Lo Bosworth on expanding Love Wellness beyond vaginal health

On this week’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Bosworth discusses the origin story and growth of Love Wellness plus the playbook she’s leveraging to build a product franchise.

The excerpts below have been slightly edited and condensed for clarity. 

The first 5 years

“We make effective femcare for women. And by femcare, we mean products that focus on gut health, vaginal health and hormonal health. We think femcare is more than period care. It focuses on the health of the microbiome as a foundational element to overall women’s health. … The gut microbiome regulates and promotes vaginal health, and on the other side of that, it regulates and promotes hormonal health. So once you understand how all of the pieces of the puzzle come together in women’s bodies, you understand that personal care offerings back in 2016 wouldn’t really fit the bill, right? Because back then, you’d go to the drugstore and it was just legacy brands full of fragrance, full of essential oils, and full of parabens, and sulfates — not a lot of supplements brands on the shelf [were] being made with great, innovative ingredients. Back then, you couldn’t get a supplement that was an herbal blend for specific use cases; what was available was just single-letter vitamins: vitamin A vitamin E, zinc, …. You couldn’t go into the store and find an herbal formula that combined enzymes and botanicals, like Bye Bye Bloat does. So I decided — out of my living room, by myself — to develop a suite of products for vaginal health, because that’s where I really got the best help from different OB-GYNs once I understood that I was dealing with a gut health issue. [I wanted] to bring new offerings to market made with unapologetically high ingredient standards. So that means no fragrance, no essential oils, no parabens, etcetera. And on the supplements side, there’s no sugar — real or artificial — no artificial dyes, no artificial flavors. We’ve never been about gummies, because I don’t believe they belong in a women’s wellness routine. I started the brand after a ton of research and a ton of expert guidance. And now, we’re [a company] of 45 people based in New York City. I stepped aside as CEO last year to bring in Maria Dempsey, who’s a real career CEO. I had grown the business to about $50 million in annual net revenue. That’s when a lot of founders bring in a career CEO, to really get them to that next stage of growth. And so now I sit in the founder and chairman role, and we’re available nationwide at Target, Walmart and Ulta Beauty, on Amazon, and, of course, on lovewellness.com”

Pioneering vaginal health

“[We launched with] all vaginal health [products]. That required me to speak to those health issues, which I had to get really, really comfortable with. I launched with Good Girl Probiotics — we’ve sold millions and millions of bottles of that vaginal health probiotic that supports the gut-vagina connection. It was one of the first vaginal health probiotics ever available. We launched our pH-balanced cleanser, which was a vulva cleanser for external use only. That’s made with very gentle ingredients — we don’t believe in fragrance and essential oils, which we believe are microbiome disruptors, endocrine disruptors and irritants. We have a pH-balanced wipe that matches the cleanser formula, then we have the Healthy V vitamin, which supports balanced levels of yeast throughout the body, from gut to vagina — candida yeast is actually very present in your gut throughout your intestines, like all the way down to the vagina. And then we have one of our superstar products called The Killer, which was the very first boric acid vaginal suppository that was really made available without a prescription. Those were the first five products that we brought to market. Out of the gate, people were going nuts for this stuff — because they loved it, but also nuts because they thought, ‘Who is this person? Why does she think that she can make this stuff? I’ve never heard of a vaginal probiotic. This is bullshit.’ It’s taken years to [turn around] those belief systems.”

A new era of body care

“The three new products are body care products. It marks our first expansion into true, traditional body care. Because, to me, skin care for down there really lives in the vaginal health category. Now, we have our Bye Bye Bloat Firming Clay Body Mask, which is a prep step for lymphatic drainage. The body mask helps to firm and tighten skin while waking up your lymph nodes through the application of the body mask. And then once you rinse that off, the next two steps are the Bye Bye Bloat Detoxifying Body Oil, which is to be used with our Bye Bye Lymphatic Massage Roller. We really love this four-step routine because lymphatic drainage massage is something that currently is not accessible, but it has incredible health benefits that, yes, help with de-bloating. The products also focus on immunity, energy and overall health. I get lymphatic drainage massage a lot. I started when I had a really bad case of mono a couple years ago. And every time I would get a lymphatic drainage massage, depending on where I went, it would be $200-$350 — it’s incredibly expensive. And so I wanted to make a lymphatic drainage system that can be used at home by everybody and for everybody that’s accessible and affordable. The entire four-step de-puff and sculpt routine is available for less than $100, which breaks down to about $3 per use. To us, that is incredible. It’s game-changing in the lymphatic drainage space, which, up until this point, has been kind of a trend category. But we’re innovating in a way that makes body care affordable, while still using high-quality ingredients, and we’re [providing] the education that goes along with it.”