Tonia McManus, Founder of Bare Nordic Beauty, spoke with TRBusiness on its recent entry into the GTR channel and the quick progress made across the UK and Europe.

With a strong emphasis on minimalism and care for one’s environment, Bare Nordic Beauty has entered global travel retail with the aim of showcasing the variety and depth of clean beauty, fragrance and lifestyle brands which it represents.

Nominated by the European Natural Beauty Awards as one of three independent shops of the year, Bare Nordic has thrust less mainstream Nordic beauty and lifestyle brands into the global marketplace, propelled by its dedication to vetting and curating clean beauty & lifestyle products which meet high standards of efficacy, desirability and sustainability.

McManus said: “Bare Nordic is brand new to travel retail as of this year. We first started with attendance at the TFWA Singapore Summit with one Finnish skincare brand, but within the portfolio I’m now working with several Nordic beauty brands within the travel retail sector.

She continued: “I’ve been working closely these last few weeks, really, since TFWA Cannes, talking with the some of the major operators in the UK and within Europe, about how we can get these clean beauty brands – which often are smaller brands, which may fall under kind of niche beauty or niche perfumery – into the mainstream.”

“The design element of our products is really strong, and Bare Nordic really tries to capture the essence of the region: being close to nature, using everyday ingredients, minimalism, and everything being of really high quality,” she added.

When detailing what makes bare Nordic’s brands sustainable by their very nature, McManus said: “it’s everything, not just the ingredients. It’s the packaging, whether that’s post-consumer waste or recycled plastic, it’s the use of environmentally-friendly inks, the transportation and production methods used.

Particularly within the Nordics there’s a whole production community with shared resources. There’s a good network of people providing, say, mushroom-compostable packaging or microbiome-friendly ingredients, and many brands develop their products in association with these suppliers.”

The influence of the natural environment within both production and marketing is ever-present in brands like Aiva Organic, with the tagline ‘We believe in real’ promoting its minimalist, genderless and multi-use products.

At a glance, some of the most notable and best-selling brands distributed by Bare Nordic include: L:A Bruket; Woods Copenhagen; Bodyologist; Manasi 7; and Aiva Organics, all of which lean heavily on clean and minimalist aesthetics.

The journey into the mainstream for several of these brands – at least within travel retail – has been a fast-moving one, McManus added.

While Bare Nordic’s primary region for distribution is Europe, they have quickly gained traction in APAC, where the focus on minimalism and quality of the various eco-lux brands within its assortment resonate especially well with consumers in the region.

“Consumers across the world love that, but if you say Nordic I think the Japanese especially are very interested in things being well designed, practical, but also beautiful and close to nature. There is a nice overlap between their interests, and that’s why Nordic brands do so well out in out in Asia.

The transition into APAC travel retail has been aided by established roots in the domestic markets. and McManus sees enormous potential for the future.

Usually, we would say Japan tends to be their second market. It could be the UK, but quite often it’s Japan. Of course, these brands are also strong in the US, so we do have a real global opportunity.”

“Markets such as Hong Kong area big opportunity for us as a hub for travel retail. I mean a lot of the big brands like L:A Bruket, Byredo and Skandinavisk are already well established across these global markets, so it’s definitely a growth market, for sure, because even the brands that are already established have an awful lot more potential,” stated McManus.

McManus continued: “A lot of these brands, they don’t necessarily understand or think about travel retail, they’re trying to get established on the domestic market, but they’re so well adapted to the travel retail market because there’s really a growing trend in the industry to have skincare that does more than one thing.

Of course, when travelling people want to minimise the products they’re taking with them, and from the retailer’s point of view you can trial a less well-known brand without such a big product commitment.”

Pictured: An activation for Aiva Organic within the dedicated clean beauty space of a department store. Within GTR specifically, Aiva Organic recently launched in Helsinki with Avolta.

Further, the continued growth of dedicated ‘clean beauty’ sections within travel retail stores offers a clearly defined route to market for many of the smaller beauty and lifestyle brands from the region.

“Talking to some retailers in the Middle East, they experiment. I think it was in Riyadh airport this summer with a big pop-up on clean beauty. In this environment – either of clean beauty as a standalone-store or as a pop-up, they’re already there and highly visible.

The retailers know they must get behind these innovative brands, even if they only are selling them for a short time, because they may go on to be a great brand of the future, and many consumers who are interested in beauty and shopping and perfumery, are already looking for these brands.”

While price is often touted as a primary concern for travel retail shoppers, McManus noted the target demographic for many of Bare Nordic’s brands are not so easily swayed by the price tag, and discerning consumers see the value in buying less, but buying better.

“I think people are becoming less consumerist, and people don’t necessarily want to buy product for the sake of it. The eco-lux consumer is usually older, and while the individual products may cost more, your investment is potentially less because you don’t need to buy eight, ten products from a mainstream range.

To be honest, the brands aren’t necessarily more expensive, I think that’s a misnomer because if you look at some of the premium brands, their prices have risen quite considerably. You could compare the price of a premium lipstick or face cream to that of a sustainable brand, and I think you’d find they’re roughly the same price.”

An example of one of the travel sets provided by Swedish brand OM-SE, which uses 100% organic, plant-based and and naturally active ingredients in all its products.

Indeed, the first result prised from a quick Google search for premium face cream shows Dr. Barbara Sturrm’s face cream retails for £150.00.

A similarly quick search on the Bare Nordic website shows its most expensive face cream is Nóttnuit’s FEND Rich face cream, which retails for £95.

Within the eco-lux category then it seems the future is clean and bright, with the potential for sustainable growth, and while the prioritisation of sustainable sourcing and manufacturing may not be the baseline for all beauty products, McManus noted she hopes to see a marked shift in attitudes – and actions – especially from some of the larger beauty houses.

“People do care more about what they bring into their homes in terms of, you know, chemical load, concern for the environment, healthy living, supplements and wellness; all those things, all those different categories are growing and are set to grow in the next 10 years.

Aside from the business I’m a real clean beauty advocate, and I’d love to see some of the cleaner brands become more dominant, and see the brands which, for example, still test on animals, lose their hold on the market.”

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