The Australian owned and made brand, RAWW Cosmetics, have taken the natural makeup and skincare world by storm with their superfood infused products, natural ingredients and cruelty free methods. How great!
We were lucky enough to interview the founder of RAWW Cosmetics, Tony Rechtman, and ask him some of our burning questions we had about his brand. Read on as our Retail Buying Manager, Diane Gant, delves into the world of RAWW Cosmetics with Tony!
Diane:
Tony, can you tell us a little bit about how the idea came to you for creating the brand RAWW?
Tony:
Yeah, definitely. RAWW launched just over three years ago and my company is Total Beauty Network and we’ve got a few brands that have sold in pharmacy for quite a few years. We’ve got Designer Brands Cosmetics, we’ve got Colour by TBN Nail Polish, and we’ve also got a brand called Inika Organics, which is a premium certified organic and certified vegan, cruelty free, high-end premium makeup and skincare range. So, I saw that women were looking for healthier products and they couldn’t really find them in pharmacy. And that’s sort of the big gap in the market for a healthy range of products. But for me, you don’t want to just put products into stores that don’t have a point of difference.
I saw that Inika was up here with a high end premium healthy brand, DB was down here at an everyday low price, but both with healthy ingredients. There was a real gap in the market that women were looking for healthier products at that middle price point and it didn’t exist. So, we brainstormed quite a bit and thought how we could deliver a brand like Inika but develop a younger sister brand to Inika that was at a lower price point but was still natural, clean, and healthy. That’s really where the idea behind RAWW came up.
Diane:
Sounds like a fantastic plan looking for gaps in the market, and then being able to fill that gap with something as successful as RAWW.
Tony:
If you go back five, ten years ago when smoothies and Boost Juice first started, everyone would go out and have a big night and then the next day they’d have a Boost Juice and that was their way of being healthy. I just thought there’s got to be a way to have healthier makeup and skincare for women of all ages. That was some of the thinking we had in the background that we didn’t see brands doing that – we just saw more of the same and nothing really catering that was healthy and different.
Diane:
What’s the unique proposition for RAWW in the beauty category? What do you feel is that really unique point of difference?
Tony:
To me, it’s all about superfoods. And coming back to the whole juice story, we saw that people were drinking superfoods everywhere in their shakes. First of all, in America, then it came to Australia and people were looking for healthier ways internally, but there was nothing really for their skin or their makeup that was giving them a healthier alternative.
Then we just thought that superfoods are the next big trend. Going into retail stores, there were whole walls of superfoods, but then you go into the makeup or skincare category and it was more of the same. We knew from Inika, which sells globally, that women and men wanted nicer ingredients and better ingredients. So, for us, it was the superfood angle that gave a real point of difference for the product and it really helps nourish your skin.
Diane:
We do sell loads of superfoods in our health food wellness section! So, it’s a great fit for WholeLife Pharmacy and Healthfoods.
Tony:
Absolutely!
Diane:
Can you tell us a little bit more specifically about the range itself and why it’s growing in popularity?
Tony:
There are three parts to the RAWW range. There’s the makeup range, there’s a skincare range and then there’s the aroma-therapy range. All three have really resonated with our consumers – they’ve taken off equally. It’s really interesting if I look at the last 12 months going through COVID, there’s been a massive change where people have really thought, “I need to change my life. I need to change what I eat, what I drink, what I clean my house with.” There has been a big shift in people’s minds about “How do I just get healthier? How do I make sure that I’m the best I can be?”.
We’ve really seen a big shift in the last 12 to 18 months on RAWW. However, we launched the brand 3 years ago and we had all this demand globally for the brand as well. We decided to launch RAWW in Australia first, and then get everything right and then go global. So, later this year, you’ll see RAWW in a lot of countries around the world.
Diane:
How exciting for you guys. An Australian brand going global is just such a testament to what you guys have started to do. I think it’s great that you’re putting Australia on the map as well.
Tony:
Thank you. For us, whenever we see RAWW in a store, in a newspaper, in a magazine, people using it and hearing feedback – it just makes us really proud. We just get such great feedback that people love our products and that’s the best accolade we can ever get.
Diane:
So RAWW has got another similarity to the WholeLife Pharmacy and Healthfoods group and that’s our environmental and social commitments. We write a lot about the environment and the social commitments that we partner with a lot of suppliers. So, can you tell us a little bit more about what RAWW’s commitments are in that area?
Tony:
Yeah, definitely. So, a couple of things we really believe in strongly; the majority of our products are vegan. The only products that aren’t vegan is where we use beeswax for product performance, but majority of the range is vegan. Everything we do in our company is cruelty free. We’ve never used any ingredient that would harm an animal or be tested on animals. For that reason, we don’t sell in China, for example. A lot of our products are COSMOS NATURAL or COSMOS ORGANIC which is an organic standard that we certify our products with, to really prove how natural or how organic the product is.
We jumped through a lot of hoops to get that certification as a proof point, so that our consumers know the products are being tested properly and efficiently. All our packaging is recyclable and we’re moving our packaging to fully sustainable packaging. So, in the coming months, you’ll see a lot more glass bottles coming through, plastics made of sugarcane and other more recyclable ingredients. For us, we want you to love the product when you’re using it. We also want you to be able to dispose of it at the end in a proper way that doesn’t harm the environment as well.
Diane:
What’s your favourite product in the RAWW portfolio?
Tony:
I brought a few to show you. For example, my son’s favourite product is our body scrub. I’ve got two boys, 12 and 14, and they love using this in the shower – it’s their favourite product. And my wife – so we just launched some dry shampoo, and my wife loves the dry shampoo because it keeps her hair as well as body clean. And for me, I actually like the face oil. I find that it’s very hydrating because when you’re in the office all day long and you’re in air conditioning, your skin dries out. With our oils it really super hydrates your skin. So being male I don’t use makeup, but we test all our products ourselves. Every product I’ve tried to see how it works. But the oil, I really really like. I love! So, whether it’s a hydrating serum or our night oils, they’re just so hydrating for your skin and make you just feel alive.
Diane:
Tony, it’s been fantastic meeting you and thank you for your time. And if there’s anything new and exciting, that’s coming up, we want to know about it. Congratulations on going global with the RAWW brand!
Tony:
Thank you. Thank you very much. And for everyone out there reading, we love hearing feedback. So please always give us feedback on our products and we can always get better. So, the more we hear, the better we can be. So, thank you.
Check out the our interview with Tony Rechtman, CEO and Founder of Total Beauty Network and RAWW Cosmetics.
