Youth to the People is betting big on body care.
The superfood-infused skin care brand launched its Superfood Antioxidant Hand Wash, $39, and Superfood Hand + Body Lotion with Plant Butters, $48, in September. Now it is expanding its body care offering with three new stock keeping units launching direct-to-consumer this week: Superfood + Niacinamide Body Cleanser, $39; 10% AHA + Yerba Mate Body Scrub, $42, and Hydrate + Glow Dream Body Butter, $48.
For the Youth to the People team, body care wasn’t an “if’ but rather a “when.” After receiving requests for body care and feedback that consumers were using the brand’s bestselling Kale + Antioxidant Superfood Face Cleanser, $39, as a body wash, the team knew it was time.
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“It was a natural, organic move for us,” said Gouzelle Ishmatova, global brand president of Youth to the People, which was acquired by L’Oréal in 2021. “Consumers are still loving to indulge themselves and body is one other way of doing that. The market is booming as well — it’s double-digit growth in the United States and globally. We felt it was a good time to launch [the] body care collection with the same positioning as our skin care: superfood and science.”
In terms of the initial development, cofounder Joe Cloyes said the team focused on simplicity.
“We started to look at…what are the five, six, seven body products we really want,” he said, hinting that more body products will be coming in the future.
Ishmatova added: “We have a complete range for the time being and then we’ll see what other innovative ideas we have.”
Therefore, the team focused on creating a body care routine centered around cleansing, scrubbing and hydrating. Then came key ingredients, like niacinamide, featured in the cleanser and butter, to support healthy skin; alpha hydroxy acid, featured in the scrub, to slough away dead cells, and superfood antioxidants to protect the barrier. According to Cloyes, the use of active ingredients in each product has been a key differentiator for Youth to the People since the beginning.
With body care, the Youth to the People team had an opportunity to experiment more with scent, which led them to focus on functional fragrances, which have become increasingly popular since the COVID-19 pandemic. Brands like Frenshe and fragrance houses like Givaudan have also doubled down on functional scents over the past year.
While the team worked with a fragrance house to create custom scents that provide neurosensorial benefits, Cloyes said simplicity, again, is key in the messaging. Therefore each product is clearly titled to reflect a certain type of scent. For example, the cleanser scent is called “Elevated Self” and uses notes of fresh greens, black pepper and cedarwood to elevate the user’s mood.
As the brand releases body care, its early 2024 messaging will be focused on highlighting the new collection, according to Ishmatova. The products, which launch direct-to-consumer and on the Sephora app on Dec. 23, will also be available on sephora.com on Dec. 24 and in physical stores on Jan. 5.