Everyday people: Frank Body’s bold plans to shake up the body wash market

Skincare brand Frank Body has ambitious plans to “own” the body care market in Australia and believes its new range of consumer products will help it achieve this goal. 

Ten years on from launching its cult body scrub made from coffee beans, Frank Body has this week rolled out its first sister brand, Everyday, which features skincare products “for every body to use every day”, according to co-founder Bree Johnson. 

The range, which officially launched on Tuesday, includes body washes, face washes and body lotions made with “active” ingredients, under four variations: hydrating, clearing, nourishing and brightening. 

The clearing body wash and clearing face wash products have been part of the Frank Body range for two years, but have now been repackaged and rebranded to be included in the Everyday collection. 

The first 11 products in the Everyday range are available from the Frank Body website and Priceline.com from this week, with stock set to arrive in Priceline’s bricks-and-mortar stores within the next week. 

The products are produced locally, all priced under $16 and their packaging is made from 50% post-consumer recycled materials. 

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Speaking to SmartCompany, Johnson says the Frank Body team has been fine tuning the range over the past 12 months, but the idea of entering new categories has been on the radar for some time. 

“We’ve talked about it for a long time and this year is our tenth anniversary, so it felt like the right time,” she says. 

Johnson founded Frank Body alongside co-founders Jess Hatzis, Steve Rowley, Alex Boffa and Erika Geraerts in 2013. The brand’s cheeky and playful personality helped it quickly attract a loyal following and within two years was reportedly on track to turn over around $20 million in sales. 

More recently, Frank Body was valued at around $100 million, following a deal with EverYi Capital in 2021 that saw the Chinese private equity firm take a minority stake in the business.

Four of the five founders are still with the business — Geraerts departed in 2016 — and Johnson says they remain passionate about helping consumers look after their bodies. 

“We are very focused on body care as an area we can own,” she says. 

“It’s an area we think the industry and consumers have not given enough love to, especially body wash, which is something you use everyday but often it is not amazing for your skin.”

“We think we can own the category.”

It was important for the new range to have its own look and feel, rather than adopting the Frank Body branding, says Johnson, to communicate its universal appeal. 

Similarly, the strategy of using four different colours to match the four different benefits of the products is designed to attract a much broader audience than the predominantly female one that currently buys Frank Body products. 

“It’s something the whole family can use, including partners, even if it is the female who buys it,” says Johnson. 

This is already playing out, says Johnson, with a mix of both existing Frank Body customers and new customers signing up to the Everyday waitlist prior to launch, which was promoted via the Frank Body social accounts last week. 

Competition is ramping up in the body care space — social enterprise Unlabelled and Who Gives a Crap have recently launched body care products, and larger perfume brands are also vying for a piece of the action — and this is a good thing, says Johnson, as it has been an area of the beauty industry that has been somewhat “neglected”. 

And as for how Everyday will stand out among these competitors, Johnson says it comes down to what’s in the bottles themselves. 

“We only use clean ingredients,” she says. “Most body washes contain ingredients that you wouldn’t want to put on your body or wash down the sink.”

Instead, the Everyday range includes “active” ingredients, such as vitamin C and salicylic acid, which are more commonly found in facial skin care products. 

“People want their products to work harder,” she says.