Creating and launching your own luxury private label cosmetics brand can be an exciting and rewarding venture. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or an established business owner looking to expand, you're in the right place!

First of all, what are private label and white label cosmetics? Great question! These are luxury cosmetics manufactured by one company (lets call this "company A"), but sold under the name of a different company (company "B"). Private labeling means company A can sell more product without needing to expand their customer base, while company B can have their own product line without incurring expensive R&D costs or needing manufacturing facilities. That's great, but what sets the products themselves out as unique? Private / white label cosmetics are high end products produced by leading manufacturers in the luxury skincare industry. This means that private label cosmetics can be sold as a more prestige and luxury offering.

So, you've decided to start researching private branding cosmetics companies, but what are you looking for? You have two options here:

• Work with a standard private labeling company (and loose the ability to customize the product or have your thoughts taken into account)
• Work with a formulation lab (incur higher fees and significantly longer delivery times)

If you choose a luxury private label cosmetics company, you generally loose the ability to have the product customized for your brand. This means that you won't be able to form a signature scent, or have a fully exclusive product line. You also won't be able to choose specific ingredients (for example, if you want the product line to be fully organic). On the other hand, a formulator can make you completely custom cosmetic products, but with significantly higher fees, and delivery times that run to 3+ months.

There is, however, an in-between space... at The Halcyon Network, we take existing premium products, and make minor modifications to fit the clients requests. This means that you can have a fully exclusive line of products, signature scent and all, while getting the quick turnover and low costs of luxury private label costmetics. Unlike most private labeling companies, we also take care of all label design and packaging, so you can order your products on an easy wholesale basis. We think this is the best option, but we're biased! So here are some others: 

• Vitelle Labs provides high quality cosmetic private labeling services, with fairly low minimum order requirements. They don't allow for any product customizability, and they are expensive, but they provide a wide range of both at-home and professional only products.
• DBO Labs is a formulation laboratory that makes luxury cosmetic formulae for every walk of life. They can manufacture in batch sizes from 30L all the way up to 500L, but it would take at least 3 months before any given formula is ready for manufacture.

 

Once you've decided what manufacturer you want to work with to produce your  luxury cosmetics line, you need to think about marketing. Here are some of our best tips!

2.) Implementing a Marketing and Sales Plan...

To kick your new luxury product line off, you're going to need to think about a few things:

• Your Target Audience
• The Design and Aesthetics
• A Marketing Strategy

Finding your target market is probably the most important aspect of marketing your luxury private labeling cosmetics line. Are you targeting a certain age range? Demographic? Income level? All of these things will help inform your marketing strategy, and even what ingredients to have in your custom formula. Some characteristics to think about for your target market include...

Age: This might be the most important factor for you to consider, as it will affect what ingredients you need to use. If you're targeting an older audience, you'll want to think about stocking custom anti-aging facials. For a younger audience, you'll want more casual moisturizers and luxury creams.

Income Level: When thinking about your target markets income level, you'll need to consider the ingredients in your final product. For example, that luxury anti-aging facial might be a bit expensive to produce, but you can swap out some ingredients and make it into a premium anti-aging moisturizer if you're targeting a slightly lower income level.

Lifestyle: What are the hobbies and interests of your target audience? You'll need to use marketing campaigns and private label formulae that resonate with their values. Doing this will help you build customer loyalty and carve out a niche in the luxury private label cosmetics industry.

The design and aesthetics of your labeling represent the customers first point of contact with your luxury private label product. You'll want the label to convey your brand message clearly, using visuals. For example, using a soft and rounded font if your brand is based in nature and sustainable sourcing. On the other hand, you may want a more clinical looking label with sharp fonts and contrasts for professional only products, like a private labelled anti-ageing facial. You can also think about the texture of the label, and how it can further heighten the customers experience of using your luxury private label product. This should be chosen to suite the packaging option itself. For the packaging, both metal and glass containers will lend a premium look and feel to the product, while wood or bamboo trim can make the product more down-to-earth.

To market your product, there are a few core strategies that you can use regardless of your target market and niche. These include:

• Social Media Marketing: Consider starting a social media account for your new private label business. This is a great way to grow a loyal following, since you can directly interact with your target audience and tell them your core messages.
• Influencer Partnerships: These play directly into the growth of your social media accounts, since they help you get your brand story and messaging into the eyes of a new audience. Carefully choose which influencers you partner with to align your private label cosmetics brand with the interests of your target audience.
• Online Marketing: This is a fantastic way to grow your brand awareness, as its akin to casting a large net and seeing who you fish in. On the flip side, influencer marketing provides you a more targeted approach, but doesn't grow brand awareness outside of the given influencers own following. You can run google ads, use a newsletter with email marketing, or use SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
• Attend Trade Shows: There's nothing as good as selling your luxury private label cosmetics brand in person. This could be done as a pop-up, to sell individual products, or you could attend larger shows to court the buying teams of potential retailers.

 

Whatever strategy you use, you need products that you love from a private label cosmetics company that takes your needs into mind. Whether you choose us or someone else is up to you, just make sure you have fun along the way!