For the last 10 years, Atlanta-based Astral Health and Beauty has created a name for itself with its three distinct products: Aloette, PürMinerals and CosMedix. The privately-held company holds a unique position in the professional beauty channel and is known among makeup and skincare aficionados around the world. Astral Brands deliberately tries to manufacture all of its products in the U.S. and estimates about 500 man hours of manufacturing behind its brands each year.

Astral Health and Beauty brings community and sustainability into the forefront of the business. “We’re very conscious of sustainability in our paper packaging and save up to 2,000 trees each year with our warehouse programs,” JuE Wong, CEO of Astral Brands says. “We let our consumers know about our sustainability programs, even at the office level.”

Additionally, Astral Health and Beauty’s other claim to fame is its partnership with the American Heart Association in which it is able to contribute a minimum of $250,000 each year to saving those who live with heart disease. The company also proudly offers its employees eight paid hours each month to contribute to and volunteer at their charity of choice, allowing them to give back to their community.

A BREAKDOWN OF ASTRAL HEALTH AND BEAUTY

Aloette was the first brand to be developed 30 years ago and is an organic aloe vera product line offered at home parties through a franchise model. The product goes deeper into dermal layers of the skin to penetrate focus areas.  The success of Aloette allowed the company’s founders to realize that makeup and skincare was the next logical product lines for the future.

PürMinerals is a makeup and color line infused with skin fitness technology to come out of the woodwork about 10 years ago. PürMinerals is available at popular beauty retailers, such as Ulta, Look Boutique, Beauty 360, Dillard’s, Regis Salons, and at selected spa destinations.

CosMedix, a chirally correct skincare line that promotes its plant-based ingredients and is distributed among the professional channel.

“CosMedix offers the purest form of its ingredients and has lots of leverage in the professional spectrum,” Wong says. “CosMedix is available at medi-spas, destination spas and is offered to physicians and dermatologists around the nation.

“For Astral Health and Beauty, our retail vendors builds brand awareness as it’s the first visible visual of a product,” Wong continues. “Brand credibility is usually built in the professional channel coming from doctors and estheticians and brand revenue is driven by our direct consumer business. But our distribution power becomes even greater once it hits our customers’ hands because of word of mouth” which creates brand equity

UNIQUENESS IN THE INDUSTRY

The company created a specific consciousness for its key ingredients and even infuses its aloe vera products with patented delivery technologies that offer topical and accumulated benefits.

“When Aloette started 30 years ago as an organic aloe vera line, our organic offering was way ahead of its time,” Wong says. “We procure all of our organic aloe vera from company-owned co-ops in California and Mexico that gives its workers a second chance in life. Workers may have had a run-in with the law or may believe that no one would give them a chance in the working world.”

CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVING ITS PEOPLE

Wong believes that she has the right people working within the Astral Health and Beauty organization who are constantly looking for innovations in the beauty space and beyond in the medical and pharmaceutical market. Astral Health and Beauty prides its collaborative working environment and believes its senior leaders are empowered to make strategic decisions and choices.

“We always ask ourselves how these innovations will become relevant in the future and how we can properly incorporate these ideas into skincare and makeup,” Wong says. “Advancements made in the industry have been tremendous because of its ability to tap into the scientific community.”

“We’re looking beyond the skincare professionals and working toward the medical and pharmaceutical industry on how to incorporate our ideas to look outside the box,” she continues. The company is constantly pushing the envelope to create novel ideas for products. “We talk to our partners and clients about our innovations and we’ve realized that ‘no’ just means ‘not yet’ when it comes to new technologies.”

TECHNOLOGICAL LEAPS IN THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY

Apart from keeping important vendor relationships with such companies as Beauty Manufacturing  Solutions Corp. (BMSC),CoValence Laboratories, Du-Var and Bentley. Astral Health and Beauty believes that its leaps in the beauty industry will also help the company reach its business goals.

“It’s easy to infuse skincare benefits into liquid products, but it’s very difficult to translate these same benefits into powder products like with our PürMinerals,” Wong says. “We have a product re-launch set for October where we will be infusing all categories of our makeup line with  our own patent pending proprietary skincare encapsulation, delivering hydration, encouraging collagen synthesis thereby increasing  skin elasticity, and addressing hyper- pigmentation and anti-aging concerns.”  This advancement in color is a revolution and is akin to what Cosmeceutical did for the skincare category in the 1980s.Wong also conveys that all 3 of Astral Health and Beauty brands will continue to fill the missing gaps in the beauty industry when it comes to innovations, technology and creativity.