Retailer Review: Persephone Beauty

Persephone Beauty was founded by a husband and wife duo with a shared passion for natural beauty. After trial and error, trying a lot of products and mastering the art of deciphering an ingredients list, Persephone Beauty was born. Read on for an insight into their background, what they look for in beauty brands, and how they've been adapting to the current COVID-19 crisis.

I'm Laura, co-founder of Persephone Beauty, a store dedicated to offering an edited selection of the very best in natural, conscious and sustainable beauty. I have a background in Digital & Social Media, and my husband and I founded the company during my pregnancy last year. I’d become increasingly conscious of what I was putting onto our skin and the ingredients, and becoming pregnant really just gave us the push to launch the site. 

 

We know that the world of natural beauty can be overwhelming, with conflicting messaging so we have cut through the confusion with our edited selection of products. With a passion for sustainability driving our decisions, we're proud to provide the conscious consumer with a destination to discover only the very best brands.

 

Our typical customer is very interested in beauty, conscious of their environmental footprint and expects transparency when it comes to ingredients, packaging and the values of a brand. Long-term, we look forward to expanding our team (we're proud to work with some fantastic female creatives currently) and continuing to champion the brands who are doing good for the world. 

The number one thing we look at first is the INCI list, followed by the brand's overall ethos. If it aligns with ours, then great! To make natural beauty as accessible as possible, we also look for brands that are affordable for our customers.

 

Support and enthusiasm! We only stock brands that we love, we think our customers will love and brands that offer a combination of natural and results-driven formulations. Our social presence is where we connect, educate and converse about all of our brands, so we strive to represent our brands most effectively there. 

 

We're focusing on expanding our plastic-free offering, as this is by large the biggest search term used on site. So many brands are offering innovative packaging options that it's a really exciting time. Face oils (like TRUE and Neighbourhood Botanicals) continue to be our best-sellers too, so we're always concentrating on the virtues of a good oil.

 

 

Keep making products that are meeting our customer's demand! Every brand we work with is run by someone who has a strong vision for their own brand which is just amazing to see.

 

We already worked remotely with our team but we've made safety our highest priority - I've been packing all orders myself, with gloves. Surprisingly, March was particularly busy for us. I think consumers wanted home comforts, as face masks in particular were ordered most frequently. It's led to us focusing even more strongly on defining our brand values across social media, as well as implementing new strategies across advertising and platforms including Pinterest.

 

We have been using a tried & tested method of mapping customers through analytics, responding to demand and also always focusing on strong photography and visuals. Our co-founder and my husband Chris has a background in data and is a bit of a numbers fiend - early on with the launch, we have been adapting and tweaking site code to meet demand for example. He also fanatically monitors our key searches, so we're able to meet customer demand - e.g. with our rise of plastic-free beauty.