As promised, here is the brand profile of Andalou Naturals. I discovered this fabulous organic beauty brand last week in the London Piccadilly outlet of US organic retail chain Whole Foods.
Whole Foods had two shelves full of Andalou Naturals; I spent at least half an hour trying out various creams and lotions and in the end bought three face masks: Brightening Glycolic Mask, Age Defying Bio-Active 8 Berry Fruit Enzyme Mask and the Sensitive 1000 Roses Rosewater Mask. I tried out the Glycolic Mask (which is based on organic pumpkin puree!) that very evening and my skin loved it; so the next day I went back to the Whole Foods to buy the Brightening Night Cream and the Clarifying Enzyme Peel. Of course I also googled Andalou but couldn’t find out much about the brand besides the usual info about products, ranges and so on.
Then, during my visit of Natural & Organic Products Europe trade show in London last Sunday (read my show report here), I walked past the exhibition stand of a large organic product distributor in the Food section – who also happened be the Andalou’s UK distributor! I had the chance to chat with Scott, the international sales director of Andalou Naturals, and asked him a ton of questions about the brand.
Andalou was founded in 2011 and, according to the company, it is the best-selling organic/natural skin care brand in the US and Canada. In its domestic market the products are sold in several distribution channels, including drugstores, organic supermarket and hypermarkets. In total, Andalou’s portfolio comprises some 100 sku across four face care ranges, hair care, body care and shower gels.
I was particularly impressed with is the high quality of the ingredients used in Andalou: the face care products, for example, are all based on organic aloe vera juice (not water!) and each product contains two plant-based ingredients complexes: Fruit Stem Cell Complex which is derived from apples and grapes and BioActive 8 Berry Complex (acai, aronia, bearberry, bilberry, elderberry, rose hips, goji and sea buckthorn berries). Plus different plant-derived fatty oils, plant extracts, tocopherol and so on. Even the shampoos and body lotions list aloe vera as the first ingredient on the packaging.
Check out the INCIs on the pic above. Great textures, too, and the prices are more than reasonable, especially for such excellent ingredients: the cleansers cost around 12.95 USD, the face masks retail for around 14.95 USD and the moisturisers are around 24.95 USD. The shower gels are priced at 9.95 USD for 251 ml, the body butters cost 13.95 USD for 236 ml and the shampoos are 9.95 USD for 340 ml. Long story short, I am now a big fan of Andalou!
The product ranges
The face care ranges are colour-coded: Age Defying is purple, Brightening is orange, Sensitive 1000 Roses is pink and Clarifying is blue. There’ll also be a fifth skin care range soon, Quenching (aquamarine). Unfortunately the Whole Foods store I visited only carried a partial selection of Andalou’s portfolio – the brand’s ranges are highly segmented and include some exciting products.
The Age Defying range for dry/very dry skin comprises 13 face care sku: cleansing milk, enzyme mask, hydrating mask, toner, serum, peptide cream firming cream, night cream, dermal filler, an unscented SPF 30 face serum, SPF 18 face lotion, SPF 30 BB cream and lip treatment. Besides the Fruit Stem Cell and BioActive 8 Berry complexes the active ingredients in this range also include Q10 and goji peptides.
Brightening has been formulated for normal/combination skin and offers eleven products: cream cleanser, eye makeup-remover, mask, scrub, toner, serum, cream, 3-in-1 treatment, SPF 30 BB cream, night cream and eye serum. In addition to the two proprietary complexes the actives in this product line include vitamin C, turmeric and sea buckthorn extract.
The Clarifying range is intended for oily and problem skin and comprises nine products: cleansing gel, enzyme peel, face scrub, pore minimiser, pore serum, mattifying moisturiser, SPF 30 BB cream, beta hydroxy cream and blemish gel. Besides the two key Andalou ingredients complexes, the Clarifying product also contain kombucha extract and willow bark extract.
Then there is the eleven-sku Sensitive 1000 Roses range for dry and sensitive skin. Products include a cleansing foam, a pearl scrub, a mask, toner and serum, day cream, night cream and face oil, SPF 18 lotion, SPF 30 CC cream and an eye gel. And the active ingredients in this product line, besides the Fruit Stem Cells and BioActive complexes, are damask rose extract and pomegranate.
And finally the new seven-sku Quenching range for dehydrated skin: foam cleanser, toner, cream mask, serum, day cream, night cream and eye cream – the key actives in this product line are prickly pear-derived AquaCacteen complex and coconut milk.
In addition to the face care ranges, there are four shampoo and conditioner duos plus a styling product in each hair care range (even the styling products are aloe vera based!), six shower gels, six body lotions, four body butters and three hand creams. And the brand’s most recent launches were Beauty 2 Go, a six-sku range of single-portion cream face masks and four hydro serum sheet masks (yay!), and a range of four konjac sponges.
Distribution
Andalou is available in the US and the UK as well as some other 20 countries across the world. I was particularly interested in finding out about their European presence and Scott told me that Lithuania is their first European market. They are also looking at Germany, France and Spain but, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, these are difficult organic markets, especially Germany. Andalou’s products do not carry an organic certification although I think that most of the products could easily be certified.
Amongst Andalou’s international markets are quite a few Asian countries; I was particularly interested to learn that a few weeks ago Andalou was launched in Singapore. The products are also retailed in Taiwan, in Malaysia (for example in the BMS Organics store chain), the Philippines and Vietnam. And very soon Andalou will start distributing their products in Japan – and they’ve selected some great retailers: organic perfumery chain CosmeKitchen, Shibuya’s Loft department store and the Tokyu Hands chain (all three are amongst my favourite Japanese store chains EVER!).
I really hope that Andalou will eventually make it to Europe. I think the products would do well here in Germany, even without an organic certificate. And I’d love to be able to buy Andalou Naturals from a Europe-based online store without having to order the products from the US. Or traipse through all the Whole Foods outlets in Central London!
TRENDS. TRAVELS. AND BERLIN 