Founder Feature: Suzannah Raff of Cleo+Coco

0:09I was just very frustrated with what was out there because I didn't want to wear the perfume disguised as deodorant under my arms and it just nothing worked. And I kind of took a look and I actually have a background in business. I have a master's in business and I worked in strategy and consulting for many years. And I kind of just strategically looked at the category and I said, so many people are really, really want a natural deodorant and that's why they're doing so well. But nobody's getting it right. Imagine if we get it right. Imagine if we really put ingredients first and we make super formula that is truly, truly effective for everybody.

0:48And we leave out the perfume. We leave out the synthetic fragrance. I knew I could make some things that smelled incredible because I knew I had a good nose. And so I really just jumped in. I do not come from a CPG background, but five years in, I hope I'm a CPG expert by now. Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Brooker, editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Ever wonder what deodorant would be like if someone actually figured out the formula instead of just slapping perfume into a stick? Today we're talking with Susanna Raff, founder of Clio & Coco, a clean personal care brand that eliminates synthetic fragrance entirely.

1:26After getting frustrated with natural deodorants that didn't work, Susanna spent two years developing a super formula that actually keeps you fresh all day. She went from working in complete isolation as a first-time founder to landing a nine SKU nationwide Whole Foods launch. As someone who had a fragrance-free wedding and used to be a buyer for personal care products, I am completely here for this fragrance-free mission. Enjoy.

1:54Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin, and today I'm here with Susanna Raff, founder of Cleo & Coco. Susanna, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you so much for having me here, Caitlin. It's so nice to have you here. My background is as a buyer and personal care and beauty product, so it's really fun talking to a healthy, clean beauty and personal care brand. So thanks for doing what you're doing and thanks for making the time for being here. That's exciting. I didn't know that about your background. Just a little surprise for anybody that doesn't know. I would love for anybody who's not already familiar with Clio and Coco for them to get introduced.

2:37So let's hear it straight from you. What is Clio and Coco? So Clio and Coco is a clean personal care brand that is revolutionizing the category once again. We go above and beyond aluminum free. We are clean all across the board and we really believe in ingredient efficacy. We make personal care products that are truly, truly effective, but also really the highest level of clean. So we obviously aluminum free for our deodorants, but paraben free, phthalate free. And one huge differentiator is that we will never use synthetic fragrance. Synthetic fragrance is significantly worse than aluminum. It can hide up to 3000 different chemicals that have linked to everything from infertility, hormone disruption to cancer and so many other diseases.

3:31So we really leave that synthetic fragrance out of our personal care products. And I can talk more about it a little bit later. So we have a whole line of clean personal care products from our deodorant balms to our deodorant powders that are also for hair and body. And then we also have a term that I coined functional sprays. So this is our magnesium spray. So we've been around for about five years and we can be found omni-channel, direct to consumer on Amazon. And as of July of this year, you can also find a mine of our SKUs nationwide in Whole Foods markets. Congratulations. That's huge. It really is.

4:16Yes. We're very, very grateful for this incredible partnership with Whole Foods market. Wonderful. So there's a lot that I want to dive into there. First, I need to hear more about what got you into the clean beauty space and clean personal care from the beginning. What sparked that moment for you where you said, this is where I need to be? Was there any specific moment for you? I could talk for hours about that, but I'll try to be very succinct. So there were a few moments. I think the first moment was just being very, very frustrated with the deodorants in the deodorant aisle and even more frustrated with the first generation of clean and natural deodorants that were coming about.

4:59I was always a scent person. I used to blend my own when I was very, you know, teenagers. I would mix perfumes and make my own scents. And then I stopped using aluminum. My mother told me I was pregnant in nursing. Don't put aluminum under your arms. You know, it's going into your body. Baby could get it. So I stopped wearing aluminum. Nothing worked. But more than that, nothing smelled good. And as I started to read and learn more about ingredients while I was pregnant in nursing and after my babies, I started to get more involved in my health, started to eat very clean and read ingredients. And I read the ingredients on anything before I eat it.

5:39And starting to do the same thing with products, I was reading the ingredients on products and I learned that synthetic fragrance was really, really bad. While I was nursing, I read that synthetic fragrance can disrupt, you know, it masks your natural body scent and then a baby is comforted by the mother's natural scent. So I didn't want to mask my body scent with synthetic fragrance anymore. I also didn't want those chemicals because they're just so unhealthy, especially because I used to put perfume under my arm instead of deodorant. So I was just very frustrated with what was out there because I didn't want to wear the perfume disguised as deodorant under my arms and it just nothing worked there.

6:18And I kind of took a look and I actually have a background in business. I have a master's in business and I worked in strategy and consulting for many years. And I kind of just strategically looked at the category and I said so many people are really really want a natural deodorant and that's why they're doing so well but nobody's getting it right imagine if we get it right imagine if we really put ingredients first and we make super formula that is truly truly effective for everybody and we leave out the perfume we leave out the synthetic fragrance I knew I could make some things that smelled incredible because I knew I had a good nose and so I really just jumped in.

6:57I do not come from a CPG background but five years in I hope I'm a CPG expert by now and I jumped in and I found a natural products manufacturer and we spent two years really researching and developing our formulas so that was kind of that to answer your question that was really just this aha moment of I can do this there's really still a white space to just go above and beyond aluminum free and do this properly because people really need it and want it. 100%. I totally agree with that. I think you are spot on when you say that there is white space because I think as consumers and maybe even buyers too, when we look at the deodorant category, it does look crowded, but that's just packages on a shelf.

7:42It really goes into the efficacy and will this stain my clothes? Will it actually keep me from smelling? all this whole list of things and even like my personal experience with deodorant maybe you've had the same when I went from antiperspirant which I used to joke and say antiperspirant is like the scientific name for deodorant but it's really not antiperspirant and deodorant were just two different worlds for me and when I made the switch to natural I was going for these super baking soda heavy formulas and then formulas that were also super heavy and essential oils but when you find a brand that can really strike that balance, it's like striking gold.

8:22Thank you. Yes, people are very, very grateful. Finally, I found a natural deodorant that works. So yes, we spent two years, like I said, perfecting our formula and we have what we call our super formula, our fab five odor fighting ingredients. So in our research, we saw that some deodorants work for some people and not for other people. And so we took all of the best natural odor fighters and we put it into one super formula. So we use charcoal, but we use just enough of it. And charcoal is just this incredible magic ingredient. We use just enough of it that it pulls out odor and wetness without in it, but it still glides on creamy and clear.

9:04So they are, have this like beautiful color, but they glide on like I say creamy and clear gorgeous gorgeous texture so one of our odor fighters is charcoal we use magnesia which is an incredible odor fighter and it's a mineral that is just good for your body it's great to be putting that onto your skin we use probiotics we use mandelic acid so we're balancing the microbiome under your arm super super clean some of our formulas have a touch of baking soda most people who are sensitive to baking soda it doesn't bother them because there's so many other active ingredients that it doesn't need a lot of baking soda.

9:41And then, you know, we have chamomile and we have like cocoa butters and just like really skin soothing, gentle ingredients to really moisturize the underarms. And then of course, we've got our iconic essential oil blends. They're beautiful. They're not overpowering. And most importantly, they're not going to disrupt your hormones or, you know, cause migraines. you know, lead to any kind of illness because we're not hiding anything. It's not a fragrance. So if somebody wants to wear their favorite perfume, go ahead and wear your perfume, but you don't need that, those chemicals on your everyday personal care products.

10:19That's, you know, how we feel. We want to try to minimize the dangerous chemicals, the harmful chemicals. And when you're putting something on your body every day, sometimes a few times a day, it doesn't need those chemicals. So we really pride ourselves in being the highest level of efficacy and clean and you don't have to they smell so good i really feel they do i'm wearing the basil mint right now and those are two of my favorite scents so you blended it into one i'm really enjoying it or yesterday while i was working out had it on all day i can say that i did not have to apply a second time still smelled great at the end of the day i love hearing that that's exactly why we created our formulas this is the basil mint they smell incredible and if you need just like it to uplift your day just open it and smell it and it's a nice pick me up that's awesome i really do love the fact that you're using essential oils you've touched on this already but the synthetic fragrance i've heard synthetic fragrance referred to as almost the secondhand smoke of personal care because not only is it a scent that you're putting on yourself but other people can smell it on you, especially if there's the phthalates in there, the plasticizers.

11:31It stays on your skin. It stays on your body. That's why you're smelling it all day long. I really appreciate that about you. Another maybe not so little known fact about myself is that I had a fragrance-free wedding. It was on my wedding invitations. We asked all of our guests not to wear perfume or cologne because I'm super sensitive to it. I just wanted to enjoy my day and not have the headache. So we did have a couple of people who were like, okay, I'm not going to the wedding, took it super personally because they love their perfume, but sometimes you got to be a little bit selfish, right?

12:05Wow. You are super sensitive. That's incredible. I'm so glad that you made that shout out and mentioned that synthetic fragrance is like the new secondhand smoke, because it really, really is. Like even when I was talking about a baby inhaling it and smelling it on your body and masking your natural scent, but everywhere around you. I had a chiropractor who told me once that he would have somebody coming in reeking of acts and say, I suffer from terrible migraines. And he was like, obviously stop putting that stuff on your body and maybe your migraines will go away. I think that in the past, we never made that connection and we're starting to realize we know now that there's a huge connection between food and what we put into our bodies there's such a strong connection between what we're putting onto our bodies and our health as well so yeah I mean I know people like you you're not alone Caitlin I have a friend who will not go to a hotel unless there are none of those plugins or fragrances and she has a very hard time traveling because it's hard to find those like really clean fragrance-free vacation spots.

13:14I can totally relate to your friend. It's always when I book a hotel room or an Airbnb and they say like any special requests, I always say like, please don't use any fragrance sprays. Don't use any heavily scented cleaning products if you can. It's not going to ruin my time, but it's definitely like it puts a little bit of a damper on things because you're breathing it in constantly. And I relate to you too, because I have a toddler myself and And that was one of the rules when I was pregnant. And then one of the rules when my daughter finally arrived was, if you're going to come over and see us, please don't wear perfume or cologne because I want to smell my baby.

13:52I want my baby to smell me too. If it's affecting me, it's definitely affecting her. That's right. Beautiful. Beautiful. I do believe that the next movement, we're just at the very beginning of the next movement, which is going to be synthetic fragrance movement and removing that from our products. And so we're definitely head at the curve by offering this whole suite of personal care products that remove the synthetic fragrance without taking out the scent experience. They still smell incredible. And that's, you actually smell so much better than you remove the synthetic fragrance. And that's why I think Whole Foods recognize that we're really filling this big white space And that is why they're making this huge investment in Beyond Coco brand by launching nine SKUs nationwide, which is a huge launch.

14:43And we are so excited for it. And it's an unusually large launch for Whole Foods markets. I want to talk more about this. So my understanding is that you made the connection with the merchant for Whole Foods at the Startup CPG section at Expo West. Is that true? That is very, very true. Startup CPG and joining the community really changed my life or the life for Clio and Coco. Before that, I really didn't know CPG category. And as I was building my brand and learning, you know, finding suppliers and ingredients and everything else, until I discovered that I was in the CPG category and there was this whole community, this startup CPG community, I was really working in a vacuum and really just as soon as I discovered startup CPG community, everything changed.

15:33And one of the first things was your Slack channel and listening to all the podcasts and starting to network. And then, you know, as a startup brand, we could not afford a booth at, I did at Expo West. And this was just an incredible opportunity. I had a beautiful, beautiful booth and table and had reached out to the Whole Foods buyer. And I think we met there. And yes, it was very, very exciting. And it also, you know, I'm so, so grateful. This must have been like over a year ago. Not Expo West, but the one before it. Very cool. So I would love to hear more about the timeline there from the point that you met the merchant at the show to the conversations that you had to now doing a national rollout.

16:19Can you talk to us about what that looks like? It's a long timeline. So I probably met the first merchant at Expo East and then she left. and so I had a contact and they loved my products. I think this is a very common story. Merchants move around a lot. So the merchant who I originally met who was very interested left and then at Expo West her replacement came and said my predecessor told me to look for you. So it was just amazing that we had this beautiful display and she found us and was able to just see what her merchants saw. And so I sent her home with a lot of products and then we launched over a year later.

17:01So I think during ex-Newtopia Now, I had a meeting with the buyer and that's when she told us that we want to launch you. And it was supposed to be RG3. It was supposed to be a March launch. And then it got pushed off just for internal purposes on their end. There's just a lot of paperwork and things that go on. And so then it got pushed off to a mid-June launch. And then you probably know about this, but then you and FI had a cyber attack. I'm laughing so that I don't cry. Right at the beginning of June. So if anybody went to Whole Foods and saw that their shelves were empty for most of the month of June, it was because of that cyber attack.

17:45But I think they really corrected it and handled it incredibly well, incredibly smooth. I mean, I think that just delayed us getting on shelves by a few weeks, but it could have been so much worse. So I'm very, very grateful. I think that again, like UNFI handled it beautifully. I think everything is up and running and smoothly again. There were just, I guess, short sales for a few shelves. So by now we're probably been on shelves for about two, three weeks. It's the most exciting thing in the world to see in some stores. I went to Columbus Circle in Manhattan last week, and it's one of the largest stores in the country, at least traffic-wise and velocity-wise, and we've got an entire shelf.

18:28Exactly the buyer's vision, the merchant in her planogram. It's just incredible. It's very exciting. And then we get messages and emails from customers all over the country. You know, I saw you in Jackson Hole. I saw you in Boulder. Oh, it's really great. It's very, very exciting. Five years of work, I guess, two years from the time I met with the first merchant and followed up and followed up. And then almost a year from the time they said, yes, we're going to put you on shelves. And usually is. It's usually almost 12 months from the time you're told you're going to be on shelf until you can actually launch.

19:08Because there was a lot we needed to do to prepare. That was going to be my next question. What did you do to prepare to do a 9-SKU launch nationwide? So a lot of things fell into place at the same time. I got accepted into an accelerator program called Beyond SKU. I think they're now called Beyond CPG. Right before I found out that we were going to be launched in Whole Foods nationwide 9-SKUs. And they were like, uh-oh. So I'm like, do you realize what a big launch that is? That requires a lot of resources. So I immediately brought on a head of operations and finance who has a lot of experience working with startup brands, launching into Whole Foods.

19:54So to really manage operations and finance. And I really built very good relationships with my spires and my manufacturers. So I've been working with them for a number of years. So I spoke to them. I said, this is what's coming. and they were very, very excited. We built out some forecasts and financing it is always a challenge, but piece by piece, it's came together. We got some loans. Whole Foods Market has recently given us a loan, which we're really, really grateful for. They've announced that partnership already. And I found some SBA loans and I had some angel investors who topped up a little bit.

20:38So piece by piece, we put it all together. Wonderful. It sounds like it's a lot of work. I can only imagine the mindset that you have to be in when you're about to launch nationwide. It's like every founder's dream coming true. I could only imagine. And as everybody told me in the accelerator, this is where the real work comes in. It is a dream come true. I guess it's kind of, you know, Whole Foods especially is that big stamp of approval. You know, it's if you Getting accepted there means that you really pass the ingredients and efficacy. And, you know, so many stews, they really believe in your vision.

21:13Our visions are perfectly aligned. I feel like we're, you know, like Toms of Maine for the modern era. They're known for their trusted commitment for clean, natural ingredients. But, you know, we're kind of like using advanced green chemistry focused on efficacy of today because we can be so much more effective than, you know, a brand from 30, 40, 50 years ago. So we're just like Toms of Maine of 2.0, just revolutionizing the entire category. And I'm really excited about our functional sprays. You know, magnesium is this like magic ingredient. Like I said, we put it in our deodorants. And I was looking for a magnesium spray that didn't have menthol or melatonin in it.

21:57It's just plain magnesium just to help relax for muscle pain and help me sleep at night. And it didn't exist. And so we said, nope, we really should make this. It's just an incredible ingredient. It's such a super ingredient with nothing else in it. No synthetic fragrance. It's just some lavender and magnesium. And interestingly, the merchant, so when I introduced her to our magnesium spray, she said she was visiting a store and she was in the whole body section and somebody was actually asking the store associate for magnesium spray and they didn't have it and so she was very excited to add this and so magnesium spray is in the first aid aisle while our deodorants and deodorant powders are in the deodorant aisle.

22:42That's really cool that you were able to fill that white space without your product even being on the shelves yet and it must have been an aha moment and a hey I found the right thing when the buyer had that interaction with the customer. So I'm very curious. You were just holding up your products. I think the color palette that you've chosen for your brand is very soothing. It's very in line with your ingredients and the mission and everything you're looking to deliver to your consumers. Talk to me about the name. I'm very curious about the name Cleo and Coco. Where did it come from? It's a great question.

23:16We get asked it a lot and we actually recently redid our website to just enhance the whole purchase experience and if you look at our website it's really so cute we've got like these moving custom icons that are very much so the name when you see the icons you'll get it so cleo is for cleopatra cleopatra was really known for her clean beauty regimen she's charcoal and her milk baths and she was just known for beauty and beauty care. So it's a combination of like, because Cleopatra was really great. And then the cocoa was coconut oil. And, you know, just like the idea that it's like coming from nature.

23:56I also just used my, you know, from a business background marketing, co is a very, very good sound. Anything that starts with a co is known to sell Kleenex, Coca-Cola. I mean, Sarah Blakely, you know, did it with Spanx and now her sneaks. So I was really brainstorming and looking for something with a cup in it and when I came up with Cleo and then you need the URL to be available and so many other things but when I came up with Cleo and Coco it was just universally everybody just loved it and said that is so cute that is so good so that's how we came up with the name it is really good it's memorable it rolls off the tongue it looks really good on your hat too it looks very nice very aesthetically pleasing very cool and it would make like good pet names too, I think.

24:44They do. And a lot of people ask me, are those your daughter's names? I actually tried to figure out a name with my daughter's name and it just, this came, the other names didn't come. I'm sure she's flattered either way. So I'd love to know, you've been building this brand. You got yourself into a nationwide rollout with Whole Foods, huge accomplishment. What do you have to share with other founders, especially in the beauty and personal care space from your experience, any big pieces of advice stick out in your mind? So many. I mean, I think the first is you have to be really strong and really believe in your vision.

25:21It can take a lot longer than you expect. But, you know, I think it's if you really believe in your vision and then that's like the first thing is just be strong. There's ups and downs. There are so many walls to break through. And we're so grateful for this accomplishment. It did take me five years to get here, which I think is probably a normal trajectory when you're building a really really solid brand and not just something that's like quick in and out and like I said you know if we're building like the toms of maine of the modern era and it should take a little bit longer to just build that foundation and be really solid I think that a lot of business owners or brand founders you really really need to know your key differentiators like how are you different how are you better what is the white space that you're filling?

26:08There are a lot of natural aluminum-free deodorants that entered around the same time as I did, but I was always very clear that they're just doing the same thing over and over again with some very loud marketing, and they're just putting like perfume in a stick. I was like very, very clear that I wasn't going to jump on that band ramp wagon. I wasn't just building something to make a quick exit. I wouldn't put those products on my kids' bodies. I'm not putting those ingredients or making those kinds of products. So I think I was very clear about our values and the white space that we were filling and the differentiators.

26:46And it was just takes a while for the right buyer and the timing of the market and everything to align. But when you're really trying to do something good and your products are really good and the need is there, it will align. The stars will align eventually. That's great advice. We're coming up on time. So I would love for anybody listening to be able to find you online. We know you can find you in Whole Foods, thankfully. So if anybody wants to follow along, learn more about you and more about your brand, where can they find you online? So you can find us at CleoAndAndCoco.com and go check out our website.

27:22We've got these really cute little hieroglyphic icons on there and, you know, really beautiful branding. It's a really beautiful experience. You can follow us on social media at Cleo and Coco Natural. So reach out to us. We love re-ask those questions. You can find me. I'm at Susanna Raff. It's S-U-Z-A-N-N-A-H underscore R-A-F-F on social media. My LinkedIn was recently hacked. Oh, no. This is the first time I've heard of somebody's LinkedIn getting hacked. On Friday, I got an email saying that somebody logged in if it's not you. And so I went to my LinkedIn account and somebody had completely deleted everything about me.

28:02So hopefully my Susanna Raff LinkedIn will be restored soon. We've reached out to LinkedIn and notified them. It could take a couple of days. Hopefully everything will get restored because, you know, Whole Foods has been tagging, fun LinkedIn, just announcing this big launch. So yes, unfortunately you can't yet find me on LinkedIn, even though I would love for you to, but reach out to me on social media or through our website. by cleoandcocoa.com and cleoandcocoa natural. Perfect. Susanna, thank you so much for your time. It's been great getting to know you and learning more about your brand and your philosophies.