We sit down with the British supermodel to chat about the Scandinavian launch of her beauty line, which has positioned itself as the status quo for quality, performance and trendsetting – amid the increasingly saturated market of celebrity and influencer brands
“When we started browsing and looking at all the different territories that we wanted to launch, Rose Inc in Scandinavia was at the top of my list.” I am meeting with Rosie on a cold October morning, delivering traditional Scandinavian weather with crisp air and drizzly downpours. Despite this, the supermodel looks as polished as ever sitting across from me in the cosiest of places in Stockholm, Ett Hem. Dressed in an olive green pantsuit, with big golden earrings, cascading hair and the perfect no-makeup makeup, she carries on with a gleeful smile: “Scandinavia has played such a huge part in my inspiration and aesthetics throughout my life. I think particularly in my adult life, I would say the last 10 years, through interior design, wellness and health, fashion, predominantly the majority of my inspiration is born in Scandinavia.”
For one day, and one day only, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has escaped her British zip code to celebrate the launch of her beauty brand, Rose Inc, in Swedish territory. Rose Inc, which launched as a content platform back in 2018, expanded to incorporate beauty products just last year, in August 2021. After only a few months, the brand had gained traction all across the world, with people were raving about its products and their performance. Now, in October 2022, Rose Inc lands in Sweden through NK Beauty, Nordiska Kompaniet’s specialised beauty department.
Photo: Rose Inc
“I knew since 2016 that I wanted to launch a makeup brand,” reminisces Huntington-Whiteley. “I had a makeup line in the U.K. for several years and, while I loved the product, I couldn’t get completely involved as it was more of a licensing deal. After that I decided that I wanted to launch a brand, but I wanted to build it from scratch – not just slap my name on something." With this in mind, Huntington-Whiteley embarked on her mission, using data from the media side of Rose Inc to learn more about her potential consumer. “I wanted to know, what was my audience buying into, what price point, what other people were buying into, what colours were people buying? What's the demographic of my audience? All of that data we were able to derive from the content platform. And then during the time that we were working on the content platform, I started to take meetings with different incubators and different investors, different partners, and I found my partners who I was already actually working with, which is really interesting.”
The chosen partner was Amyris: a biotech company out of San Francisco that manufactures sustainable and clean ingredients, and has proprietary rights over the ingredients that they invent. From there, development began. “I have quite a unique insight into the industry. I have all these experts and artists at my fingertips and on speed dial, and I really wanted to cement that authority and that passion. Also, it was important for me to cut through the noise of all the celebrity brands that we see. Now what we're seeing is this influx of just a lot of brands that don't feel genuine to the person.”
Photo: Rose Inc
“We launched with six products: two skin care products and four colour products. The blush, the Radiant Reveal, was in the first launch, and we had a lip product that's discontinued. Now we have an eyebrow product, and we have this soft, light, Luminous Hydrating Concealer, and then the toner,” she says as she continues to detail some of the products from the collection. “I tried to create the sort of bare basics of products that I would always wear, no matter if I'm, like, running the kids to school or, you know, I'm doing the full red carpet moment. Those, you know, always do my brow. I always wear a bit of blush. I always put a little bit of a lip on and I always need a bit of concealer. And so it all came at the same time.”
Today, Rose Inc hails a full range of products, from skincare to blushes, mascaras and my personal favourite, tinted serums. With all of Rose Inc's products being non-comedogenic, something über important for Huntington-Whiteley, who suffers from easily-clogged skin, the range has established itself as one of the best of the market, with due reason. “I'm excited to tap into this market and my audience here. And I truly believe that these products are relevant to the Scandinavian market. When I look around, it's about creating really kind of effortless, beautiful looks that are very much based on skin health and well-being.” True Nordic beauty if you ask me.