For the past eight years, customization has driven growth at BaubleBar. That was first through jewelry and, in the past five years, via a robust phone case program. As such, the brand has continued to expand its customizable offerings. Now, BaubleBar is adding hairbrushes to the mix, selling for $42 each. Shoppers can choose from seven colors and two fonts.
“A lot of our custom [products], especially ones outside of jewelry, come from hearing from customers or observing our customers doing something where we feel like we can help them accessorize in a new way,” said BaubleBar co-founder and CEO Amy Jain.
Though there are a lot of companies offering customizable products nowadays, Jain said BaubleBar’s have continued to resonate. That’s based on sales and popularity with a laundry list of influencers and celebrities including Hilary Duff, Shay Mitchell, Nina Dobrev, Molly Sims, Tinx, Arielle Charnas and Batsheva Haart. “During peak gifting moments, sales of our custom items can make up as much as half of our e-commerce sales,” Jain said.
She added, “We didn’t plan for the phone cases to blow up the way they did. But so many people were filming in a mirror and capturing their phone cases front and center, and it grew from there. … For Gen Z, they offer an opportunity to take the tiny digital box in which you present yourself and infuse something a bit more personal.”
The $72 phone cases remain popular due to the many color combinations and font options the brand offers, including cursive letters, block letters, glitter-outlined letters and different colored cases. “It’s not just a phone case sitting at the factory that we stamp and send out; [the product] is literally hand-cut to order in a dust-free room,” she said.
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The brand has earned loyal fans of its customized products, Jain said. “The majority of customers who have purchased a custom item from us have [purchased] at least two.”
To promote the new hairbrushes, the brand is seeding around 70 to influencers including Darcy Mcqueeny, Emilie Kiser, Batsheva Haart, The Home Edit, Meredith Duxbury, Mireya Rios, Matt Loves Hair, The Dad Social, Mikayla Nogueira, Whitney Port, Gracie Norton, Chris Appleton, Jen Atkin, Makeup by Mario and Justine Marjan.
“It was important to not only seed the hairbrush to relevant people in the hair community, but to also expand our network by reaching people who post all types of content that might also want a fun hairbrush to share with their followers,” said Francesca Mileo, BaubleBar’s marketing director. “We’re tapping into these niche content [corners]; for example, [within] ‘Get Ready With Me,’ there’s this pocket of dads that are doing hair for little girls, and we’re gifting hairbrushes to [some of them].” The brand is also sending brushes to cool hair care brands, like Ouai, which may opt to use the brushes as accessories in their own social media posts.
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The BaubleBar customer is the girl who is thinking about being well-accessorized in every facet of her life, Jain said. The brand has a wholesale accessories program and sells a hair accessories collection at Ulta Beauty. In addition, it sells hair accessories at Nordstrom and Target via a lower-priced SugarFix by BaubleBar collection — items retail for $10-$25.
“[Hairbrushes are] less about accessorizing [and more like] using something in a similar way to using a phone case,” said Jain. “She’s on the go, and she is particular about how her accessories look in her handbag. She’s particular about how her accessories look in her beach tote. So the idea here was to give her an on-the-go moment that just sparks a little bit of joy.”
