Beauty & Wellness Briefing: How men’s skin-care brands are acquiring customers

Circana, formerly NPD Group, reported that 2022 men’s prestige skin-care sales reached $190.1 million, a 23% increase compared to 2021. Men’s grooming products are still dominated by functional personal care products, such as shaving preparations and deodorants. But data indicates there is a shift. Mintel’s 2023 Global New Products data shows that, since 2020, there has been a 14.7% increase in men’s skin-care product launches, as well as a 12.3% increase in hair treatments and dyes for men, showing a departure from more traditional grooming routines.

While established gender-neutral brands, like Kiehl’s and Aesop, are known to be popular among men and have established playbooks for that customer base, younger men’s brands are still navigating what works. And that navigation encompasses everything from how to talk to customers to how to show up in stores. With that in mind, Glossy spoke with several independent men’s brands of varying revenue sizes to understand what strategies work for finding and acquiring customers.

A different kind of education-led social approach

It may seem surprising, but male skin-care customers are just as eager as their female counterparts for product education. But while female customers may want to drill down to the specifics of product ingredients and formulations, men are more interested in understanding how a product will work for them, said Ingrid Jackel, CEO of Pangaea Holdings, Inc., which owns men’s skin-care brand Lumin and the grooming tools brand Meridian.

In April, Lumin underwent a rebrand to reaffirm itself as a solution-driven brand while adding a simplified and more fun look and feel. Jackel said the brand is on track to earn $50 million in 2023 sales. Before its rebrand, Lumin had a meme-focused social media approach, which was recentered to focus on entertaining content with education and brand-centric posts. Between April and December, that approach generated a 125% growth in organic reach and a 14% increase in Facebook followers. Jackel added that the brand’s approach to educational content is less about what’s in a product and more about what it does for its users. In 2024, Lumin plans to focus on platforms like Reddit and Discord, which have a strong male user base.

“We still have a lot of room to grow, educate men and bring them into the skin-care category. The industry has [room for growth] that we don’t necessarily have in the female category; women are pretty much all engaged,” said Jackel.

Meanwhile, 17-year-old Every Man Jack leans on social media messaging that is friendly, approachable and straightforward to give men the information they need to feel confident in their purchasing decisions. The brand sells beard wash, beard oil, body wash, deodorant, and basic face products like cleansers and eye cream.

Instagram is a large channel for the brand. Across both Instagram and TikTok, Every Man Jack has a roster of 30 influencers it works with on an ongoing basis to create content — they include people whose audience includes mothers, as well as experts who can discuss healthy skin-care habits. While Every Man Jack is not on TikTok Shop, the brand is aiming to grow its presence on the platform, where it has 311,000 followers. Its following has grown 188% since the beginning of 2023. TikTok content consists of behind-the-scenes videos of the brand headquarters called “Basecamp,” as well as posts featuring the founder and employees, and clips from brand ambassadors.

“We use influencers to drive momentum around specific campaigns. [The approach] is business-led based on what will be effective during a [certain] time of year,” said Ellie Off, head of marketing, brand and innovation at Every Man Jack.

Straightforward products

When beauty industry veteran Chris Salgardo began working on men’s skin-care brand Atwater, he opted to create a simple visual packaging system for customers to navigate: blue for oily skin, gold for dry skin and gray for combination skin. Products within these franchises include cleansers, moisturizers, an eye cream and a lip balm. Pricing was also important to not deter men from trying something new because of the price. Atwater products range from $12-$35. The 1-year-old Atwater is sold via DTC e-commerce, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bluemercury and Bloomingdale’s.

“Men don’t have the same number of products as their female counterparts. But there is so much room to migrate him [into new products] without getting crazy — like upgrading him from a bar of soap,” said Salgardo. “The challenge we have, which is also the opportunity, is that there is still so much stigma around [men] using skin care.”.

The Atwater core customer is 35 years old, but another 40% are ages 19-32. Notably, 18% of purchases from the brand are made by women. First-time purchases typically consist of 3-4 products. Salgardo said the 13-month-old business has made approximately $1 million in overall sales.

Lumin also takes a simplified approach to its product packaging. Offering approximately 45 SKUs, including serums, a clay mask and undereye patches, it designs packaging to provide clear understanding around the skin issue the products are made to solve. With the launch of the recent Power Detox Cleansing Bars in December, the focus is on the outcome that men care about, like detoxifying and hydrating, while the product itself comes in a familiar bar format, said Jackel. When the brand was re-designed it added a new logo featuring a lightbulb icon to signify Lumin’s new ethos of innovation and its aim to help men “feel and look their brightest.” The brand’s secondary product packaging was also updated, trading out its previous matte-green boxes for white and yellow ones featuring sporty icons of men flipping and jumping. 

Lumin’s rebrand efforts have paid off. Jackel said customer acquisition increased by 35% between April and October. Meanwhile, the average order value increased by 10% during that time. Lastly, purchases by Lumin’s 2 million subscribing customers increased by 60% between their renewal purchase period, meaning they are buying and testing more items in between product refreshes. The most popular product men are purchasing is the Instant Dark Circle Corrector.

“If you emotionally connect with [men], they’ll be willing to spend a little more, either by using an additional product or maybe [moving up to] a more premium [priced] product,” said Jackel. “The growth path is continuing to reach more men via category expansion.”

Finding the right retail strategy

Notably, Atwater has a primarily department store-focused distribution strategy. Salgardo said that department stores are still a viable beauty shopping destination for men because that is where shoes and clothing are also sold. It has been noted in the past that, instead of shopping with discounts and future plans in mind, as women often do, men are overwhelmingly concerned with convenience and finding what they need quickly. As online shopping has become more sophisticated, men have been gravitating more toward this channel. A 2023 Consumer Trends Report revealed that 63% more men than women shop online, and men are more likely than women to purchase from social media platforms.

Salgardo said that about 60% of Atwater’s sales are through wholesale retail and 40% are through DTC e-commerce, but he expects that to flip in an undetermined period. He said that the next phase for men’s grooming brands will be to elevate the in-store shopping experience, and only then will men move more into in-store purchases.

“Men are going to feel more confident and more seen if they’re at a computer screen or on their phone and can ask questions,” said Salgardo. “Once merchandising changes for men, and there’s more of an expression for men in stores, we’ll see [a move to stores].”

Every Man Jack takes a wide omnichannel approach as a more established brand. It is sold in big box stores like Target and Walmart, as well as through DTC e-commerce, Amazon and grocery stores. In October, Reuters reported that the brand’s owner, PE firm Carlyle Group, was exploring a sale for the brand that would value the brand at around $400 million. It estimated that the brand is doing $100 million in annual revenue.

Every Man Jack has a strong sales penetration on Amazon, though Off did not share specific figures. In September, when the brand launched a premium collection of beard products, it did so exclusively on its DTC e-commerce and Amazon. The branded Amazon storefront asserts the brand’s outdoorsy aesthetic with pictures of forests and mountains, and packaging that features both. Additionally, it emphasizes the brand’s fragrances, which are also inspired by the outdoors.

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