For the Wellness Briefing, Glossy spoke with Brian De Lowe, president and co-founder of Proper Hospitality, and Jamie Mark, svp of memberships and partnerships, to learn about the hotel group’s rapidly expanding wellness offerings fueled by partnerships with brands like Eight Sleep and booking platforms like ClassPass.
Additionally, Ulta Beauty adds another celebrity-led sexual wellness brand, Apple invests in muscle-sensing technology for wearables, and two women’s health startups land new funding.
Proper Hospitality is rolling out expanded wellness offerings now bookable on ClassPass
“Wellness has moved from being a component of Proper to an important part of the entire experience,” Brian De Lowe, president and co-founder of Proper Hospitality, told Glossy. “We think of wellness within our hotels as how you sleep, move, eat, recover, connect with people, and feel inspired and energized.”
Proper Hospitality was founded by Brad Korzen, Alex Samek and De Lowe in 2015, and opened its first property, Proper Hotel Santa Monica, in 2019. Esteemed interior designer and brand owner Kelly Wearstler, who is also married to Korzen, designed the property.
The group launched its first property with a partnership with Surya Spa, an “in the know” celebrity spa favorite focused on Ayurvedic holistic wellness, and has since greatly expanded its offerings to include fitness, recovery, classes, sports like padel and various wellness programs.
The group has since expanded locations to Austin, Downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco. The group also opened The Shelborne by Proper in Miami and a portfolio of independent, design-driven hotels called The Collective.
Proper’s Santa Monica and Austin locations are currently testing the scale and scope of the company’s wellness ambitions, which have included retrofitting guest rooms into various “recovery suites” outfitted with saunas, cold plunges, red light therapy, full-body compression by Hyperice, access to the $159,000 Ammortal Chamber and more.
“We converted existing hotel room spaces, and [now] they’re more profitable as recovery rooms than they were as hotel rooms,” De Lowe said. “But even more importantly, we see the overall halo lift that is harder to quantify, … [such as] more big fans of the brand and what we’re doing, a higher average daily rate due to people wanting to stay at a hotel that has these modalities versus not, and a more loyal group of customers.”
Sessions are bookable by the hour for guests, hotel members and locals for $65-$195 per hour. Starting this summer, Proper has also partnered with Playlist-owned ClassPass to make booking easier for locals. It’s part of ClassPass’ ongoing expansion into wellness, beauty and lifestyle.
“[ClassPass is] a great funnel for membership,” Jamie Mark, Proper Hospitality svp of memberships and partnerships, told Glossy. “We started to make the [recovery rooms] available to the general public because these were the same people that were eating in our restaurants, and we realized what a great opportunity that was to introduce more people to the Proper ecosystem.”
Annual memberships, geared toward locals who want unrestricted access to the facilities plus free exercise classes and events, run $6,500 in Santa Monica and $5,500 in Austin, plus an initiation fee of $1,500 for one person or $2,500 for a pair. Proper has approximately 150 members in its Santa Monica location now.
“We’ve actually seen a lot of people come in [on ClassPass] who were discovering Proper for the first time, and love recovery and fitness, and started to spend more time in our spaces [before] acquiring that membership,” Mark said.
Hospitality business leaders have slowly begun to take notice of the rise of wellness programming as a value-add. For example, Hilton just expanded its partnership with ResortPass, the 10-year-old booking platform used by hotels and resorts to sell day passes to pools, spas, fitness centers and other amenities. Meanwhile, Fiji Airways has invested in a laundry list of in-flight and in-lounge wellness amenities like red light therapy and supplements.
As part of its holistic move into wellness, Proper has also designed many specialty guest rooms, including “Proper Sleep Rooms,” that come with a plethora of wellness offerings, like a Eight Sleep smart bed, Filterbaby shower filters, a Vitruvi diffuser and custom blackout curtains, plus CPG goodies like Slip silk sleep masks, ELVT mouth patches and nasal strips, and Eight Sleep supplements.
“People are telling us that [wellness is] a part of their lives and a non-negotiable when they travel,” De Lowe said. He told Glossy that Proper’s customer base is split into three buckets: Local members who want access to the facilities without booking a room, hotel guests who have grown accustomed to wellness-focused amenities at home and hotel guests who are “wellness curious.”
“Maybe they go back home more inspired to incorporate it into their lives,” De Lowe said. “It’s a great ecosystem between the three groups.”
Meanwhile, the team is beta testing a range of unique offerings in Austin, including lymphatic drainage treatments from Miss Lymph, a buzzy lymphatic drainage massage business launched by Sabrina Sweet.
De Lowe and the larger Proper team are currently planning expansion into Dallas and Lake Tahoe, California. Thanks to their success in Santa Monica and Austin, they will be dedicating a large footprint to expansive wellness offerings. “Proper is in this position where we’re entrepreneurial enough to be early in some of these partnerships,” De Lowe said, “but we have enough scale as an organization to make a real impact.”
Executive moves:
- Amélie Fortier-Cyr is the new chief digital and marketing officer at L’Oréal Canada. Fortier-Cyr has been with the conglomerate for two decades across executive roles based in New York, Paris and London. She succeeds Marc Dicko, who has taken on the same title for the company’s South Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa division.
News to know:
- Ulta Beauty is leaning further into sexual wellness. Next week, the retailer will add Maude to its assortment, the intimate brand launched in 2018 by Éva Goicochea. The brand is known for massage wands, personal lubricant and its famous face: Dakota Johnson joined the company as investor and co-creative director in 2020. The brand also launched into Target earlier this year. Ulta Beauty currently sells Stripes by Naomi Watts and Playground from Christina Aguilera as part of its wellness assortment.
- Teal Health, the maker of a new at-home cervical cancer screening test, has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by .406 Ventures, with backing from Forerunner, Serena Ventures, Emerson Collective and Labcorp. Teal Health was formed in 2020 and launched its FDA-authorized Teal Wand last year.
- Speaking of at-home health testing, vaginal microbiome testing company Evvy has taken on $20 million in Series B funding led by Catalio Capital Management. Evvy screens for bacteria and fungi through its at-home swab to better treat issues that can be missed during doctor visits, like yeast infections and STIs, according to the company.
- Apple is investing in more advanced wearable sensors. The company has acquired Sonera, a Berkeley-based magnetics company launched in 2018, for an undisclosed amount. Sonera makes advanced sensors that detect neural and muscular activity to provide insights around muscle and brain health, sleep, and more. Apple’s recently appointed CEO, John Ternus, took over for Tim Cook last month after serving as svp of Apple’s hardware division for five years, which could mean deeper investment in hardware over the coming quarters. Sonera’s sensors could advance Apple’s Watch, AirPods and more.
Stat of the week:
The global biohacking market, which includes categories like wearables, health diagnostic kits, supplements and mobile app subscriptions, could reach $131.5 billion by 2035, according to consumer research firm Research and Markets. The market, which is driven by preventive healthcare and wearable technology, was valued at $28.2 billion last year. According to the firm, leaders include Alphabet Inc., 23andMe, BioAge Diagnostics, Cronometer, HF Concepts, Muse, Neuralink, Nuanic, Oralgenix, Oura Health Oy, Senseonics, Synbiota, Thorne HealthTech, Viome Life Science and WHOOP.
In the headlines:
Target gets K-beauty brands to think beyond Sephora, Ulta with new Beauty Studio [Modern Retail]. Pinterest unveils new suite of ad tools, including Visual Search Ads, in its pitch to brands [Digiday]. New report finds nearly half of skincare brands make unverified claims [Beauty Independent]. An NFL sleep doctor’s 7 daytime strategies for a better night’s rest [SuperAge]. What happens when brands have to label AI-generated ads? [TFL]. Hyrox is popular, lucrative and not for the faint of heart [WSJ]. The 9 best snack options to support your gut health [Vogue]. Do supplement patches actually work? [NYT] Nrthrn strong adds VO2 Max testing, other performance-training data [ATN].
Listen in:
What does it take to win Allure’s Best of Beauty awards? In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Allure editor-in-chief Jessica Cruel sits down with host Lexy Lebsack to unpack the ins and outs of its prestigious beauty awards program, including how beauty and wellness brands can better appeal to her team of editors.
Need a Glossy recap?
Can cooling tools be the hot new accessory? The sports and beauty crossover still has ‘lots of room to grow’. Luxury Briefing: Net-a-Porter wants its best customers back. Why ‘anti-blush’ is taking over social media. Fresh off its viral influencer ‘bachelorette trip’, Swan Beauty attempts a NYFW blitz. How the role of creators has evolved in fashion and beauty. Glossy Podcast: 6 new things we saw at NYFW.
