Skip to main content

Clean Beauty Brand Merit Is Confident About U.K. Launch

In 2021, Katherine Power raised a $20 million Series A led by L Catterton.

LONDON Merit has landed in the U.K.

The minimalist beauty brand founded by Katherine Power, founder of Who What Wear, Versed and a partner in Cameron Diaz’s wine business Avaline, is breaking into the U.K. market with a direct-to-consumer website.

“The U.K. has always been our most in-demand market outside of Canada, so it feels really natural to make that our first international launch,” said Aila Morin, vice president of Merit.

She added that, until now, U.K. customers have been engaging with the brand on Instagram.

Related Articles

In 2021, Power raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by L Catterton, with Marcy Ventures and Sonoma Brands also investing.

Merit is growing in the U.S. and the brand is hoping the U.K. will follow suit.

merit beauty
2022 was Merit’s strongest year for new product launches. Courtesy of Merit

Among the brand’s bestsellers is the minimalist stick, which had a waitlist of 10,000 in the U.S. In the early weeks of launch, the brand said it was selling one product every 17 seconds online.

Products will be shipped to the U.K. from Merit’s U.S. warehouse.

“What’s really taken time for us is just perfecting the operations experience and making sure that we can offer the same experience of speed and customer service that we can offer in the States. We wanted to have that perfected prior to launch,” Morin said.

The brand is stocked at Sephora in the U.S., but it hasn’t confirmed if it will sell through its new U.K. store, which is set to open in March.

“Given our relationship with Sephora, we understand the importance of those strong retail partnerships, so it’s absolutely something we’re considering for the future,” Morin added.

Morin said 2022 was one of Merit’s strongest years as “all of our new product launches were instantly bestsellers on our [d-to-c site] and also at Sephora.”