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After months of whispers and stunning social media splashes, Gregg Renfrew, the entrepreneur who built Beautycounter into a billion-dollar company and now leads Counter, launches her newest venture, beecee, today.<\/p>\n
Unlike a traditional product launch, beecee built a community of more than 25,000 women across all 50 states before introducing a single SKU. That community, grown organically through word-of-mouth and social media, had early access to product testing and provided feedback that shaped the brand\u2019s initial assortment of four multitasking essentials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The collection includes The Everything Balm ($24), a petrolatum-free alternative to classic multipurpose ointments made with shea butter and jojoba oil; The Superfine Mist ($28), a fragrance-free face-and-body mist formulated with humectants, squalane and jojoba oil, tinted naturally blue with gardenia extract; The Dewy Gel Cream ($38), a water-gel moisturizer with triple-weight hyaluronic acid, ceramides and a plant-derived salicylic acid alternative; and The Well-Rounded Bar ($22), a soap-free cleansing bar sold alongside a $36 3-in-1 travel case that also functions as a shower holder and exfoliating tool.<\/p>\n
Every beecee formula is developed under Renfrew\u2019s Counter Standard Blueprint For Clean, including The Never List, which excludes more than 3,300 ingredients.<\/p>\n
Renfrew says beecee was built specifically to meet a younger consumer where they are. \u201cI\u2019ve spent more than a decade pushing the industry forward around safer products, higher expectations and greater transparency,\u201d she says. \u201cBeecee is about bringing that learning into a new conversation, with a generation that is asking for beauty to work differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also says that it\u2019s important to her for the brand\u2019s approach to center on collaboration rather than prescription: \u201cWe\u2019re building beecee with women, not telling women what beauty should look like or what they need to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Renfrew, the most difficult part of development was maintaining rigorous standards while incorporating continuous tester input (both good and bad). \u201cEvery function from formula to packaging had to really perform, and every product had to be developed according to our rigorous Counter Standard Blueprint For Clean,\u201d she explains. \u201cYou may think you\u2019ve gotten there, and then you hear feedback that pushes you to refine something and make it better. The challenge was holding all of those expectations at once and not lowering the bar just to get to market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renfrew shares she sees parallels between beecee\u2019s early momentum and the trajectory of Beautycounter, where consumers became advocates and community builders. \u201cWhat I\u2019m seeing with beecee is exactly what I believed would happen\u2014younger women are hungry for this kind of participation, and they care deeply about their health, what they\u2019re putting on their bodies and the safety of the products they use.\u201d She also points to a cross-generational exchange between Counter and beecee: \u201cCounter carries forward more than a decade of experience and advocacy, while beecee brings that into conversation with a younger generation. To me, that exchange is incredibly powerful because each generation has something to teach the other.\u201d<\/p>\n