Akhassa Sister Act to Unveil 2 Lines
Sisters Roslyn and Lisa Gillespie have formed a spa product marketing company called Akhassa, and have married an ancient Siamese culture with consumers’ desire to pamper themselves at home.
The brand was founded by the Gillespies in Los Angeles about a year ago. Now, the sisters are planning the October launch of two product lines — a 40-item assortment called Essentials and a six-product range called Rituals — at Studio at Fred Segal in Los Angeles and at New York’s Henri Bendel.
To start the company, Roslyn Gillespie, who was born in Thailand, left her job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Lisa Gillespie, who was born in the U.S., put professional ballet dancing on hold. The two spent their formative years “all over Asia” — their mother is from Thailand, and their father worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development — and the sisters’ experiences inspired the Akhassa brand. The name means “the ethereal fifth element in ancient Siamese culture.”
“We’ve always loved products and Asian spas, and that’s part of the motivation,” said Roslyn Gillespie, speaking from Akhassa’s offices in Los Angeles. “The idea is to bring the Asian spa experience to the American home.”
The Gillespies, who have offices in Bangkok and production facilities in Thailand, decided to work with a Thai spa product manufacturer called Ytsara to formulate the Akhassa assortment.
The Akhassa Essentials range is divided into four groups, called Ignite (energizing), Retreat (calming), Define (detox) and Nurture (floral). Each subgroup comprises 10 products: body oil, bath oil, body lotion, shower cream, body scrub, bath tea, soap, sea salt soak, a bath mitt and a candle. Essentials’ prices, which average $31.70, range from $7.50 for a 2.8-oz. soap to $64.95 for the 35-oz. sea salt soak. The Essentials collection made its debut last month at Planet Blue Essentials in Venice, Calif. Akhassa is just launching internationally in the U.K. and France.
Essentials’ packaging is color-coded — Ignite features orange, Retreat comes in blue, Define sports a green shade and Nurture has a pink motif. “We use a wide array of ingredients” in Essentials, said Roslyn Gillespie, citing such extracts as ylang-ylang, jasmine, palmarosa, holy basil, tangerine leaf, vetiver, lemongrass, kaffir lime, bamboo shoot, black pepper, ginger and tamarind.
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Some of the same ingredients are used in the Akhassa Rituals line. “Rituals is two [at-home] treatments,” said Lisa Gillespie. “One is based on Thai foot reflexology. The second is based on a ritual out of Java; it’s a geranium hair mask.”
The foot treatment, called Amala (Pure, in English) includes Lemongrass Foot Cream, $35 for 9 oz.; Kaffir Lime Foot Soak, $45 for 17.6 oz., and Ginger Foot Compress, $19.95 for 2 oz. The hair treatment is named Sita — after the princess of the same name from “Ramayana,” the Sanskrit epic — and comprises Geranium Hair Masque, $49.95 for 9 oz., and Ylang Ylang Milk Bath, $42.95 for 14 oz. Industry sources estimate Akhassa could garner $1 million in first-year revenues.
The sisters noted the lids on Akhassa’s bottles are made in a Thai village from sugar palm wood. Production of the caps is part of an initiative by the government of Thailand called “One Product, One Village,” which aims to preserve village handicrafts.
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