NEW YORK — With a new line called HE, Iredale Mineral Cosmetics Ltd. is the latest beauty brand to market men’s makeup.
While men’s facial moisturizers and even eye-treatment products — billed by beauty marketers as extensions of the shaving regimen — have developed a consumer following in recent years, suffice it to say the men’s makeup arena is quite a sparse playing field.
Estée Lauder’s Aramis brand took a stab at the category when it launched Surface, an 11-item range of concealers, a bronzer and skin care items with cosmetic benefits that was introduced in 2000 but is no longer on the market. Mass market brand King of Shaves introduced XCD, a five-item line featuring a mattifier, a self-tanning facial moisturizer and a tinted moisturizer, in 2003. And Jean Paul Gaultier launched with great fanfare Le Male Tout Beau Tout Propre, a dozen items including illuminator cream, a mattifyer and an eye pencil, in 2003. The designer subsequently expanded the range with new products last year.
Now, HE, an offshoot of the 11-year-old color cosmetics business founded by former casting agent Jane Iredale, features five shades of mineral-based, SPF 18 pressed powder foundations, called Bronzers — or “bases,” as the U.K. native likes to say.
HE also includes an applicator brush that’s designed to resemble an old-fashioned men’s shaving brush, a lip balm, a microfiber wash glove and a $58 kit that includes the full eight-item line, which ranges in price from $12 for the lip balm to $42 for each Bronzer.
Each HE matte-finish Bronzer, which doubles as a concealer, is billed as a water-resistant “dry” sunscreen designed to “make the skin look better and [to] not look like there’s anything on the skin,” said Theresa Robison, director of business development for Iredale Mineral Cosmetics. HE products feature titanium dioxide, a sun block and anti-inflammatory ingredient said to help address acne, rosacea and redness; zinc oxide for its antimicrobial benefits — to help prevent the spread of acne — and pomegranate extract, an antioxidant.
The Iredale brand, a business that is said to generate in excess of $20 million at retail worldwide, features about 250 products, including lip colors, foundations, concealers, blushes and eye shadows. Sources estimate HE could account for about 20 percent of the company’s sales, or more than $4 million in retail sales volume, within its first year on the market.
Related Articles
Four weeks after HE was launched within Iredale’s distribution network of 3,000 spas and dermatologists’ and cosmetics surgeons’ offices in the U.S., the men’s line is now carried in about 100 doors. Robison projects HE could reach 30 percent of Iredale’s distribution base by yearend. Iredale products are carried in 23 countries and, aside from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Italy are among the brand’s largest markets.
“Men’s is a growth opportunity,” said Robison, who speculated that HE could open new channels of distribution for Iredale, such as men’s apothecaries, grooming shops and male-oriented spas. Iredale only sells her products to professional outlets. Robison also sees HE as a potential avenue into the men’s skin care arena — Iredale does not currently market skin care — with the shaving category serving as a possible entry point.
Future extensions to the HE collection could include a brow grooming gel and darker shades of the existing Bronzer, according to Robison.