Welcome to the New York Launch Pod the New York Press Club Award winning podcast highlighting new startups, businesses, and openings in the New York City area. I’m Hal Coopersmith, and in this episode we speak to Laura Schubert and Lillian Tung the co-founders of Fur. What’s Fur? It’s truly a company that could only be started right here in New York. It is the first ever line of daily pubic hair and skin care products. That’s right. Pubic hair. And if you don’t want to listen to episode on this topic, that’s alright. Turn off the podcast right now. I won’t be offended. And neither was Laura when she was first starting the company and trying to get a chemist to develop the product.
Laura: People would hang up on me, pretty regularly, when I said what I wanted to do. They thought I was sort of a weird, crank call, pervert. Who is this girl who is calling us up and asking about, “I want to make a formula, I want to make an oil for pubic hair to make your hair soft.”
NYLP: Fur has products that include a signature oil, stubble cream, ingrown concentrate and silk scrub. We talk about what’s like to start a whole new beauty category and what it means to have a dialogue about pubic and body hair. Of course, there will also be some lighter moments that what can I say, come with the territory.
Lillian: One of the key things that was also important to us, for the safety, was it had to be edible-
Laura: I ate every version.
Lillian: Just in case.
NYLP: You ate every version?
Laura: I did.
Lillian: Laura ate every version of every product, and certain versions, which clearly didn’t launch; made her tongue numb, made her throat itchy, just things you don’t want.
I think you’ll really find this episode interesting and would love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to reach out by email at nylaunchpod.com or on social media @NYLaunchPod. And with that let’s go to the interview with Laura and Lillian.
NYLP: Stepping onto the Launch Pod we have Laura Schubert and Lillian Tung, the Co-Founders of Fur. Welcome, Laura and Lillian.
Laura: Thank you so much, Hal. I’m Laura Schubert, I’m the CEO of Fur, and a Co-Founder along with Lillian.
Lillian: It’s great to be here, I’m again Lillian, one of the Co-Founders and the CMO.
NYLP: Let’s talk about Fur. What is Fur?
Laura: Fur is the first line of daily pubic hair and skin care. We launched three years ago, early 2016. Just with the idea that the conversation around pubic hair and body hair, more generally, was about removal and no one was talking about care in between sessions. Meanwhile, every adult on planet earth has body hair and has pubic hair.
NYLP: So, are we really going to be talking about pubic hair for this entire interview?
Laura: We’ve been talking about pubic hair for five years, so-
Lillian: What’s another hour?
NYLP: You’ve been talking about pubic hair for five years?
Laura: Yes.
NYLP: How did that conversation start?
Laura: It started again, we launched in 2016. The conversation really started in 2014, I was talking to my sister about body hair and caring for your body hair and sort of hair removal methods, and then we said, “You know what? What if you want to keep more body hair, make it soft? Everyone has ingrowns, what are you using?” We were doing Google searches for pubic hair. All you get is ‘removal’, ‘how to remove’. We went to our local beauty stores and there just weren’t any products to care for your hair and skin, even in between sessions; even if you do like to remove your hair.
Laura: Just the idea wouldn’t let us go, why aren’t there products to care for your body? It was very monolithic, at the time.
NYLP: Why do you think there weren’t products to care?
Laura: First of all, it was a taboo issue, it still is today. I have to admit that when we were looking for a chemist in 2015, so Lillian had joined us by 2015, and when we were looking for chemists; people would hang up on me, pretty regularly, when I said what I wanted to do. They thought I was sort of a weird, crank call, pervert. Who is this girl who is calling us up and asking about, “I want to make a formula, I want to make an oil for pubic hair to make your hair soft.”
NYLP: They would hang up on you?
Laura: Absolutely. I thought we had legs also at that time because many people would hang up on me and then call me back ten seconds later, and say, “You know what? This is not so crazy.” That’s also when I sort of knew that we really had something there.
NYLP: So what was that process like, developing the product?
Laura: We worked with a chemist, sometimes people think, “Oh, do you mix this up in your bathtub?” Absolutely not. We actually worked on this formulation over a year with our chemist to make sure it really worked. We’re germ tested, we’re Gyno tested, we’re EU tested. So it has been a very thorough, normal product, new development process.
Lillian: Right. Along in that sort of over a year long process, there were so many iterations. Testing different temperatures, different ingredients; do we want, at the end of the day, none of our products had any added fragrances? One of the key things that was also important to us, for the safety, was it had to be edible-
Laura: I ate every version.
Lillian: Just in case.
NYLP: You ate every version?
Laura: I did.
Lillian: Laura ate every version of every product, and certain versions, which clearly didn’t launch; made her tongue numb, made her throat itchy, just things you don’t want.
NYLP: So it took a year to develop the products that you have now?
Laura: Yes. In fact, we’re about to launch a product tomorrow that’s also been in development a year. We take new product development extremely seriously. First of all because it’s our baby, it’s our brand. Also, because we do feel a sense of responsibility that we are creating a new category. Before Fur, there was no such thing as pubic hair and skin care. Everything from our packaging to our formulation, we’ve really approached as being the first, and carving the way for this whole category.
Lillian: As the marketing obsessed person here, prior to launching Fur, you could Google ‘pubic hair care’ and you would get like a do it yourself thing, or just pubic hair care removal. Now when you Google ‘pubic hair care’ you get Fur. Fur is the first thing that will pop up, and that’s just something that tells us we’re creating that category and we have created that category.
NYLP: Are trends changing in pubic hair? Or has it been something all along that people have wanted?
Laura: That’s an interesting question because actually if you look at the research, and there is research into this topic, pubic hairstyles have always been pretty varied. They’ve done surveys of different populations, so everything from bare to full, it’s always sort of been that way, but I definitely feel like the conversation, at least five years ago, was very much “Oh, you need to remove everything.” Or what? That’s sort of why we developed the products, or what? Today, definitely 2018 versus 2014, 15, 16, there’s much more openness to talk about, “Oh, yeah, I keep my pubic hair. I keep my body hair.”
Laura: So I don’t think the variance has changed, I think people are more willing to talk about it, and they’re more open to different options. Also, that being said, we feel like a lot of press lately has asked us, “Is the bush coming back? Is this a trend?” We actually are pretty resistant to that notion because we think that’s just as bad as the “trend before” that people were removing all their hair. We don’t want it to swing the other way, and now people keep all their hair. We’re hoping to bring in a future where there are different options, and you do what you like. Like your head hair, your facial skin. So Fur is really all about optionality and not about a different standard.
Lillian: Right, and I do think that the opportunity here that we are seizing is that the conversation is more open now. When the conversation is more open, people will then share an interest in products that are going to make them look and feel better on their pubic area. So it’s not about, “Okay the bush is back now buy an oil.” But it is, “Hey, we can talk about whether or not you have a bush, and if so, how should you care about it if you want to.”
NYLP: The conversation is more open now, but it still doesn’t seem entirely open to me. Even talking about the prospect of this podcast interview, people are saying, “How could you do this? This is so controversial.” Maybe fewer people are hanging up on you now, but have you encountered similar things?
Laura: Absolutely. First of all, people say, “Oh that’s really niche” going back, every adult has body hair and has pubic hair, so we think it makes people uncomfortable. People don’t want to talk about their body hair, more generally, people are becoming more open to it; but absolutely, they aren’t comfortable with it. We’ve also, honestly, had a lot of push back from major retailers, so we are carried in increasingly bigger retailers; but we’ve gotten feedback from trade shows, “Oh, you’re too blue to participate in our trade show.” Almost everyone who said comments like this has come back to us and said, “You know what? You guys should really be here.”
Laura: So the tide is turning, but definitely, big retails have said, “You are risque, so blue, risque.” We definitely get that feedback, we just say, “That’s not a ‘no’, it’s a ‘not yet.'”
NYLP: Who are the retailers that are carrying you?
Laura: Nordstrom, Free People, Urban Outfitters, Goop, Revolve. What else am I missing, Lillian? We’re over 300, also waxing and sugaring salons.
NYLP: How much does Fur cost?
Laura: Fur oil costs $44. All our products are $28 to $44, right now. I guess it’s changing by the end of the year.
NYLP: Has it been hard to sell that as a luxury good? It seems like it’s a category people weren’t thinking of, and now they have to add this to their inventory of things they’re buying.
Laura: The price has not been a hurdle at all, in fact, the best seller on our website, by far, is the Full Frontal which is all three of our products, for $92; so the price doesn’t seem to be off-putting to people. I think a lot of that has to do with the ingredients, again, we’re all natural products, oils are really expensive to make. The packaging is really nice, we actually feel like we provide very good value if you look at our products compared to similar ones on the market.
Lillian: They also each last about 4-6 months, so when you think about that on a per use basis, it’s a very good deal.
NYLP: How were you able to get your first customers? I imagine that there is an education and a taboo factor that you had to overcome.
Laura: Definitely getting our first customers, that was definitely a challenge. Even estheticians, we had to train them on that. In fact, every time we on board a Salon today, we do a product knowledge session with them where we explain the product, explain how you use it in treatment, explain how the customer should use it at home. We do have to create this education piece so people really understand our product, and understand what it’s doing.
Lillian: Definitely now versus 2016, you can see a market difference. Back in 2015, 2016 talking to some very traditional retailers, again, they would look at us and be like, “Why would women need this? I thought they lasered off all their body hair?” Or like, “I thought they don’t have body hair anymore.” We just looked at them, you don’t really know what to say when you’re faced with that type of reaction, somewhat outdated point of view, especially when these people are leading beauty categories, and yet, they view beauty in such a simplistic term.
NYLP: What did you say?
Laura: For all retailers that are resistant, it’s not a ‘no’, it’s a ‘not yet’, we just revisit; we say, “Okay.” Again, we are pushing the boundary, we are creating a new category and people might just not be ready for the message yet, and that’s sort of okay. It has been surprising to us, when we hear things like, “We didn’t know women had body hair anymore.” Or, “Your product would much more sophisticated if you took ‘pubic’ off the front of the box.” We’ve gotten that from many large retailers. Part of us, we’re businesswomen, we want to listen to our customers; but at the same time, we just know that our end customers, the women and men using our products, love that about our brand, love that we’re inclusive, and really want to have this conversation. We would never take ‘pubic’ off the front of the Fur Oil box.
NYLP: Have you gotten different reactions based off of the gender of the decision maker?
Laura: I don’t think it’s gender, but I think it is more when you have buyers at large, especially bigger salons, big chain retailers, they do tend to be more seasoned; which is often, I’m sure, really good, but in this case, I think, it’s changing especially in 2016, the buyers were not where the market was.
NYLP: What do you think caused that reaction? Do you think it was the culture that they’re in, the Geography? What, exactly?
Laura: I think the culture, again, I think it’s changed a lot in the last five years, even attitudes towards taboo topics, and body hair in particular. It just hasn’t really, it’s spreading, but it’s not wide spread yet.
NYLP: If there’s this conversation going on about body hair, what do you see Fur as a role in the conversation? Do you see it as letting the conversation happen, and you’re just there? Or do you want to be an active participant, advocate, anything else?
Laura: That’s an interesting question because we do want to be an active participant in that we want to make people comfortable and have options. That being said, we very pointedly not been a rebel brand, there are definitely brands that deal with taboo topics that are all about being a rebel, they’re trying to make people uncomfortable. If you’re uncomfortable, you’re not really with us. We’ve tried to take a very different approach, again, as a care brand, in trying to make people comfortable, again, that gets back to our earlier point where we’re not now saying, “Hair is great, you have to keep your hair, if you had total body laser removal, sorry you’re just not cool anymore.”
Laura: We feel like it’s really important to make all these options for people, and have them embrace it and not take a rebel stance.
NYLP: What is that conversation like in terms of marketing Fur, and getting your name out there?
Lillian: For us, back to our brand mission, it’s about inclusivity. Our messaging is very visually based, so we rely heavily on social media, for example. But if you look at our social media channel, we make sure that, again, you provide a variety of hair types and hair levels. It’s gender neutral, so our product is marketed to both men and women, and men and women are end customers. Our products are not about the whole ‘have or have not’ visual aspect, or sexual aspect, it’s really about care and luxury for yourself, so we really want to make sure we maintain that. It’s not about polarizing people, though we are in a “taboo space”, it’s about allowing people the freedom to take care of themselves, so we don’t put out intentionally divisive content.
NYLP: Who are you targeting in terms of your marketing? Men, women? What age group?
Lillian: We like to say everybody, all adults who have body hair. But at the end of the day, the people that have a little bit more traction, and our brand messaging resonates are definitely the younger 18-34 year old females who are avid beauty connoisseurs because they understand the need for a really full fledged beauty routine, they understand the clean beauty movement, the important of high quality efficacious products. Also they care about the aesthetic of what their bathroom ritual looks and feels like, and Fur plays into that. That being said, 30% of our customers are men.
NYLP: 30%? That’s higher than I would’ve thought.
Laura: They’re very loyal. We all have body hair and also men, I think the taboo is less among men to begin with, honestly. They’ve always been more open about dealing with body hair so they jump to it quicker, they jump over the taboo hurdle quicker.
NYLP: Right. So men have beards, and beard oil. How is Fur different than beard oil?
Laura: Fur can be used as a beard oil, so our products are multi-purpose, multi-use, all of them. Pubic hair, of course, chest, legs, underarms, beard, scalp hair; we can really be used anywhere, actually.
Lillian: I think that’s why it’s a natural progression for men to love our products, because they’re used to using an after shave or a beard oil, so to try a Fur product on their face then just extend it elsewhere, is very easy, it’s already in their regimen.
NYLP: Already in their regimen?
Lillian: Yeah.
NYLP: You mention that some people think the product is ‘too blue’, I’m guessing blue state. What Geographic areas are people using Fur?
Laura: It’s actually like blue movies.
NYLP: Blue movies?
Laura: Which I know is all before our time, so I had to Wikipedia this, but blue movies used to be porn movies, so quick fact about blue. It’s more about population density, clearly we’re very popular on the Coasts, but we over index in places like Minneapolis, too. Really anywhere where you sort of have people interested in beauty, people interested in sort of what’s new, what’s different. That’s our market.
Lillian: We’re also sold in 12 other Countries around the world.
Laura: Right.
NYLP: What other Countries?
Lillian: Some of our biggest markets? New Zealand, U.K., Singapore, Hong Kong, Mexico, a variety of other European Countries.
NYLP: What are the ingredients in Fur?
Laura: We have three products; Fur Oil, our signature, tea tree is in all of our products, so that really helps fight ingrown hairs. That’s again with our people who are into problem solution, that’s really what they focus on. Fur Oil is nine all natural oils, though.
NYLP: Nine all natural oils?
Laura: Yeah. All our products are natural, so we definitely fit right into clean beauty, green beauty. We really saw this future coming, people are just into natural products, people are interested in options, people are interested in care.
NYLP: People are more open about their beauty regimen, I think one of the people that was very open was Emma Watson. How did that have an impact on your business?
Laura: We sold out of our 2017 inventory in three weeks. So it was a really big moment for us.
NYLP: Did it help with the conversation, in terms of what Fur is doing?
Laura: Oh, absolutely. That was a completely organic post, it was really one of those Hollywood moments for us where, we looked at the website, and we’re like, “Where’s all the traffic in sales coming from?” We came in, in March and we’re like, “What is going on?” We had been cited in an article, into the Gloss article from Emma Watson. That was a little magic. We had said before that, “Oh man.” Thinking about celebrities that we would love to be associated with, Emma Watson was actually at the top of our wish list, even just making our sandcastles in the sky, thinking about who we would love to be associated with. She’s glamorous, she has causes, she has a lot of integrity, it was incredible.
NYLP: That was completely unplanned?
Laura: Completely unplanned.
NYLP: You had no idea that Emma Watson was logging on to your website and buying your products?
Lillian: We had no idea, that being said, perhaps since then we’ve had other people who will log on and purchase, that we also hope will come out and talk about their loyalty to Fur, to have a similar celebrity effect.
NYLP: How much repeat sales are you getting? When someone buys Fur for the first time, how likely are they to come back? Have you measured that?
Lillian: We do. The good news is our business is growing so fast that of course, new users dwarf existing, but that’s just because of the growth. We do find consistently people come back within 2-3 months of their first purchase and will come back and try additional products.
NYLP: What are the products? We touched on it a little bit, but exactly what do they do?
Lillian: We have three. The first one Laura touched on, the signature one, the one that Emma Watson talked about, Fur Oil. That’s the one you use every day, it softens your hair and it prevents ingrowns.
Lillian: The second one is Stubble Cream and that’s an all over body moisturizer, that’s the one the men particularly love because they’ll use that as an after shave and then as an all over body moisturizer, same thing for women, so you’ll use that on larger areas, such as your legs or your arms every day. Again, it softens your skin and it’s going to prevent ingrowns, as well and keep it very smooth and bump free.
Lillian: The last one is Ingrown Concentrate which is more typical in the market where it’s an ingrown treatment, so you use that only when you have razor burn or irritations or ingrowns. You use that as a spot treatment on those areas. We’re the only one that does it with no acid, no alcohol, no cortisones in an all natural oil. Also, the only ones that are Gynecologically tested so you can use it on your pubic area when you have ingrowns.
Lillian: We have a fourth product launching October 4th called the Silk Scrub, where we now bring the Fur experience from out of the shower into the shower. It is a exfoliating product that has both a chemical and a physical component, so you use it all over your body. It’s a scrub, then there’s lactic and glycolic acids to help break down the dead skin, and papaya and pineapple enzymes which also help further smooth the skin and brighten complexions.
Lillian: We have another two products launching in November, as well, so we have a lot more things in the pipeline and a lot more growth coming.
Laura: We’ve doubled our staff, we’ve doubled our products. 2018 has been a-
Lillian: Tripled our sales.
Laura: Tripled our sales, onward and upward.
NYLP: Why do you think you’ve had so much growth so quickly?
Laura: We do think the time is right, again, 2016 people were hanging up the phone, we even noticed this year there’s a big cosmetic executive women’s awards. You get a little table, Lillian and I go every year, and in past years, people come up and they ask what we do, when we tell them they get really embarrassed, they grab their friend and they run away. We’re like, “Okay, see you later!” This year, we said, “We’re Pubic Hair and Skin Care.” People said, “Oh, okay, yeah, that’s interesting.” We really think that the time is right.
NYLP: Branding plays a very important part in your business. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Laura: Absolutely. Well, again, coming back to in 2016, and being a taboo topic, well, a couple things; we’re creating a new category, so we felt under a lot of pressure to really hit it right and do this right. Also, we really didn’t want to be a joke. We think there was huge potential in 2016 for us to launch and for it to fall completely flat, who knows who would pick us up? So we really felt a launch and our bottles are YSL and Chanel inspired, we’re extremely particular about our brand name, copyright, our written text, our website; and it’s all with this goal that people, we don’t want them to be ashamed of their body hair, and what they’re doing. We want them to talk about their options and feel comfortable, so we feel like we really need elevate what can be a very not sophisticated conversation, and make people feel comfortable.
NYLP: How’d you come up with the name Fur?
Laura: We did a lot of brainstorming, again, it’s your fur, it’s elegant. That’s why we thought it was perfect for us, again, you can think of all the names we would have gone with that could have been funny; but definitely wouldn’t have achieved our goals.
NYLP: What was a rejected name?
Lillian: Oh, dear, I don’t remember, it was so long ago, to be honest. All you can think about is Fur, is Fur, like your child, you can’t look at your child and think, “You used to have another name possibly.”
Laura: Although people have a few too many drinks, they say, “Oh I got it! This is what you should’ve named your company.” I’m like-
Lillian: There’s always slogans people want to give us.
Laura: All sorts of advice.
NYLP: So what do you want Fur to become?
Laura: We’re on our way, but we are pubic hair care and we want to be pubic hair care, so when people think about this category, we want to be known as the first, the best and the biggest. So that’s our trajectory.
NYLP: You want to own pubic hair?
Laura: Yes.
NYLP: Own it? What’s it like starting your business in New York? We always talk about that, could you imagine starting your business anywhere else?
Laura: No, the clear downside to starting a business in New York is office space. That’s always an issue for us, how do you find space as you’re building your business? You don’t necessarily want to put tons of money into rent, and you don’t have much of a choice here. We actually worked out of our homes for the first year and change because of that. I think that’s far outweighed by the access to talent we have in New York; we’ve boot strapped this business and a lot of our earliest partners have been people working freelance, people working full time agencies, we’re their special project. I actually think that’s brought a ton of value to our business.
NYLP: That is an excellent note to wrap things up on. How do people find out more about you and Fur?
Laura: Visit our website, furyou.com and follow us on Instagram.
NYLP: At?
Laura: Fur_You
Lillian: Or just drop us an email!
NYLP: You love to hear people talk about their pubic hairs?
Laura: Oh, yeah-
Lillian: We get poetry, we get essays, we get sometimes too much imagery.
NYLP: Too much imagery? Well, Laura Schubert, Lillian Tung, thank you for stepping onto the New York Launch Pod.
Laura: Thank you for having us.
Lillian: It’s great to be here, thank you.
NYLP: If you want to learn more about the New York Launch Pod, you can follow us on social media at NYLaunchPod or visit us at NYLaunchPod.com for transcripts of every episode, including this one. If you are a super fan, Laura and Lillian, are you super fans?
Lillian: Absolutely, we’re on the mailing list.
NYLP: You’re on the mailing list. If you’re super fans like Laura and Lillian, you can be on the mailing list and you can also leave a review on iTunes and Apple Podcasts. It is greatly appreciated and does help people discover the show.
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