I’m here with Lauren Rampello Becotte, who’s the founder and chief creative officer of Pure Glow, a premium airbrush tanning brand designed to replicate the skin’s natural tan. Pure Glow is transforming the beauty space with its unique tanning solutions of organic and pure ingredients, as well as its focus on providing customers with a realistic looking and long-lasting tanning experience. Not only is the brand aiming to emphasize the importance of transparency in beauty products and services, but it is also striving to make inclusivity amongst skin types an industry standard in the tanning world. Her journey toward creating Pure Glow began in 2015, driven by her personal challenges with skin issues, which she faced at the age of 27.
I actually happened to be a brief client. I tested out the product last week just to see what it was like, and I have to say it was pretty amazing.
🔉 Listen to Audio Excerpt:
So Lauren, can you tell us about your early experiences that shaped your journey into the beauty industry? I know you’ve spoken about your early skin issues. How did that really influence everything?
Sure. So, it’s a great question and thank you for having me here, Charlie. So, at a very young age, I did battle some severe acne. And what happened with, because I have a more melanated skin type, what would happen is anytime I touched my skin or tried to rid of what was going on, I would really be wrought with a lot of scarring and a lot of things that just didn’t make me feel great. And even though my parents are both had this background in the medical field, I was not introduced to a dermatologist or some great options that would help me with that. But what I did find anecdotally is when I would spend some time in the sun, the sun naturally dries your skin out and in addition to that, it really evens the skin with a tan, right? And so, from a very early age, I learned to sort of equate a tan with my most even confident self. And that is sort of what began this love for tanning and feeling like my best self with products of that kind.
What specific challenges with your skin led you to explore sunless tanning solutions? Isn’t tanning simply covering up any skin problems?
So, a really good question. So Sunless standing has come very far as an industry and what’s really been happening is that one, we have these much better refined active ingredients that are going to produce much more believable looking results. But in addition to that, these active ingredients can actually play nicer with a lot of really great certified organic, natural, really good for you ingredients, really powerful, effective ingredients. And so, what we’re really doing now in the modern sort of age of sunless tanning is it’s really the union of skincare and makeup. So yes, it is going to help to even the skin tone and make people feel really good and their skin look great from head to toe, but similarly it is going to have an actual positive impact on the skin. So, it is really sort of twofold. You’re getting that boost in your appearance that evening of the skin tone, which really allows everyone to see all of your natural features, your eyes, your lips, your teeth, really what makes you you. And then also it is going to condition the skin and hydrate the skin and actually help the appearance and the look and feel and the health of your skin as well. So, it’s a really wonderful sort of what is available now with Modern Air Force tanning like ours.
What was the gap in the market that you identified that inspired the creation of Pure Glow?
“I really wanted to professionalize and just elevate this whole experience from beginning to end in terms of how people experienced the Sunless Tan, how it’s applied, and create a really wonderful experience for somebody to walk through when they’re trying this for the first time or on a regular basis.”
A few things. One was that we know that we’re looking away from traditional UV tanning or natural tanning in the sun because we know that the dangers are real, the dangers to our skin, the dangers to our health. And so as a result, what I really saw is when I started playing around and learning more about the sunless industry was that first things first, the ingredients were really not as safe and as clean as they should be. And so there are a lot of ingredients being used in the skincare and the makeup industry that don’t need to be used and are largely used either because innovation hasn’t existed, whoever’s making them doesn’t care to make something that is more higher quality and safer for us.
But also just that for me, it was really we want to be able to harness these non-toxic ingredients, these safer ingredients, ideally something more pure, like a certified organic ingredient and make this overall process of using this cosmetic, this airbrush tan a lot safer for human health.
So, doing no harm is something that’s really important to me and has been since the beginning. And then in addition to that, the experience was really lackluster. You’d go into these dirty salons, you would work with maybe people who didn’t know everything about the product they were using and the service they were providing. So, I really wanted to professionalize and just elevate this whole experience from beginning to end in terms of how people experienced the Sunless Tan, how it’s applied, and create a really wonderful experience for somebody to walk through when they’re trying this for the first time or on a regular basis.
So, the tanning formula of Pure Glow is organic, it’s non-toxic. Can you take us through the process of actually developing it? Where is it made?
Yeah, so we do make it here in the US and what’s important is that when you’re in the cosmetic and skincare world, you really need to work with what we think of as a niche industry expert, which is actually a cosmetic chemist. And so that’s really where things start. And then someone like myself is going to work really closely with them to understand what is it that we’re looking to bring to market, what restrictions are involved, how do we want it to feel, how do we want it to work? And then it’s really sort of a very iterative, collaborative process from there, but that’s essentially how formulating works in our industry from beginning to end.
What would you say were some of the biggest hurdles you faced when starting Pure Glow and even today, how did it and how do you overcome them?
I would say, so I bootstrapped the business for almost a decade, and so having few resources was really quite a bit of a challenge. You have to do a lot more yourself. You have to make the dollar really stretch. And a lot of that means instead of working with people who maybe know more about something or can do something faster or better, you have to figure it out and do that yourself. So, I think that that was probably over all the time that we’ve been in business, I think making the best use of the resources and working without having this plethora of resources has definitely been a challenge, but it’s also a strength that is only too, because then you’re really managing the business prudently. You’re making decisions that align with your values, whether that be really customer focused, health focused, things like that. So, of course that as you grow and expand, even if the resources grow, there’s always still only those are finite and you can only allocate them in so many ways. So that probably will be an ongoing issue, but it was particularly poignant for the first eight or nine years of starting the business.
As a leader of a small business, how has your approach to business leadership evolved since founding Pure Glow at age 27?
Boy, that’s a good question. That’s a really good question, Charlie. For me, what I really sort of a premise for bringing on great people and attracting the kind of person that we wanted to attract from a client and community standpoint, I always really focused on what do we want that community to look like? What kind of person do we want to see every week and every month? And I thought we started focusing a lot on what are the sort of attributes that are important to us, and those are things like kindness, a lot of energy. We really want to make people feel welcome and comfortable with when they’re in a position where this service of ours is very vulnerable, people are undressing. So ,we want to make sure that we are surrounding ourselves and building a team that has a personality that really enjoys and cares and feels fulfilled by taking good care of people and going the extra mile.
Also, someone who can really relate and make that person feel comfortable, someone who’s very patient, who understands that people are going to come into our location and have very little to no experience with our product and the service and what the outcome really should look like. So I’ve been keeping a lot of those things in mind and how do we want people to be treated? And any touch point with the company is really an easy opportunity to communicate who we are. And so I think that hiring and recruiting for personality and what that person has to the table has really been a big part of how we lead and how we think about bringing the right people in and making sure that that culture is really defined, but also as we grow is effortlessly sort of maintained.
Can you share a pivotable, let me say that again. Can you share a pivotal, why can’t I say that word? Can you share a pivotal moment or decision that significantly impacted Pure Glow‘s growth?
Absolutely. So early on, I would say maybe three years ago now, I sort of cold introduced myself to an individual who has 20 plus years experience in the franchise industry and reach out to this person as someone that I wanted to learn from potentially a mentoring opportunity. And I wanted to talk a little bit more about understanding if franchising was the path for Pure Glow. And so this was a relationship that slowly grew gradually, naturally over a few different years. And in 2023, I had an opportunity to raise some institutional capital. And this person had known a lot about the industry early on, knew we wanted to work together professionally in some capacity. And that relationship having grown was culminated in some really strategic capital that I secured in 2023 that allowed us to actually prepare for and launch our franchise program at the end of last year. So that was really, I think an introduction and a relationship that has certainly allowed pure load to step into its new stage of growth, which is beginning to open and expand nationwide.
Well, I was going to ask about franchising and how do you see this actually shaping Pure Glow‘s future?
So, franchising sometimes has a bad name. I think a lot of times people think of your McDonald’s and your Burger King and your fast casual, and there are a lot of examples of incredibly successful concepts in that space. But I’m really attracted to franchising because I think that there’s a lot of structure and framework that allow the franchisor, which in this case is, and the franchisee, which is the owner that wants to open and operate a pure glow to work really synergistically together. And a lot of the goals are very much aligned where the franchisor is held accountable and the franchisee is held accountable. And so, I really like this structure. It’s also a great way to grow at a larger speed, but without compromising quality in what you’re really looking to accomplish. So very excited about growing Vis-a-vis franchising. We’re one year in, we have nine incredible owners on board and about 23 committed units that will open over the course of the next one to three years. So, it’s been a really strong start and we’re very looking forward to continuing down this path.
Where are these going to be located? In what states?
Sure. So right now we just opened our first outside of Boston area location in Phoenix, Arizona. We’re going to be coming to Dallas, Texas, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sarasota, Florida, Nashville, Tennessee, to home, all at beginning Birmingham, Michigan, suburb rights outside of Michigan, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Cleveland, Ohio. So those are our committed location areas as now.
So, I guess following up to that, how do you envision Pure Glow contributing to the broader beauty industry in the coming years?
Yeah, great. Great question. So, I think that what we’re seeing today is that largely airbrush tanning, which is really that professional service is still very new, and people are still sort of learning what it is, like how it works, what are the results really like. And really, it’s gaining a lot of momentum for a lot of reasons, largely because this active ingredient is allowing us to have these really wonderful believable looking results, but also that it saves people a tremendous amount of time. So, they’ll get their service as you did recently, Charlie, and those results are going to last up to a week or even 10 to 14 days. And so, it’s really a great way for people to even their skin tone feels like the best version of themselves year round. And so, when we talk about modernizing the industry, we’re doing a lot of different things from an experience, but also from a product standpoint.
And a lot of that is helping people think about this service differently. And so, what I mean by that is that a tan does not have to be a fresh off the beach looking result. It can be a glow that really just helps you look like yourself, feel good, take sort of that unhealthy edge off that some of us feel in the dark days of the winter. And so, it’s really more becoming this union of skincare and makeup. And so, when people are trying what we call our glow or the Pure Glow, they’re really surprised how much this is something that it’s different than what they expected, but also how attractive it is to them as something that they’re making part of their regular beauty routine. And so there really is a tremendous opportunity to help people learn that it’s so much more than just a tan in the way that people think about a tan. It’s a way to really feel and look like the best version of you.
Looking ahead, what are some of the long-term goals from Pure Glow and how do you plan to achieve them?
I think probably the biggest pie in the sky goal personally for myself and for the team is we really want to help people rethink how they sort of think of and approach tanning. And really, of course, the larger goal being, we really want to make a huge dent and a huge impact in reducing skin cancer rates. And so, I think what’s wonderful about the types of skin cancer is that is terrible, is something like that is it’s one of the most preventable cancers. And what’s amazing is that the barriers and the ability to prevent that are as simple as covering the skin with something like your sunscreen, your hats being mindful of when the UV index is strong certain types of times of the day. And so, it is really something that we feel like is so achievable. And so I think that when you give someone this great option that’s really natural and easy and helps them look and feel so good, we’re really going to be empowering people and encouraging them to take better care of their skin, wear sunscreen, and really just sort of teach them, create these habits that are really going to make meaningful impacts to their health as a whole for their whole life.
So that’s really what success on a bigger level looks like. And the way that you do that is you make these really safe, healthy, great tanning experiences and products accessible to many, whether that be from a price point, from how they experience the service and what the results look like on a variety of skin tones. And I think that we’re really on our way to bringing that to fruition.
Awesome. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for coming by. I really appreciate it for Wicked Business Boston, and I look forward to following up with you with your continued success.
Thank you so much, Charlie. Thank you for having me.
Pure Glow currently has six locations, 3 in Boston, 1 in Phoenix, AZ, 1 in Dallas, TX, and 1 in Detroit, MI. To learn more about their process or to book a session, visit their website at Pure Glow. Their new concept location in Boston is located at 100 Northern Ave in the Seaport neighborhood. 617-982-7316
