed with actionable advice. You've no doubt heard the one about your brand being more than your logo, but have you worked out what this means in reality? Here, at Formula Botanica, we thought we knew all about branding, and how it applies to indie beauty businesses, but our chat with Rob Moore of The Design Co certainly opened our eyes. We'll give you a clue to just how much more there is to branding: it's only by Tip 8, that we start talking about logos and visual design. The eye-catching visual elements that we tend to think of as branding are only the tip of the brand iceberg. A truly strong, successful brand is one that creates touch points with its audiences from the very start and pays attention to fine-tuning the little details that go into running a business day to day. Rob is an energetic, inspirational designer who went through this self-same checklist when he set up his own branding agency just a couple of years ago and needed to define what he wanted for his business. Since then, he has been key in branding several start-ups turned successful indie beauty businesses such as Pink's Boutique and Proverb Skin whose founders were guest speakers at the Formula Botanica 2017 Conference. As he admits, it's not an easy task to brand, or rebrand, but he hand-holds us through his top 10 tips giving us a clear action plan to follow. If you're thinking of turning your passion for natural cosmetics into a business, or even if you're already running one, Rob's advice will revolutionise how you've thought about branding or growing your brand. Rob is offering us his Essential Guide to a Strong Brand, which we suggest you download and use as a checklist once you've listened in. In this episode on branding indie beauty businesses, you'll hear about: Why your brand name is a big deal and needs as much planning as your entire branding exercise; What to look out for when buying domain names and applying for trademarks; Why your brand's reputation is built from the very start, and from those little everyday interactions with your audiences; Why your product is not your brand; How your customer service and your employees are critical brand ambassadors; and How your own story and journey to starting your business is key to captivating customers and making an emotional connection with them. Key take-aways include: Each product sale can take as many as 12 brand touch points with your customer. Bear this in mind when designing your website, your daily customer service touch points and post-sales follow-up. Leave nothing to chance. Don't talk up your products nor use hyperbole in how you portray your brand. In some ways, it's best to undersell and then over deliver in order to gain happy, loyal customers. Remember that customers are key in branding indie beauty businesses. They build your brand reputation, not you. They are highly influential in marketing your brand on social media and through word of mouth. Think of the bigger picture: don't make every single action sales related. Get out there and do good in your local community or for example by donating a percentage of some sales to charities or causes that are in line with your brand mission. You can find The Design Co here: The Design Co website The Design Co on Facebook The Design Co on Twitter The Design Co on Instagram Listen, Download and Subscribe to Green Beauty Conversations Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don't forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In our very first Green Beauty Conversations podcast, we discussed what natural means in skincare and this week's topic about sustainable beauty is another of those hotly-debated issues that has no clear-cut definition. We'd go so far as to say there are even more interpretations of the term 'sustainable' as used in the natural beauty world than there are shades of green. To help us unravel sustainable beauty and shed light on the top concerns, we spoke to Dr Barbara Olioso, a cosmetic chemist with a long-standing fascination for the traditions of herbalists and formulating with natural ingredients. With over 20 years in both the beauty and food science industries, Barbara now runs her own business, The Green Chemist Consultancy. In this episode, Barbara talks us through the perennial dilemmas about sustainability that face us in our everyday formulating, let alone when we start a beauty brand. From bio-based packaging to sourcing sustainable ingredients and from child labour issues to cruelty-free claims, we touch on just about every elephant lurking in the offices of green beauty businesses. We admit that you might come away from listening to this episode with more questions raised than answered! We hope it helps you make your own conscious choices in deciding what sustainable beauty means to you, whether you are home formulating, buying green beauty or running a cosmetics' business. In this episode, you'll hear about: Why the label 'green' or 'natural' does not mean a cosmetic product or brand is a sustainable beauty entity; Benchmarking your own formulations and green beauty business against 17 UN sustainable development goals; How unsustainable practices can lurk in the most unlikely corners of the green cosmetics industry; How the food industry is influencing and helping drive sustainability in beauty; Why there is no 100% sustainable natural or synthetic ingredient; and Why there is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach to implementing sustainable practices. Barbara gives us plenty of pointers on what to think through as we map our own path in sustainable beauty and articulate our mission and ethics. Key take-aways from this podcast include: Don't assume that a naturally-sourced, botanical ingredient is a more sustainable raw material; do thorough homework on its provenance, in particular on the supplier and grower. Zero waste is desirable but the cosmetics' industry needs to use packaging that protects both product life and consumer health and safety. New developments in how we formulate cosmetic products - for example, solid shampoos that reduce plastic consumption - are pioneering sustainable beauty; this is a trend to watch. Barbara Olioso's consultancy offers a range of services to natural beauty businesses, including skincare formulation and certification advice as well as short webinars on areas such as Cosmos certification and natural alternatives to synthetics. You can find Barbara online here: The Green Chemist Consultancy Website. Dr Barbara Olioso on LinkedIn. Dr Barbara Olioso on Twitter. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica: Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on iTunes or Stitcher so that more people can enjoy the show. Don't forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.