When Glansaol filed for bankruptcy in December 2018, beauty industry executive Joey Shamah seized the opportunity to give a new home to the company’s stable of brands, Clark’s Botanicals, Laura Geller Beauty and Julep.

“I was very interested because it’s expensive to get into the beauty space [organically] and this was an opportunity for me to return to the industry with great brands,” said Joey, who co-founded E.L.F. Cosmetics and sold the majority of the firm in 2014. He has since been working in the fitness industry as CEO of Fit for Life.

Joey purchased Glansaol for $18 million under new business venture, AS Beauty, a partnership between himself, his father, Dan, and the Azrak family, who has a long heritage in the children’s pajama world and strong experience with operational efficiencies. Since then, the company has been on a mission to enhance growth trajectories of Laura Geller Beauty and Julep (Francesco Clark bought Clark’s Botanicals back from AS Beauty), while establishing a foothold in beauty.

“What I’ve done at E.L.F. and what I’ll do with the team here at AS beauty is create a customer-centric environment where we’re listening to both the end users and the retailers to understand what we can do better, whether its price points, products or responding to trends,” he said.

Here, a summary of the strategies the company is executing to position Laura Geller Beauty and Julep for long-term success.

Exiting Ulta Beauty

“On Day 2, we decided to exit Ulta Beauty for both brands. It wasn’t profitable,” he said, citing full-time talent, expensive fixture changes and markdowns.

Overhauling Website Platforms

“The website platforms that both brands were on weren’t conducive to the quick changes we need to do for promotions, new product launches and reviews, so we moved both over to Shopify Plus, which is a very malleable system where we can get apps, customer service and adaptability,” said Joey.

Transitioning Julep to a Mass Market Brand

“We were able to enter Target through my relationship with the retailer,” said Joey. In turn, the brand brought prices down 40% across 60 sku’s more accessible.

To help communicate the pivot, Julep’s website now features a messaging campaign explaining the price drop and the brand’s new availability at Target, which began September 1. To build buzz and awareness, PR boxes will be sent to about 500 influencers educating them about the change, and the brand will be hosting a social media campaign encouraging consumers to post a photo of the products at the retailer for the chance to win a $1,000 Target gift card. Additionally, as the brand is available in 350 doors, some of Julep’s marketing efforts will be focused on deploying geotargeting ads on Instagram and Facebook to drive buzz around specific locations..

Building Laura Geller’s Retail Presence

“We’ve invested a lot into Laura Geller Beauty’s QVC business because we feel there’s a lot more opportunity in that space,” said Joey. “Additionally, we’ve significantly expanded the brand’s presence at Kohl’s, which used to be a very small portion of the business.”

Looking Forward

“Right now, AS Beauty has so much room for development, both from product and distribution in the U.S. and abroad, but as we get healthier as a company, we’d love to layer on additional brands,” reveled Joey. “A lot of brands that have a good DTC presence struggle when they try traditional distribution because they lack operating efficiency, so I definitely have my pulse on that and as things become available, we will look into them.”