From zits and other hormonal changes to the overall ambiguity of adolescence, Gryt wants to guide Gen Alpha consumers through it all.
The personal care brand and community platform launches tomorrow with a three-product skin care line comprised of a Face Courage Daily Cleanser, Balancing Act Face Moisturizer and So Chill Super Serum. Priced at $24 or less and geared toward consumers between the ages of 8 and 16, the EWG-Verified products include niacinamide, willow bark extract, aloe vera and ashwagandha among other ingredients.
“The most beneficial thing we can do during these formative years is focus on teaching healthy habits and small steps that can have a compounding impact over time,” said Carly Kaufman, a board-certified functional medicine health coach who teamed up with beauty industry veteran Kathryn Beaton and board-certified health and wellness coach Caroline Makoujy-Kusnetz to cofound Gryt.
The founders also tapped a dermatologist, a pediatrician, a sexual health educator and a marriage and family therapist to inform Gryt’s educational approach on its social and direct-to-consumer channels: “They’re integrated into everything that we do, because we want to make sure that everything we put out is sound,” Kaufman said.
A Youth Advisory Board consisting of Gen Alpha and Gen Z consumers also had a hand in the brand’s development, providing input via routine in-person and text brainstorming sessions. “We didn’t just want to be three moms telling kids what to do — we wanted to make sure they had an equal, if not louder, voice than our own,” Beaton said.
Though the founders did not specify sales expectations for the brand’s launch, industry sources estimate Gryt could reach $1 million in first year sales.
To coincide with the brand’s debut, the Youth Advisory Board helped codevelop a zine filled with stories and articles that touch on the physical and emotional changes that occur during puberty in an informative yet lighthearted way.
“Many people were raised without even having the words to describe what’s happening to their changing bodies, and so we want to foster these conversations,” said Kaufman, noting that the zine will be distributed with each purchase, and that a second issue is already in the works.
“We’re almost looking at [Gryt] like the next generation’s Goop — we’re focused on those three pillars of education, product and community,” said Beaton, adding that future Gryt products could include a starter shaving kit for boys and an expansion into body care.
A podcast is in the works, as well.
“We want to be that place that both kids and parents alike who are struggling to find that authority or that place to go to for this information, can come to collaborate and vent and chat,” Beaton said.
The brand has inked brick-and-mortar presences at Pop Up Grocer, which recently opened its first permanent store in Greenwich Village, and at 12 locations of children’s hair salon, Sit Still. “We’re thinking outside the box with our potential retail partners — even looking at somewhere like a Starbucks, for example, where kids are going anyways and with whom we can partner in a different way,” Makoujy-Kusnetz said.