Look at any growing industry, and you’ll soon find new entrants wanting to cash in on its rise. So, it’s not surprising that a young brand called Jolie wants to do exactly that with the beauty and wellness sector. 

The U.S. skincare industry will see 12.6% retail sales growth in 2023, according to a recent Insider Intelligence prediction. What’s more, Insider Intelligence forecasts that U.S. cosmetics and beauty retail sales will grow by 10.1% this year, and that U.S. health and personal care sales growth more broadly will grow by 8.5%.

But Jolie doesn’t sell products such as face wash or mascara. Instead, it sells shower heads.

Yes, shower heads. In January 2022, Jolie started selling shower heads with filtration systems and marketing them as beauty products. As Ryan Babenzien, co-founder and CEO of Jolie would say, water is step zero in a beauty routine, after all.

With a strong Instagram presence and other scrappy marketing tactics, Jolie ended its first year in business with $4 million in revenue. During its first few months, its products were only sold DTC; they’ve since moved into retailers such as Goop and Anthropologie.

Jolie is profitable, Babenzien said.

Years before starting Jolie, Babenzien founded what he said was the first DTC footwear brand, Greats, and sold it to Steve Madden in 2019.

And, unlike shoes, which must be offered in multiple sizes, shower heads have a standard fit, he said during a recent episode of the Marketer’s Brief podcast.

“I felt that if you had a product that focused on vanity, because vanity really drives a lot of our decisions about what we buy and why we buy them, if you had a product that was singular in size or standard size, ‘one size fits all,’ that would eliminate a lot of the return and exchange issues for fit,” Babenzien said.

Then, one day in the shower, he had a thought: “I had a shower thought that I was going to create a beauty and wellness company that purifies your water for better skin, hair and health,” he said.

Jolie, whose business model relies on selling shower heads and replaceable filters, was the result.