The Interview: How a vegan diet inspired Roshanne Dorsett to launch The Glowcery
Roshanne Dorsett launched The Glowcery in 2020. After going vegan, she had started to feel the holistic benefits of her new lifestyle choice and was keen to replicate this in her skincare routine.
Although Dorsett doesn’t come from a skincare background, it was always something she had an interest in. She used to make natural skincare products using natural ingredients such as sugar and olive oil but decided to study LLB Law with Criminology at Keele University, which led to her securing a job at a law firm in London. Working on certain cases had started to take a toll on Dorsett, so she left the profession and spent six months working in Ibiza while she figured out what she wanted to do next. When she returned to the UK, she decided to launch a skincare brand and the rest was history.
The inspiration behind the launch of the brand was groceries. “I wanted The Glowcery to be a close representation of a grocery for your skin. When you go grocery shopping, you know exactly what to buy to get the nutrients you need and I wanted to replicate this in skincare,” she says. “I took inspiration from fruits and vegetables - the product names, fonts and packaging are all inspired by them. I wanted to embrace simplicity while keeping things fun and colourful.”
Prior to launching the brand, Dorsett enrolled on an accredited Natural and Organic Skincare course with Formula Botanica, qualifying in natural and organic skincare formulations including face products (oils, toners and serums) and body products (oils, butters and masks). In addition to making her own products before launching the brand, Dorsett had also developed a lip care product so she was able to take the learnings from that and feed them into what she was offering with The Glowcery.
While searching for her own skincare staples, Dorsett often found there was a lack of transparency around what was organic and if ingredients were upcycled or not. “It wasn’t always easy to identify this from the INCIs, so I didn’t know what would be effective in my routine. By this point, I had spent a lot of time and money searching for products that met both my skincare needs and ethical values, so I gathered similar experiences and carried out my own pre-launch research, which illustrated the gap. I felt confident that The Glowcery’s innovative ingredients, grocery-inspired colours and superfood products would help bridge the gap between consumer discovery and purchase.”
Clean Greens
When the brand first launched, it targeted millennials and Gen Z women aged 18-35 who would consider themselves to be conscious beauty consumers who were looking for organic products. Having launched the business during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dorsett was blown away by how well the brand was received. In the space of three months of launching online, the brand was featured in publications such as British Vogue, Stylist, Sunday Times Style and on ITV’s This Morning. “It was a whirlwind! Our Clean Greens Superfood Serum sold out. This kick started a catalyst of press features and to date, the brand has been featured in over 70 articles (nationally and internationally),” she says. This year, Dorsett was announced as one of the recipients of The Black Girl Fest powered by Glossier Beauty programme and the Ultrasun/SkinSense ARC Light Initiative. She was also invited to the BeyGood Small Black Business Luncheon, which was hosted by Matthew Knowles.
The Glowcery’s bestsellers are the Clean Greens Superfood Serum and the Blue Dew Fruit Enzyme Oil-To-Milk Cleanser. The Clean Greens Superfood Serum is an oil-based serum made with 20 nourishing plant-based ingredients. It locks in moisture and helps brighten hyperpigmentation and prevent breakouts. It is suitable for all skin types and has been hailed as a natural solution to pigmentation issues, hormonal skin and dryness. The serum won Best Facial Oil in the Women’s Health Beauty Awards in 2020. “It’s a firm favourite with our customer base because it’s a great natural solution for a wide range of skin issues and not only is it suitable for all skin types, it’s also suitable for all skin tones. To date, Clean Greens has received almost 100 five-star reviews,” she says. Blue Dew Fruit Enzyme Oil-To-Milk Cleanser is another bestseller. Formulated with antibacterial sesame seed oil, calming blue tansy oil as well as papaya and pineapple fruit enzymes, it effortlessly removes makeup, SPF and impurities. Like Clean Greens, it’s also been well received in the beauty space, winning Best Cleanser in the Cosmopolitan Beauty Awards 2021.
Dorsett is using her experience as a qualified Level 2 Skin and Massage Therapist to elevate the customer experience. The brand is offering Superfood Skincare Services in the form of A Glow and Go Lymphatic Drainage Facial and a Dermaplane Facial. The ‘Glow and Go’ is a detoxifying facial that melts away tension and stress to help depuff skin, revealing a smoother, firmer and brighter complexion. The Dermaplane ‘Glow Facial’ involves using a medical grade scalpel to gently remove dead skin cells and peach fuzz hair from the outermost layer of the skin. It improves the appearance of hyperpigmentation, scarring, fine lines, wrinkles and helps skincare products absorb better.
Blue Dew
To make beauty effective and accessible for all, The Glowcery aims to continue to be a go-to wellness destination for beauty conscious consumers from all backgrounds. To achieve this, it has taken a sustainable approach to beauty by upcycling fruit waste ingredients that would otherwise be discarded by the industry. “You can find upcycled tomato seed, sweet orange and strawberry oils in our Tomato Tonic Fragrance Free Serum, Sweet Orange Lip Balm and Golden Nectar Nourishing Body Oil,” she says. The brand also uses cold-pressed ingredients which retain the most amount of nutrients.
Every order made on the brand’s website is sent out with a handwritten note. Post-purchase, customers receive check-in emails, where Dorsett enquires about their experience using The Glowcery products. “I receive lovely responses from our customers which is always great. We are a small, independent brand so I want to pour as much as I can into the consumer journey to ensure we are meeting their needs in the best way we can,” she says.
From the very beginning, Dorsett knew she wanted The Glowcery to be a leading superfood skincare brand. To achieve this, she knew she had to be clear about the brand’s values. “We’re innovative, results-driven, fun and we stand out with our vibrant packaging, engaging content and unique formulas,” she says. The brand believes that what we put on our skin should be just as effective as what we put on our bodies. Their upcycled ingredient formulation process retains the maximum amount of nutrients to ensure their customers have the ‘glowceries’ they need to feed their skin the vitamins it needs to look and feel healthy.
When The Glowcery launched in March 2020, sustainability wasn’t as in demand as it is now. Dorsett predicts that consumers will continue to align their beauty purchases with their values and that there’ll be more innovation to meet their needs. “I think we will continue to see the emergence of smaller, sustainable brands like The Glowcery. This is a movement, not a moment, so I’m excited to see what’s next because there are so many talented people in the industry. Also, the rapid developments in AI offer real opportunities in sustainable innovation,” she says. Dorsett’s advice to anyone who wants to get into the beauty industry is to build a community first. “Bring people along on your journey and they’ll become your brand’s best ambassadors. I also think it’s important to be willing to put yourself out there – make genuine connections within the industry. Also, resilience is key – you have to be able to bounce back from mistakes,” she says.
So what’s next for The Glowcery? The brand has joined forces with Simi Lindgren (founder of Yuty). Yuty is an AI-driven beauty tech destination that aims to elevate the buying experience through personalisation. “To meet this growing demand, I’m using AI enabled technology to drive responsible consumption and to develop effective vegan and sustainable skincare and wellness products,” she says. When shopping on the brand’s website, customers will have the opportunity to find their own personalised match. “With the ‘Find Your Personalised Match’ tabs, customers can choose to have their photo taken with one click, allowing Yuty’s AI technology to carry out a skin analysis, which will then curate an edit of the best products to use based on your skin’s needs and concerns. I’m really excited about further developing the conversations we can have with our customers in this space. I believe that AI can help the beauty industry become more sustainable,” she says.
