Bescher Beauty founder Renee Alyce on how an island discovery inspired her skincare
A waitlist of 30,000 eager customers. Sellout success in just four days. What’s not to love about this beauty buy?
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A waitlist of 30,000 eager customers. Sellout success in just four days. What’s not to love?
Since it launched in 2019, beauty brand Bescher Beauty has been a skyrocketing success, but the key to its popularity isn’t something most Aussies would be expecting.
In just three and half years Bescher Beauty has built up a cult following of customers who are “hooked” on the company’s hero ingredient, sea cucumber collagen, yes, you read that correctly, and how it helps restore the appearance of dry skin.
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Shoppers are “absolutely in love” with Bescher Beauty, saying it is a “game changer” for anyone who struggles with skin sensitivity.
It started with the Sea Cucumber Collagen Regeneration Serum, followed by Sea Cucumber Collagen Anti-Ageing Cream after customers requested it. It has since gotten over 1600 five-star reviews.
The Sea Cucumber Collagen Anti-Ageing Cream in also a fan favourite, with one user raving: “There is a definite incredible difference in the look and feel of my skin. I only buy this now!”
Another wrote, “I’ve been using this Bescher product for over a year now and I’m extremely happy with the way my skin is so much more smoother.”
Another popular product is the Sea Cucumber Collagen Glow Toner which also includes AHAs, hyaluronic acid, lilly pilly and willow bark extract to “renew your natural glow”.
“Very impressed” customers haven’t stopped raving about the toner, saying it leaves skin “refreshed” and “lovely”.
‘I felt like people were judging me’
For founder Renee Alyce, the journey to discovering the glow-inducing powers of sea cucumbers happened due to her own skin struggles.
“I started from a young age applying heavy foundation, from when I was like 12-years-old,” the Gold Coast woman, now 35, told news.com.au.
“I grew up surfing and I would even put foundation on before I got in the ocean because I was too scared to come out of the surf, I felt like people were judging me.”
The Bescher Beauty founder has sensitive, fair skin that flared up with dry patches around her nose and mouth, as well as breakouts.
Her skin issues continued in her twenties when Renee moved to a remote island in Fiji.
“Because I have fair, sensitive skin when I was living on the island it was really, really harsh,” she recalled.
‘It was out of this world’
During Renee’s time in Fiji she became close friends with the island’s residents, who shared the natural ingredients they relied upon improve the look of dry skin. One of these was sea cucumbers, a sea invertebrate that’s a popular seafood dish in Asian and Pacific countries.
Struggling with rough, irritated skin after time outdoors, Renee decided to try out the sea cucumber’s collagen for herself.
She placed the sea cucumber’s collagen-rich skin lining on her hand and then her face. After leaving it on her skin for about an hour, she said her skin felt “nice” and she noticed it had helped restore the appearance of dry patches.
The moment “completely blew my mind”, Renee said, and stuck with her in the years that followed.
‘I became obsessed with it’
She returned to Australia in 2018 and began working as a porter at a casino on the Gold Coast.
“I decided to start life again,” Renee said. “(I) left the island with nothing.”
Her experience with sea cucumber collagen was still a “light bulb moment that never left my mind” and she “slowly started fulfilling my dream”.
“I just had this idea and I became obsessed with it,” Renee said.
She enlisted the help of a leading compounding pharmacist to create a product using sea cucumber collagen to see if it would work, creating a prototype of what would eventually be Bescher Beauty’s first product.
“It was the Sea Cucumber Collagen Regeneration Serum,” Renee said.
She said it improved the look of uneven skin tone.
Within a few months, Renee noticed a visible change in how her skin looked and felt – enough to feel more confident going without foundation.
‘Sold out within four days’
In February Bescher Beauty launched its Sea Cucumber Collagen Blemish Defence Serum to 30,000 eager customers.
“We had a huge waiting list,” Renee said. “We launched and sold out within four days, it was absolutely insane.”
Bescher Beauty has been a financial success, increasing its revenue four to five times year on year. But Renee is most proud of the company’s ability to help people like her who struggle with skin sensitivity.
“I started the business at my mum’s house, out of a bedroom,” she said.
“I’ve grown from working out of the bedroom to having the most incredible team and they’re very much the backbone of the company.”
Want more beauty content? Find out which skincare product Trinny Woodall “couldn’t live without”, as well as how one woman’s “huge” hair problem led to a $100 million collagen empire.
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