Founder Emily Hamilton on how tropical Bali fruits inspired Coco & Eve

June 2024 · 5 minute read

“All the tropical ingredients were just fascinating,” the Coco & Eve founder told news.com.au.

“I love beauty and could really see this brand in mind that combined really efficacy driven products and this unique tropical ingredients story.”

Bali is home to a plethora of skin-and-hair-loving fruits and plants, in particular raw virgin coconuts, which now exists as Coco & Eve’s hero ingredient.

‘WE SAW A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY’

Emily first had the idea for Coco & Eve in 2015, but the brand didn’t launch to market until 2018.

“The market was quite different back in 2015 where there was this gap between supermarket brands and salon brands, and we wanted to create something that was really ingredient conscious,” she said.

“So it was really like this in between of connecting with consumers and creating products which are really focused on ingredients.”

This wasn’t Emily first rodeo when it came to building a business – in fact, she had previously founded bellabox with her twin sister Sarah, a first-of-its-kind beauty subscription box service.

To create Coco & Eve, Emily worked closely with her husband Alexander Ostrowski, and together they spent years perfecting their formulas and making sure the tropical Balinese ingredients were being used to their full potential.

‘THE MOST AMAZING HAIR MASK’

That’s where the best-selling and multi award-winning Like A Virgin Hair Masque comes in — it’s so popular Coco & Eve still sell around 600 tubs of it a day.

The five-in-one treatment works its magic in just 10 minutes, restoring your locks into their ‘virgin’ condition.

Raw virgin coconut adds hydration and works on strengthening those hair follicles, while fig extract packs all those good antioxidants.

Shea butter adds some extra moisture, linseed oil adds shine and argan oil treats those split ends and frizziness, all without weighing your hair down.

The hair mask has received rave reviews online, with shoppers on TikTok calling it the “best hair mask”, saying it’s “transformed” their hair and “fixed” their dry ends.

On Coco & Eve’s website it has racked up a 4.8 star rating from over 8000 reviews, with customers saying it has been a “game changer” and “life saver” for their hair, giving them “smooth, shiny” tresses. One happy shopper said it “vanished my frizz” while another wrote that it has made their hair “so soft and healthy”.

According to Emily, the hair mask was an “instant success”.

“It is the most amazing hair mask and provides this immediate effect to the hair. But most importantly, it’s because we are really truly conscious of its ingredients,” she said.

The Like A Virgin Hair Masque is also vegan, cruelty-free, gluten-free, sulfate-free and ethically sourced.

Emily recognises that a hair mask is a really “indulgent experience” – it’s not something you need to use, but it’s rather an extra step in your hair care routine.

“You could definitely go on with life without a hair mask,” she said. “But people try it, they love it and they keep coming back for more.”

EMILY’S PASSION FOR BEAUTY

Emily loves working in the world of beauty because of the amount of “creativity and innovation” involved.

“I feel that I can really make an impact and create something really unique, something that people love,” she said.

Something that most of us can relate to is that beauty is a way to connect with loved ones.

“With my daughter, my friends, it connects us all and there is just so much to play around with. It’s a really great industry to be in.”

THE SUCCESS OF COCO AND EVE

According to Emily, Coco & Eve has grown a whopping 45 per cent just this year. It’s been driven by several successful product drops, their launch into retail and expansion into the UK and the US.

“They’ve all been really big career highlights for me,” she said.

One of those successful new product launches is the Antioxidant Face Tanning Micromist – it’s sold about 200,000 units this year, with more expected to come throughout summer.

It also has now the brand’s currently second top seller. The first top seller is the Super Hydrating Shampoo & Conditioner Set and the third is the Like A Virgin Hair Masque.

So as you can see, Coco & Eve is covering all their bases with haircare, skincare, bodycare, tanning and SPF.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR COCO AND EVE

When it comes to building a successful beauty brand, Emily knows it doesn’t just stop at one viral, best-selling product.

Instead Coco & Eve is “reinvesting everything into new products, innovation, and retail” to stay on top of their game.

“We now have an in-house chemist from France and he is driving all the new innovation, building out a whole kind of project management team,” she said.

More Coverage

Future releases from Coco & Eve include more exciting hair products in the first half of next year, with an extended SPF range to hopefully arrive in the second half.

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Originally published as Founder Emily Hamilton on how tropical Bali fruits inspired Coco & Eve

Marina TatasMarina TatasShopping writer

Marina has been helping Australian shoppers find products that are actually worth buying for more than five years. Since joining news.com.au’s shopping team in 2021, she has become an expert in sales and deals and curates news.com.au checkout’s must-read weekly shopping and deals article. For the past five years, she has covered mega sale events like Black Friday and Boxing Day, sifting through hundreds of deals to find the biggest discounts on the products worth adding to cart. She is also passionate about all things beauty having tested hundreds of serums, eye creams and moisturisers to provide first-hand reviews. She has previously worked at comparison site Finder as a Shopping Writer and has written for popular titles including Marie Claire, Women's Health and The Carousel.

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