Last month, cosmetics brand Velour Beauty announced it will be expanding its consumer product offerings into additional retailers across the UK, North American, and South American throughout the course of 2023. In addition to being offered in UK Sephora stores starting on March 8 of this year, the brand will also be available in Sephora stores throughout Mexico starting this month.
The brand, which is known for its vegan false lashes, has a global presence in Ulta and Sephora as well as online through its own eCommerce website and on Amazon. To learn more about Velour Beauty’s rapid success in its category, the current product offering expansion, and future plans for further brand growth, CosmeticsDesign spoke with Sophia Drozdowska, Director of Marketing of Velour Beauty for her insights.
About Velour Beauty
Founded in 2011 with eleven different lash style options, the brand has since expanded over the last twelve years to include a wide range of choices to fit different face shapes. Founder Mabel Lee created the brand out of personal necessity, after she found that many options looked like plastic and were uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. Today’s product offerings are “vegan and cruelty-free, come in recyclable packaging with soy-based ink, and are Leaping Bunny certified” to meet the demands of today’s consumer,” explained Drozdowska.
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Velour Beauty has credited its exponential growth and popularity to its product’s quick adoption by celebrity makeup artists. “Once Beyoncé’s MUA shared that she used Velour on the singer, the brand started gaining industry attention,” said Drozdowska.
From there, founder Lee’s “first business plan for Velour Beauty was to be stocked in Sephora in five years, but it only took three,” she shared in a recent company press release. After this initial success, “two years later, we were also stocked in ULTA.” More recently, “Grammy-award winning artists, Lizzo and Olivia Rodrigo, have worn Velour Beauty’s lashes to industry premieres and events,” which has had a strong continued impact on the brand’s consumer perception.
Since that time, the brand has continued to achieve successful milestones, and “as true innovators in the cosmetics space, Velour Beauty’s Effortless lash collection and Lash Applicator won the Allure Best of Beauty Award in 2019,” the release stated. From there, “in 2021, the Lash & Go Eyeliner won the NewBeauty Beauty Award,” and later, Velour Beauty “Plant Fibre collection also won Elle’s Future of Beauty Award along with the Global Green Beauty Award in 2022.”
Velour Beauty today and future brand expansion plans
Velour Beauty continues to innovate the cosmetics category with releases like the Plant Fibre collection. As the first to release lashes that are entirely plant based, the brand is “the first to innovate in this area and bring hemp-derived fibers to lashes, which are handmade on a thin and flexible black cotton thread band for all-day comfort,” Drozdowska shared.
Today, the Velour Beauty team has set its sights on further expansion plans by paying close attention to the needs of its valued consumer demographic. To do so, “we keep an eye on demand indicators like search volume, whether that’s on TikTok, Google or Amazon. In recent years, people have been searching for natural-looking lashes that are easy to apply (e.g. three-quarter or half lashes), and new innovations like magnetic lashes,” she said.
Further, “we also closely monitor what our customers and followers request from us.” Therefore, she concluded, “we have a product development team that stays ahead of trends, and retailers that partner with us to get new products to customers as quickly as possible.”
With the brand expansion affording global consumers greater access to Velour Beauty products, the brand’s future potential is very promising. “Above all, the brand has been a game-changer beyond the beauty industry,” concluded the company press release.
