To celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month we wanted to showcase seven women-led subscription businesses powered by Recharge.
Each month we showcase different merchants and the subscription products they provide on our Recharge blog. Previously we’ve featured five Black-owned businesses using subscriptions and other subscription-related content.
Billie
Georgina Gooley is the cofounder of Billie, a female-first shave and body brand delivering everyday TLC from top to toe.
After working for years as an advertising executive, Georgina noticed women were overpaying for razors (the gender-based pricing Pink Tax) and shamed for having body hair. So she set out to create Billie, with the mission to overhaul the shaving experience for women, from pricing, quality, representation and a celebration of body hair.
Their award winning Razor Starter Kit (Allure Best of Beauty, Nylon’s Beauty Hit List, and Bustle’s Most Wanted Life Upgrade) comes with two blades, the handle and magnetic holder as well as sets you up on a subscription for blade refills on a schedule of your choosing.
Billie also puts a focus on championing womankind. They donate 1% of their revenue to support women and important causes around the world, most recently focusing on supporting BIPOC women.
Blueland
Blueland are the creators of everyday eco-friendly cleaning products to save customers money and space without any plastic waste.
Sarah Paiji Yoo is the cofounder and CEO at Blueland, which reimagined cleaning products that are better for your home and our planet. Their concept is beautifully simple — refill is the new recycle.
With The Clean Suite subscription kit, customers are sent 7 reusable containers plus refills and then receive refills (tablets for laundry, dishwasher and powder for dish soap) by subscription.
Through mixing refills with water in their reusable containers, you are helping to cut down on the 8 billion tons of plastic trash on the planet.
Here’s Sarah, in her own words, on why she created Blueland:
Sarah Paiji Yoo, Blueland CEO and Cofounder
I founded Blueland with the belief that we shouldn’t have to sacrifice a clean home for a clean planet. Our mission is simple, make being eco easy with innovative products in reusable packaging that are convenient, effective and affordable.
BootayBag
BootayBag is an underwear subscription brand for women that lets you choose your size and style preference, shipment frequency and more.
Founder, Ellyette Gheno, wanted to fix the lack of affordability and convenience in the underwear shopping process. Starting in two days in 2016, she took a $300 loan and created her own website and began receiving orders. Four years later, BootayBag had generated about $15 million in total lifetime sales.
Alongside the underwear subscription (and an all female team), Ellyette and BootayBag cultivated a social media community of supportive women, encouraging feedback on their favorite styles and, most importantly, lifting each other up to feel empowered in their bodies.
Briogeo
Briogeo offers a full selection of natural haircare products that are fortified with hair healthy oils, antioxidants and vitamins. They offer a variety of hair care products on subscription as well as a dynamic rewards system that awards you points that can be redeemed later for larger discounts.
Founder and CEO, Nancy Twine, remembers her first introduction to natural product formulation, by watching her grandmother at the age of 5, the town’s resident beauty guru, making her coveted homemade hair care.
Years later, Nancy is in her early 20s and is working in New York City at Goldman Sachs but after working for several years in the finance sector, Nancy realized there was a major gap in the clean hair care space.
Inspired by her grandmother and mother’s beauty recipes she began creating her own natural hair care products and after partnering up with a team of natural chemists founded Briogeo Hair Care.
We should treat our hair the same way we treat our skin; by nurturing it with ingredients that detoxify, hydrate, and protect.
Nancy Twine, Briogeo founder & CEO
Haus
Helena Price Hambrecht, cofounder and co-CEO of Haus, created one of the first DTC liquor companies with farm to bottle ingredients, a transparent supply chain and sold by subscription in a convenient way.
Haus sells apéritifs, liquors with complex flavors derived from fruits, herbs, and botanicals with lighter alcohol content (less than whiskey, more than wine) makes them perfect to sip all evening.
Their Haus membership, is the traditional wine club model meets customizable monthly subscription with access to exclusive flavors, product discounts and free shipping.
Helena started thinking about the idea for Haus while nursing her three-month old and doing some market research. Living on a farm in Sonoma County with her husband (cofounder and co-CEO Woody Hambrecht), she was reflecting on how little the alcohol industry had changed in the last 100 years since prohibition.
Gatekeeping corporations and distributors, with pay to play policies, end up leaving the drinker stuck with alcohol products that don’t work for them. These products being high-octane, high-sugar, highly processed alcohol that affect your weight, your sleep, your joints and your body — and of course hangovers.
Thus the road to Haus, makers of unique flavored and lighter alcohol apéritifs, was set. Each bottle is handmade in Sonoma County, fermented naturally and made with real fruits and botanicals, not artificial flavors.
Hear more from Helena and her journey to creating Haus (with insight into their organic marketing approach and advice to new DTC brands) in our founders interview series hosted by Recharge COO, Chathri Ali.
SmartSweets
Tara Bosch started SmartSweets when she realized the negative effects candy, and specifically excess sugar, has on our health. So she made it her goal to find a way to kick the sugar habit but keep the candy.
In the summer of 2015, after spending months recipe testing in her kitchen with a gummy bear mould from Amazon, Tara created the first delicious candy that wasn’t all sugar. Best yet, the candies are available through subscription so you’ll never be tempted at the grocery store to restock the cupboards with unhealthy choices to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Since its creation, Tara and SmartSweets have contributed to people kicking 2.4 billion grams of sugar. The company is also proud to be 84% women, with gender parity on their board and a champion of women rising.
Smol
Smol created the most effective concentrated laundry capsule in the world and by cutting out the middleman and delivering directly to customers, save you 50% on the normal brand price. With a free trial for your first box, you then receive your laundry capsules on subscription on a customisable schedule.
Paula Quazi, cofounder of smol, created the business after years spent in the marketing industry. She recognized that laundry detergent was a purchase she never enjoyed making, feeling the experience was expensive, boring and inconvenient.
Thus, the idea to create a subscription-based laundry detergent was born, bringing subscribers convenience, value and outstanding performance in an eco-friendly package small enough to fit through your letterbox.
We hope you enjoyed a look at the women lead business using subscriptions featured in our March Merchants of the Month post. Come back to the Recharge blog at the start of every month to see what new brands we are highlighting.
