There’s a quiet contender dominating the Australian professional makeup industry right now: Saint Minerals. Hannah Gay meets Saint Minerals founder and General Manager at Dermal Supplies Australia Grant Edgley to unpack the story behind the brand on every salon owner’s mind this year.
When it comes to professional makeup, Saint Minerals ticks every box.
The Australian made and owned brand is built on cruelty-free, sustainable formulations. It practices the recycling of product packaging and promotional materials. Its product is chic, timeless and gender-neutral. Its product portfolio is broad, at an accessible price point and consisting of kit essentials only, minus the fluff.
The brand’s motto of Clean. Curated. Conscious. appears on every box – a simple message that directly connects to the aspirations of the modern beauty consumer. It’s no surprise then that visiting its stockist page will reward you with the names of over 100 salons and clinics across Australia and New Zealand.
For Saint Minerals’ founder (and notably biggest cheerleader) Grant Edgley, the brand’s development came about due to a desire “to enhance [client] outcomes for better skin correction with the purest, most efficacious [products],” a minimalist feel, and ethical backing. The professional makeup brand first hit the market in July 2020 and despite its quick success, continues to focus its attention on small businesses over big name stockists. “[Saint Minerals] offers a unique brand [to salons and clinics] so they can differentiate themselves from retailers such as Sephora,” Grant explains. “Introducing this competitive advantage ensures the strength of the skin and beauty landscape.”
External marketing of the brand is also kept to a minimum. Instead, the focus placed on in-salon displays targeting the client directly in what Grant describes as a more “authentic” approach to sales. Sales targets are not tracked in order to remove attention from the job of the therapist to make money, and place it back onto the needs of the customer. “If you create and track daily/monthly sales targets, you’re really just tracking how many ‘extra’ sales you can push in a given time frame to a customer,” Grant explains. “This is the old way of partnering with customers in any industry or sector, where your targets are placed first ahead of the customers as key performance measures. We think differently. We just need to ensure the brand is readily available to be purchased at all times and priced competitively. This authenticity is our purpose for creating Saint Minerals.”
Training for its stockists is delivered through Hour of Power sessions, with the intention of connecting the therapist to the brand. It’s essential therapists are provided the right information in an efficient time slot in order to best educate their clients, Grant cements. Additional attention is placed on the end customer through regular Meet and Greet events. Such events provide Saint Minerals the opportunity to hear from its customers directly, attain feedback and plan for future product developments. “These [events] are where we draw some of our inspiration from and make changes if needed,” Grant says. “We want the users of our Saint Minerals brand to know we are a family, and we listen.”
“[Saint Minerals] offers a unique brand [to salons and clinics] so they can differentiate themselves from retailers such as Sephora. Introducing this competitive advantage ensures the strength of the skin and beauty landscape.”
For its cosmetics, common skincare ingredients like essential fatty acids and sea buckthorn oil are regularly incorporated. Long-term, Grant says users will benefit from “more cellular hydration, a decrease in inflammation, more protection from pigmentation issues, and more protection from oxidative stress which in turn, ensures less [signs of] aging.” Saint Minerals is produced in three isolated labs – a strategy designed to minimise the risk of formula replication. “This is critical to create our unique point of difference. Also, some laboratories work differently with different ingredients. This model ensures we remain focused on delivering leading makeup globally.”
Through speaking with Grant, it’s clear exponential growth of the brand is imminent. New products (we’re talking matte formulas!) are in development, due for launch in 2023. A broader shade range, specifically darker shades, will be released – a request, Grant says, has come from the brand’s new USA and Caribbean stockists. The team is also looking at expanding into new categories such as skincare and deodorant.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF SAINT MINERALS
“Mineral makeup isn’t new, and many brands have joined the powder party. But, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. We saw the need for a genuine, ethically-created, clean beauty range with no fragrance, synthetics, or parabens and decided to create Saint Minerals; an Australian-made, owned, and sustainably operated makeup range.
Saint Minerals is consciously-made, cruelty-free, and clean mineral makeup, derived from the highest quality, vegan-friendly, nanotechnology-free minerals. More than just makeup; Saint Minerals is superior skincare with anti-ageing, hydrating, and skin-soothing benefits that people of all skin types can benefit from. But that is just the product, the empathy and love the brand has for consumers and our customers is what really makes us different and stand out from the crowd.
We believe that we’ve created a point of difference for Skin Clinics and Skin Salons world-wide because we understand that large global retailers are challenging our way of life. Local skin clinics and salons need this support to show that their business is just as inviting, relevant and exciting as the large retailers,” Grant says.
BUILDING A BRAND
“Brand awareness messaging has been simple and clear. A brand that allows you to offer consumers a product that truly works and is relevant for all ages. Relevance these days include, price conscious consumers achieving goals, when they want, how they want and most importantly, feeling great about doing so.
We must deliver on consumers financial pressures now as a global brand. This fits into our strategic intent as we always ensure the consumer, then the customer then Saint Minerals is taken care of in every detail of our brand. Our goal is to be recognised as a “movement” not just a brand. A movement back to the way it ‘used’ to be. Brands that care about the customer and consumer 1st. Too often we see big retailer brands, and professional brands moving to selling online only, taking price-increases, pack size decreases, downsizing the customer service teams. We will never do this. We will always retain the value equation for the skin clinic and consumer.”
THE FINISHING TOUCH
“We asked skin salons and skin clinic’s globally, what happens at the end of a treatment with their clients and we found that almost all of their customers are looking for a base coverage to leave with to minimise downtime and stop any environmental damage immediately post- treatment,” he says.
PRODUCT POWER
“Our formulations contain SPF25 from the purest and highest quality minerals Zinc oxide and Titanium dioxide, giving the skin full coverage from UVA and UVB rays, without seeping into the skin like regular makeup does. Instead, Saint Minerals sits on the top of the skin acting as a protective barrier between you and your environment, leaving your skin with a long-lasting, breathable, and hydrating base.
All our products are our Hero products. We are now adding a few peptides for our Concealers and BB Crème’s which allows us to create a true point of difference when it comes to Anti-Aging. Saint Minerals Mineral BB Cream is a true multi- tasking base offering medium coverage and UVA+B protection. Arriving to you in 6 colour shades 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08.
A medium coverage, lightweight formula packed full of antioxidants, botanicals, and essential oils SPF 25 UVA+B protection from Zinc oxide + Titanium dioxide. Iron oxidises to give the base a water- resistant quality, stops the minerals from bleeding, and gives more UVB protection. Contains Omega 3 to infuse moisture and prevent dryness and is so quick + easy to apply.”
FUTURE FORECAST
“Where do we start? On the back of our Mineral Veil launch in December of 22, we are very exciting to launch our new division of Saint Minerals® which is…. Colour by Saint Minerals® This is something that we’ve been asked about for some time. We are now (officially announcing in this very article) launching our Colour range. Stay tuned for our colour range launching in July 2023 which will allow our Saint Minerals® family to move finally into their very own colour range,” he says.
If you’re interested in partnering with Saint Minerals at your salon, contact Dermal Supplies Australia on 1800 717 525 or visit this link.
This story was originally published in August 2022, and ran as the cover story to Professional Beauty’s March-April 2023 print issue.
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