Naomi Watts’ menopause brand, Stripes Beauty, is back from bankruptcy
Naomi Watts’ menopause brand, Stripes Beauty, is acquired by LVMH-backed L Catterton
L Catterton, the luxury private equity firm, has invested in a menopause brand. It’s part of the broader effort to normalize conversations about menopause.
Hollywood is famous for its ageism against women. So it was a bold move when two years ago, Naomi Watts decided to launch a brand devoted to menopause. “In Hollywood, actresses are told their careers will end at 40,” she says. “So talking about my own aging was definitely risky.”
The 55-year old actress, who has starred in Mulholland Drive and King Kong, had begun her menopause transition early and experienced many painful symptoms. Like many women, she felt like she had to suffer in silence because it was taboo to talk about aging. But she decided she could play a role in normalizing conversations about menopause—even if it would make it even harder for her to find roles.
In 2022, she launched Stripes Beauty, a brand that creates science-based products that tackle the issues women experience as their hormones change in their 40s and 50s. They include vaginal hydration gel, facial moisturizers, and supplements. Her broader goal was to create a platform for women to talk openly about their menopause experiences, and to find solutions to problems.
Watts now has even more resources to turn this vision into a reality. Today, she announced that Stripes Beauty has been acquired by L Catterton, the consumer-facing private equity firm cofounded by LVMH, the luxury conglomerate that owns Louis Vuitton. “The plan was always to scale,” Watts says. “We’re expanding globally and creating more products to meet women’s needs.”
A growing market for menopause
Since menopause is so rarely discussed in our culture, many women aren’t prepared for it when it comes. And even though hormone replacement therapy can help women through difficult symptoms, there isn’t a lot of clear information from the medical system about the potential risks and benefits of this treatment, leading many women to avoid it.
Things are slowly changing. Over the past five years, there’s been a broader movement to bring the issue into the public conversation, from a large New York Times Magazine feature about how women have been misled about menopause to books like the Menopause Manifesto and The New Menopause.
Whitney Casey, a partner at L Catterton and cofounder of biotech company Tally Health, believed it was important for L Catterton to invest in more women’s health brands, and particularly in those addressing menopause. “The total addressable market is very big,” says Casey. “And the people in it have real needs that are not being met and are in a considerable amount of pain. There isn’t an expert or authority out there that women can turn to.”
Casey explored two dozen menopause businesses. Her team believed Stripes Beauty was the right one for several reasons. For one thing, the unit economics of selling high-end beauty products for menopausal women were sound.
But importantly, Watts seemed like the face for the brand. Casey says that L Catterton doesn’t generally seek out celebrity-backed brands, but in this case, Watts was a well-known figure that other women could relate to. “She brought authenticity to the conversation,” she says. “She had struggled through the journey herself, and was like all the other women searching for answers but finding a morass on the internet.”
When L Catterton was exploring Stripes Beauty, however, it had just gone through bankruptcy. Watts had founded it with Amyris, a biotech firm, but a year later, it filed for Chapter 11 proceedings. At that point, Watts bought it back for $500,000 at auction. Casey determined the company’s financial problems didn’t have to do with its business fundamentals. “The parent company that owned Strikes was a failing business,” says Casey. “They were not a great fiduciary.”
Now, Stripes Beauty is back and ready to grow. The products are available through the brand’s website and Amazon, but the company is now focused on expanding into new global markets, including Canada. And it is working on an innovation pipeline to launch new products based on what consumers are asking for.
It’s notable that L Catterton, a firm known for its deep roots in the luxury industry, decided to acquire Stripes Beauty. Casey points out that many of the solutions women turn to during menopause for symptoms like skin or vaginal dryness are drugstore brands like Aveeno or KY Jelly. Stripes Beauty is trying to create elevated products that make women feel cared for during this period in their lives. “There’s just this idea that menopause is not sexy,” says Casey. “There’s the idea that menopause makes women irrelevant. But the products you use during this time can be beautiful and luxurious.”
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