From a makeshift apartment studio to 41 salons and counting, Sugared and Bronzed cofounder and president Courtney Claghorn has built a tanning empire, with world domination on the horizon.
At the annual WWD Los Angeles Beauty Forum, Claghorn took the stage to chronicle the growth of her business and reflected on its customer-first culture.
Starting from the beginning, she said: “The inspiration for Sugared and Bronzed came from two things: my insecurity about being the palest member of my Italian family and feeling very broke as a recent college grad in the Great Recession.”
Courtney Claghorn talks brand growth at the Los Angeles Beauty Forum on Oct. 6.
Claghorn remembered being fresh out of school, new to California and desperate for a cheap tan. Yet, the only affordable airbrush salon she could find in the area had a middle-aged straight man handling the spray canisters. “I don’t know about you guys but I like to be naked when I get a spray tan. So, needless to say, I left,” she said.
“I complained nonstop to my then-boyfriend, now husband and cofounder [Sam Offit]. When he got sick of hearing me complain, he did what any good Jewish boyfriend might do and suggested we might have a business potential here,” she continued.
Claghorn then recalled the early days of Sugared and Bronzed, back when it was just “Bronzed.” At the time, she ran the business out of her apartment and took clients between breaks at work. Rising demand ultimately led her to leave her day job and open up an official salon, which, at the time, cost only $8,000. Nine years of bootstrapping later, Bronzed became Sugared and Bronzed, with a total of 10 locations and two investors: Main Post Partners and Howard Schultz, the former chief executive officer of Starbucks. The private equity firm and Schultz remain as Sugared and Bronzed’s sole investors.
Today, the business is in seven states, offers a full product line and is on track to do north of $50 million in the next year, according to Claghorn. International expansion’s not far off either. “How is it possible to go from these very humble beginnings to the nation’s largest sugaring and airbrush tanning destination? I think it all comes down to our brand mantra, and that’s every client should leave feeling even better than when they arrived,” Claghorn said.
She went on to explain how this same belief is the foundation on which the Sugared and Bronzed culture is built upon, from the rigorously trained service providers to the ambience inside each salon, where everything from the location to the paint color, the art and tiles are carefully curated. She noted that a customer-first mentality also drives the brand’s product formulation, one example being its FlexExpress, a first-of-its-kind hybrid tanning solution that allows for immediate rinse or wear flexibility.
Claghorn closed out her remarks with a message to the future founders in the room. “If you take one thing away from this, just remember your deep insecurity, an economic recession or a boyfriend that’s sick of hearing you complain, just might be the recipe for your next big idea,” she said.
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