Good enough to eat: local label wins industry award
The world will soon be a brighter place with Alistair & Robyn soaps in more bathrooms.
The Lake Macquarie artisan soap label has won Original Product Design Award at the Chinese International Beauty Expo (CIBE) in Shanghai, the world’s largest beauty expo which welcomed 3,500 international exhibitors and half a million global buyers.
Resembling fairy floss, chocolate, caramel and tropical vistas, its owner Jo Middleton launched the visually stunning Australian-made label with her son Jordan in 2014 following a 28 year professional hairdressing career. The inspiration to create a chemical-free, handmade beauty range came from almost three decades of handling dyes and peroxides at her hair salon and seeing them wreak havoc on her skin and body.
“I started Alistair & Robyn four years ago because I had enough of using products full of chemicals,” she said. “I was looking for a new career and came across soap making and it seemed like a good fit with all my hairdressing experience. After years of the hairdressing industry telling me how bad soap is, when I looked at the ingredients I could use I was so surprised that you can make it the best for yourself.”
She sources all-natural ingredients from all around the world. “We use natural micas (pigments) from iron oxide and tin oxides which are A Grade cosmetic quality from America, magnesium salts and mud from the Dead Sea, organic kelp powder from the Atlantic Ocean, Shea butter from Africa and one of our main suppliers is Olio Mio Estate in Pokolbin - we use their extra virgin olive oil,” she said. “We try to use Australian essential oils wherever we can. While Australian-made products are recognised for quality around the world, customers want to know what they’re putting on their skin and we can confidently tell them every bar is 100% natural.”
While every bar of soap is handmade, Jo, with her husband, have mastered larger-scale production to meet the requirements of the Chinese market while still achieving the bright coloured designs - a process she keeps under wraps.
She attended the event under IncentiaPay’s Export Plus division and spent three days back-to-back speaking and showing her products to industry representatives and distributors from around the world to gauge market interest.
Jo said she’s still speechless at the award and the response in China. “I made around 70 promising contacts who are buyers and distributors in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Australia,” she said. “The next step is working with Export Plus to follow these contacts up and see where I can take the brand.”
Export Plus is assisting Australian brands to break into international markets through ecommerce in the Alibaba system. It also works with buyers and distributors to support Australian brands through the logistical hurdles of entering a new market like China every step of the way.
Export Plus manager Tass Schmidt said opportunities for Australian labels in China’s rapidly growing cosmetics market are vast. “Australian products are highly valued in the Chinese market for their provenance and quality ingredients,” she said. “Events like CIBE and sites in the Alibaba suite are giving local brands the platform to build traction in China as ecommerce sales continue to rise.
The retail revenue of cosmetics in China is rising by 12 per cent per year and grew from US$3.1 billion to US$3.5 billion from March 2016 to March 2017. Consumer demographics are shifting towards a younger segment seeking the prestige of quality foreign products.
Jo said that despite scaling up, she stayed committed to all natural, sustainable, vegan and chemical-free recipes since day one. Her soaps combine a range of oils and butters - aloe vera, macadamia nut, almond, castor, coconut, cocoa and shea with added clays, muds and natural elements to nourish and repair skin. She added that while the industry response and sheer size of the event is still soaking in, it shows the massive opportunities in China’s $4.3 billion beauty market.
Alistair & Robyn joined a clutch of Australian beauty brands including Sukin, Natio, A’kin and Aromababy at the China International Beauty Expo. There were 13 award categories at the event, which was held in Shanghai from the 19th – 21st March 2018.
About IncentiaPay
IncentiaPay specialises in preeminent digital payment solutions linking SMEs and customers globally while raising exposure in a congested market.
It rebranded from BPS Technology in 2018, and its brands include Bartercard, EntertainmentTM and Gruden, creating a combined 36,000 SMEs, 22,000 not-for-profit groups and 600,000 consumers. IncentiaPay has cemented partnerships with Alipay, the world’s largest payment app with 520 million users and Alibaba, the world’s largest e-commerce platform and Chinese digital marketing specialists allowing Australian SMEs to break into the Chinese market.
Visit incentiapay.com for more information.
19th June 2018.
