Beauty: Bright ideas good enough to bottle

Angelika Kupis is launching a new range of travel beauty accessories. Photo / Babiche Martens

Entrepreneurs are unified by their derring-do. While the rest of us mutter about being wage slaves, they take the risks. Some succeed magnificently while others fail but what they all have in common is they give it a go.

In the world of hair and beauty, where multinational companies dominate, it's still possible for a good idea to make inroads on a tough market. We meet the people behind three New Zealand companies who are convinced - or who have shown - that they have the goods to get us buying.

Starting out

At just 25, Angelika Kupis has scored the sort of business coup others dream of. Before she'd finished her communications degree at AUT, she'd come up with a business idea and, just a few years later, she's launching her range of well-priced electronic beauty tools for busy, style-conscious women. They've just gone on sale, including at the country's biggest retailer, The Warehouse.

"I want to be a mass-market brand," she says, of Kupis, the name emblazoned on the side of the nifty black and pale blue gadgets designed in New Zealand and made in China. Among the 14 products are luminous tweezers with magnifying mirror, a glass file with in-built lights, mini-trimmers and personal shavers, a petite hair styler and a facial exfoliator.

Kupis, who grew up in Poland and moved here at 18, says European women pay a lot of attention to beauty. She spotted a gap for electronic beauty products on the shelves here.

"Looking good shouldn't be time-consuming and expensive," she says. "Not everyone has the time or the money to go a beauty salon."

From that simple proposition came the Kupis range. Kupis set out to find a mentor and upskill herself with business courses. Working for an import-export company gives her added insights. She got in touch with Angela Bonfiglio, the product designer behind the successful Hello Dolly tool range, and worked with her to come up with a distinctive image for the Kupis range. Product names are catchy too, the likes of Plucking Perfection, So Sleek, Nice Nails, Straight or Wave and Serene Clean.

"It's different from other brands in terms of look and feel," she says.

Kupis deliberately steered away from girly pink, going for something sophisticated she thought suited a modern clientele and electronic goods. The prices range from $9.99 to $49.99. She credits Bonfiglio and her mentor Tony Everitt with much of the help in getting this far and says The Warehouse was remarkably receptive. "It took them two days to make a decision."

But it hasn't all been plain sailing, immigrating initially required some adjustment. Although she had learned English at school, Kupis found adapting to spoken Kiwi took a bit of time and she had to complete a certificate course before embarking on her degree, majoring in public relations. She credits New Zealand with providing her opportunities and her Polish heritage her entrepreneurial drive, with many of her family having been in business.

Now living with her fiance in Meadowbank, she's looking forward to the day she can leave her day job and concentrate on Kupis.

She already has more ideas for other items for her range and wants to see Kupis on sale in Australia and

Britain. "It's very exciting starting something from scratch and seeing people use it."

* Kupis is on sale at 14 The Warehouse stores nationally, including Auckland's Downtown, Sylvia Park, Manukau, Albany, Westcity, Airport, and Westgate and at Radius Pharmacy, Queen St, and selected other outlets. kupis.co.nz

Going strong

Back in the 1990s, an Auckland hairdresser decided to give making his own styling products a go, "stinking out" his St Marys Bay flat. Then Shane Young met Anthony Gadsdon through his flatmate, Nicky, and a business team was formed.

"The key to success is Young understanding the products - the hairdressing side - and me understanding the supermarket side," says Gadsdon.

The men are managing directors of Mix, the company behind Dominate men's hair-styling products. A competing global brand told me they were the third-highest-selling hair styling range in New Zealand supermarkets, an impressive feat up against the VO5s, Schwarzkopfs and L'Oreals. Turns out if you don't count hairspray (which Dominate doesn't make), the ranking is No. 1 in gels, shapers and waxes. The company sells strongly into Australia, where 70 per cent of its production heads. It has "dabbled" in Britain and South Africa and may test the California market.

Breaking into supermarkets was not easy but, with his background, Gadsdon knew it was a matter of getting the price point right and being persistent.

"The mantra is salon quality at supermarket prices," says Young. This is achieved, they say, partly because they don't spend up large on advertising campaigns. Products cost from $9.99 to $11.99.

Word of mouth and catchy packaging helps sell the products, which their research tells them is mostly likely to be picked up in the first place by a mother, girlfriend or sister.

"But now we know it's him, saying 'you have to buy the red one, the green one'."

Dominate's simple beginnings date to when Young had among his clientele at the Cutting Edge in Shortland St a number of the city's bouncers, who came in for clipper cuts and loved the American wax products. A look at the ingredients revealed only about five, so Young set about mixing them up and trying them on his customers. This led to Waxx, still the biggest seller in the range. New out is Fibre, designed to appeal to an older age bracket than the core 12-25 customer, and also Toffee, which smells good enough to eat.

From the back of the barber shop and at home, Mix now has its home in a two-storey factory and warehouse in an industrial estate near Auckland Airport. The company employs 27, including its own cosmetics chemist.

On the payroll, is Young's old flatmate, Nicky, now married to Gadsdon. With her marketing background she works as Dominate's brand manager. Young's wife, Asher, is brand manager for two newer lines, the unisex Hairplay styling range and Primal Earth, a naturally based skincare range. (The latter came about when Young, who was troubled by eczema, set out to come up with a soothing shave gel). Both women work part-time, juggling children with their jobs.

The men, who are good mates as well as business partners, enjoy managing their own business, dreaming up new products and say running Mix has brought many benefits such as travel.

"If you'd have designed it, this would be the way it was," says Gadsdon.

"We've had quite a few people turning up here asking how you crack it," Young says.

* Dominate and Hairplay can be found in all major supermarkets in the haircare aisle and Primal Earth in men's skincare sections. A special range of Dominate Christmas and travel packs are new in store. dominatehair.com

Changing tack

With her tastefully renovated villa in the country, extended to overlook a potager garden, and an at-home salon in a frontroom, Oasis skincare founder Stephanie Kimpton seems to have the business/lifestyle equation solved.

Working from home allows her to enjoy the benefits that brought her and her husband back from a lengthy stint working in Britain. They're now well settled outside the Canterbury foothills town of Oxford, an hour's drive from Christchurch. Oxford is the same town where Jo Seagar has set up her cafe and cooking school and this handy venue was used last month by Oasis for a VIP client evening.

Kimpton, like many in the natural skincare realm, became interested in making her own cosmetics because of her own skin issues. A decade or so ago, she started mixing up her own "greasy" creams, working from recipes in a book. She tried them out on friends and family and then set out to improve the simple concoctions. You get the impression her secretarial background came in handy for the following period of extensive research, cataloguing, testing and learning through trial and error.

A hobby became a passion, then a business and Oasis was launched into pharmacies and with online sales. Kimpton's Auckland-based sister handles marketing. Stockists include the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua.

Kimpton, who uses natural ingredients, including locally sourced honey, says Oasis is not a "benign" feel-good range, but is designed to achieve visible results. It comes in formulations for different skin types, including babies. The range includes an SPF30 sunblock. Some of the skincare contains vitamin A. Other ingredients are certified organic, with those that aren't able to be tracked back to ensure their origins are ethical and natural. Prices are kept in check because the company does not have large overheads.

Now Oasis is changing course, seeing more opportunities in developing the range in beauty salons, where it can be better individually prescribed than in cluttered pharmacies.

As a brand-building exercise, an introductory $35 signature facial has been launched, which is not only a winner at the price, but also an experience that matches many pricier treatments. A reflexology-based treatment, it works on lymphatic drainage and uses hydrating compresses, while giving a good sampling of the skincare.

"The price point is attracting new clients into beauty clinics that have not had treatments before and existing clientele are also enjoying this new style of treatment that focuses on results," says Kimpton.

* Oasis skincare is available online, with a diagnostic service available. Salon stockists are also listed at oasisbeauty.co.nz