Education process: Terrakai Skin aims to bring A-beauty flavour into the US clean beauty market

The Australian direct-to-consumer brand offers high-performance natural and vegan skin care products that comprise of native Australian botanicals such as kangaroo paw and Kakadu plum.

Terrakai was introduced into the market in December 2021 and began its full launch in January 2022, focusing primarily on the US market through its official website.

“The Australian market is probably a bit crowded because we have some amazing brands using quality botanicals. However, the US market is still on the path to understanding the benefits of Australian botanicals in skin care,”​ said founder Aimee Engelmann, an Australian entrepreneur with a background in marketing.

Engelmann added that while she believed there was more room for the brand to grow in the US, it was also a tougher market to breakthrough.

“It’s harder because you have to take people through this journey of understanding what Kakadu plum and kangaroo paw are. It is an education process because when we talk about kangaroo paw, there are some that think we mean the actual animal paw. While it’s tougher, the market opportunity there is bigger.”​

One of the biggest opportunities the brand could tap into is the clean beauty trend, said Engelmann.

Citing research from Yieldify, she said sales for products that are both natural and paraben-free​ are growing five times faster. For instance, L’Oréal-owned skin care brand Kiehl’s removed parabens from its Ultra Facial Cream and experienced a sales bump of U$5m.

“With our brand, we believe we can bring that Australian flavour into clean beauty and take it across the world,”​ said Engelmann.

The company is also keeping tabs on the Asian region, where skin care has traditionally led the way and clean beauty trends have been thriving.

However, its strategy is to build the brand in the US before setting out to break into the Asian market.

“Our brand is young and it’s important to build a strong foundation first. One of the things I’ve learnt about Asia is that you have to build a strong brand in markets like the US and Australia before taking it there. It’s absolutely part of our plan. Actually, we plan to start the process of looking at distributors and markets starting July,” ​said Engelmann.

Clean beauty for youth

Engelmann told CosmeticsDesign-Asia​ that she has observed a gap in the market for clean beauty products for those aged 10 to 18.

“A lot of the products that are available aren’t suited to developing skin, so there’s a real lack of true natural clean beauty products that work for girls and boys in that age group.”​

The company already has a collection of products available for this age group among the range of 25 products it launched with. It has plans to begin promoting them in the summer this year.

Down the line, Terrakai is set to launch a range of face oils and exfoliants, products that are currently still under development, Engelmann told us.

“Once we have those, we will have everything you need for a core routine.”​