A Chat with Nima Pourian, Founder at Hair Growth Serum Company: UKLASH

UKLASH is a UK based, eye, brow and hair care brand, with a portfolio of best-selling and award-winning products to boost and grow eyelashes, brows and hair, and look after the delicate eye area.

Launching with just one product in 2018, UKLASH Eyelash Serum, the collection has grown quickly to encompass a full portfolio of products including Eyebrow and Hair Growth Serums plus skincare and make-up accessories to care for the eyes and brows too.

To date, UKLASH has become one the best-selling brands of all time with stockists such as Beauty Bay, Feel Unique and QVC – across all categories – and we now ship to over 118 countries with many of our new launches selling out in minutes; in fact, one bottle of a UKLASH product sells once every 30 seconds worldwide!

Our range of safe, easy to use and affordable serums are the global leaders in the lash & brow categories; 98% of our customers have seen longer lashes in just 12 weeks of UKLASH use, and our Eyelash Serum has been proven to grow lash length by 55% and volume by up to 78%.

We work with independent chemists to create the best formulations and products that deliver outstanding before and after results, sourcing the best ingredients from our suppliers as recommended by the chemists we work with, but we keep costs for our customers low – no product within the range exceeds £39.99.

UKLASH has a legion of loyal brand fans, thanks to our award winning formulas, a potent ingredients list, inclusive branding and affordable pricing, generating over 40,000, 5 star rave reviews online. We are passionate about helping as many people achieve beautiful brows and lashes as possible, and we are so happy to have incredible support from our customers, we have even been able to help many people who have suffered from hair loss following chemo, covid and the menopause.

We didn’t realise how much the product would genuinely change and impact people’s lives. We knew that the product would be beneficial for those who have undergone chemotherapy, but we hadn’t factored in the large percentage of people who are also experiencing postpartum hair loss, menopausal hair loss, or even those who suffer from Trichotillomania (hair pulling disorder) and it’s been really motivating for our team to see how much our product helps people.

Even more recently, in light of Covid, many of our customers are sharing reviews and stories about how they have experienced more shedding since contracting the virus and how UKLASH has helped grow their lashes/brows/hair back.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

I have always worked in the beauty industry, but growing up with two sisters who were always looking for (and mostly failing to find) products to improve the appearance of their lashes and brows, I always knew I wanted to create something to help them. We grew up during the nineties so you can imagine what they were working with! I was keen to create a product which not only improves the look of lashes but actually changes the length, volume and thickness – naturally. Our first product, UKLASH Eyelash Serum was such a success that we were able to quickly grow and create a Brow Serum to supplement the range.

The lash category in the UK has always been very healthy and, whilst other lash serum brands are well known here, the focus has predominantly been mascara and false eyelashes in the UK rather than growth serums. I wanted to see whether a brand which felt more approachable, fun and affordable would resonate well with a UK audience and, since we tend to follow trends from the US here – where lash serums are prevalent – I saw a real gap in the market to create a lash serum with primarily a UK consumer in mind.

I have worked with growth serum products with many different brands throughout my career, so I had a lot of market insight and knowledge of the category prior to the launch of UKLASH in 2018. To be honest, even though I saw a gap in the market, I wasn’t sure how well a new brand would resonate within the UK. I took a risk and decided to launch with a completely different approach to our competitors and other brands in the category in terms of branding, marketing and price, even though I had the UK customer in mind, I wasn’t sure if it would resonate here – but luckily the risk paid off!

When we started, the market was dominated by US brands that seemed to me to be very functional and almost medical in look and feel. I wanted to create a brand that was approachable, which cut the jargon and which was easy to understand, use and apply.

We looked at everything from brand design, colours, the copy and tone of voice that we use, the models in our ads and POS through to our social and marketing strategies to ensure that we were speaking to a diverse audience and were approachable for, and affordable to, as many people as possible.

It was really important to keep the price as affordable as possible whilst not sacrificing on the quality of ingredients or efficacy. Our products start at £9.99 and none of the range exceeds £39.99. We also make sure to put a lot of focus onto our front-end development so we can make sure that our online store is easy to use so it can be accessible for everyone. We’re always looking at ways we can improve our functionality to make the shopping experience easier (and better) for the customer.

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

Thanks to our supportive and loyal customer base, we have been able to grow our product offering quite significantly to encompass more categories which is something we hope to continue doing in the future.

We also had a huge growth in sales during the pandemic – a YOY increase of over 300%. I believe this was a result of all of the changing beauty trends we saw happening during and post-lockdown. The notion of ‘Zoom Face’ challenged traditional beauty ideals – people were turning away from applying a full face of make-up and using false eyelashes etc as they weren’t going out, and we started to see people turning to skincare and natural looking beauty more and more.

The closure of salons and salon services also meant professional treatments were forbidden, so consumers started to spend more on their at-home beauty and lash habits, learning how to do DIY treatments and looking for ways to enhance their natural beauty. We also saw an increase in people researching products and ingredients, making informed decisions rather than impulse buys.

As we started as a D2C beauty brand we have always invested a lot time into having solid platforms in place to give the best possible consumer purchasing journeys online. However with pandemic and lockdowns, consumers’ purchasing behaviours have forever changed and everything has become a lot more digital.

As a result, we have really had to improve our digital platforms and functionality more, so we decided to have a complete revamp of our e-comm site last year to make it more user friendly and aesthetically more impactful which has resulted in even better sales results for us; we have recently become one of Shopify’s top performing stores within the Health & Beauty category. As the whole UKLASH team also
works remotely, we have upgraded and moved into better communication and project management tools too.

What can we hope to see from UKLASH in the future?

We hope to continue the success we have had in the UK and become the category leader in new markets around the world. We are already one of the top performers within the lash category in Spain and we are also seeing great growth in markets such as Australia, USA and Canada.

We will also continue to expand the range and launch more high-quality products at accessible prices, listening to our consumer’s needs and developing more products that best suit our community.

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