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Sarah Kugelman, founder of gloss.com and Skyn Iceland, is back with a third beauty venture.
Like her previous two businesses -- gloss.com having been a product of the late '90s dot-com boom and Skyn Iceland, a way to cope with the inflammation and stress of working at a tech start-up -- "pro-aging" beauty brand All Golden was born of both personal need and a white space opportunity.
Geared toward consumers ages 45 and up, the brand is launching with seven skin and hair care products meant to "redefine what 45 looks and feels like, and do it in an irreverent way," said Kugelman, who sold gloss.com to The Estée Lauder Cos. for an estimated $20 million in 2000 before the beauty e-tailer wound down in 2007; Skyn Iceland, meanwhile, was acquired for an undisclosed sum by entrepreneur Antoine de Larocque in 2022 from its previous owner, Frédéric Boulet.
"From the way we shoot models to how we speak about the issues we face to the kinds of products we launch -- everything has a sense of humor, but is edgy and cool," said Kugelman. "I still feel young, I still feel engaged and involved and energetic and fit, and I want my outside to reflect the way I'm feeling."
To that end, All Golden's debut line ranges from $35 for a Hair Wand meant to tame wiry grays ("it lays them down without making your roots look greasy -- that's important,") to $95 for a Peptide Power Serum, fueled the brand's hero pro-aging complex of exfoliating acids, peptides, adaptogens, tonka bean and griffonia lysate.
Other products include a brightening Eye-Luminator Cream; a cooling and hydrating Glow Lotion moisturizer; a blurring makeup primer and firming, 360-degree under-eye and lid patches inspired in part by Skyn Iceland's runaway hit under-eye gels.
The line also features a hair Root Changer, which purports to partially reverse graying within three months of daily use, eschewing dyes for "re-pigmenting" mandarin orange essence and other plant extracts. "It's a product that slows the graying process and turns 50 percent of gray hairs back to their original color -- no matter what your hair color or texture is," said Kugelman, adding that the brand will eventually add hair loss and hair growth offerings to its range, too.
"That's sort of the catch-22 of getting older -- having hair in places you don't want, and then you don't have hair in the places you do want; I felt you couldn't just address skin at this age without also addressing hair," said Kugelman, who is launching All Golden direct-to-consumer and targeting $1 million in first-year sales.
"We're working with influencers who are in our target age group and in doing so, hoping we reach their colleagues, their children, their friends who are in their 20s and 30s and might have flyaways or need to stabilize their microbiome, too -- there's crossover in these products that can span decades," said Kugelman.
At the same time, the products aim to specifically address Gen X -- who according to Circana account for 20 percent of beauty spend -- in a way that Kugelman feels brands aren't yet doing effectively, either due to lack of effort or, on the other end of the spectrum, well-intended efforts that miss the mark. "If I go to the beauty counter and only see models who are 20 and don't have a wrinkle on them, I can't relate to that -- but I also don't want to have to go to the line that's all about my menopause and makes me depressed."
She added, "my long-term goal is to change the cultural perception of the way the world sees women ages 45-plus -- these are our golden years; we're All Golden."