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Affordable British beauty brand Byoma has ambitious plans for 2024. The fast-growing two-year-old business is opening its first clinical laboratory later this month and partnering with AI firm Revieve to build a skin analysis app. Can these investments help Byoma compete in the crowded budget beauty space?
Byoma was launched in 2022 by Marc Elrick, founder and CEO of British incubator Future Beauty Labs, whose portfolio includes tanning brands Isle of Paradise, Tan-Luxe and Tanologist. The new brand quickly gained popularity among Gen Z thanks to its bright packaging, ingredient-forward skincare — which has become a key weapon in the battle for budget shoppers — and community-focused approach. It also successfully tapped into TikTok’s virality machine through paid talent and gifting.
“When creating Byoma, we knew that people globally were suffering the consequences of over-exfoliation and miseducation. Our priority was to empower through education while offering an accessible, effective skincare solution for all skin types, tones and ages at an affordable price,” says Elrick. “We launched ourselves into a conversation people were already having, aka ‘over-exfoliation’, in the exact channels they were having it — TikTok.”
Byoma collaborated with TikTok to launch the brand onto the platform across a 90-day period in February 2022, which accrued 147.6 million views and 137,000 new followers. Since then, reviews of Byoma products have amassed a collective 591.5 million views, according to the platform.
Supplementing its TikTok strategy is a wide presence offline. Byoma is available in 12 retailers across the UK, US, Canada and Europe, including Space NK, Selfridges, Boots, Ulta, Target and Urban Outfitters. It’s also present in other regions, such as the UAE, thanks to its ongoing partnership with Sephora, which operates in 29 countries. By 2025, Byoma expects to to reach $300 to $500 million in retail sales, according to a report in WWD. (The brand declined to comment.)
TikTok content
Brands like Elf, The Ordinary, The Inkey List, Naturium, Cerave and La Roche-Posay are all battling for the price-conscious consumer. Byoma says a key differentiator from its competitors is the way it uses its packaging to decipher INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) lists and explain each ingredient’s purpose. It also collaborates with “skinfluencers” who share trending product reviews, and “dermfluencers”, who create educational content.
This educational stance was originally tailored to appeal to Gen Z. However, Elrick says Byoma’s customer base has since evolved into being multi-generational. “We had a lightbulb moment that we, as a skincare brand, have a responsibility to educate younger skincare users to stop the issue of over-treating, over-exfoliating and overbuying when it comes to skincare. But it doesn’t just stop at age — it’s a full 360 degrees of skincare education that we want to own from end to end,” says Elrick. British retailer Boots says online searches for Byoma increased by over 800 per cent in 2023, which it credits to a surge in popularity for “affordable skin-restoring brands”.
At a time when dupes, fakes and inflated product marketing are rife within the beauty category, this is becoming all the more important, says Lisa Payne, head of beauty at trends intelligence firm Stylus. “We have been tracking the rise of barrier-supportive skincare for a few years, and Byoma came onto the market at the most opportune time when consumers (of all ages) were more aware of their skin barrier and how important it is to maintain its health for fresh, radiant and happy skin.”
Building a reputation
Byoma’s focus on the skin barrier is not entirely new, but it already has a proven track record of success, says Payne. “In a saturated skincare market where consumers can cocktail together any number of different products and active or acid ingredients, many have seen the detrimental effect of a disrupted barrier (blotchy, dry, red, flaking skin) and are seeking reparative solutions. Brands that base their entire premise on barrier support are now super influential.”
Mass-market facial skincare outperformed more prestige solutions in 2023 (growing by 8.5 per cent versus 4.1 per cent), indicating a shift towards budget-friendly alternatives and dupes, according to Mintel research analyst Shiyan Zering. “In other beauty and personal care categories, including colour cosmetics and fragrances, consumers tend to splurge on prestige brands. However, in skincare, there’s been a surge in popularity of affordable skincare brands, such as The Ordinary and Cerave, due to their simplicity and innovation.”
In particular, the drugstore skincare category is growing more competitive, influenced by the cost of living and rising inflation. This has been a driving force behind Byoma’s commercial success: one of its Moisturising Gel Creams (£12) sold every 20 seconds at Boots in December 2023 and became the retailer’s top-selling moisturiser in the same month. The challenge for Byoma now is building on this budding reputation as an authority on skincare through continuous innovation while maintaining its accessible price point.
This is where the new lab comes in, says Elrick. Opening an in-house testing location reflects consumers’ heightened desires for transparency towards product efficacy. “It allows us to test every iteration of a formula, giving our cosmetic scientists access to previously unknown data and allowing us to adjust our formulas to maximise product efficacy,” he explains.
The site will allow for testing improvement in skin barrier function by a proving clinical reduction in transepidermal water loss as well as skin hydration, texture, erythema, melanin, radiance, sebum and skin elasticity. “This is in addition to our Visia skin and complexion analysis machine that uses multi-spectral imaging to reveal damage and signs of ageing on and beneath the surface of the skin that is not visible to the human eye,” Elrick shares.
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His next goal is to engage with demand for personalised skincare through its partnership with AI company Revieve to launch a skin analysis app. Through a questionnaire and selfies, users share details of their skin type and concerns, and the app rolls out a complete skincare routine to suit their needs. “Supercharging our brand’s mission, we have partnered with Revieve to develop a fully branded digital skincare diagnostic service powered by AI technology that can be used anytime, anywhere. One of our initiatives is driving the conversation around how skincare should be used at every age — so everyone feels armed with knowledge to make the best choices for their unique skin type,” says Elrick.
AI is emerging as a key area to compete within the budget beauty space, believes Payne. “While AI in diagnostic and personalised beauty has existed in rudimentary forms for years, brands are now waking up to its true potential, and as the technology becomes more affordable, we predict most brand offerings will include some form of AI elevation.”
Next in Elrick’s sights is how to use Byoma’s educational ethos to combat the increasing demand from Gen Alpha for more active ingredients in their regimes. “Recently within skincare we’ve seen an alarming rise of younger consumers piling on actives, which are unsuitable for their skin. This is exactly what we wanted to stop when we started Byoma and we have a lot of work to do to ensure age-appropriate skincare becomes the norm.”
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