Personal care product brand Touchland has announced its most successful fiscal year since the brand was founded in 2016. At the end of 2023, the company saw a 203% YoY sales increase “with Q4 2023 outperforming Q4 2022 by an impressive 180%,” and ended the year with a sales increase of 28% from Q3 2023 to Q4 2023, according to a Touchland press release.
The brand owes its success in part to its sensational performance on social media platforms Tik Tok, Instagram and to its popularity with celebrity consumers like singer Christina Aguilera. To date, “in total (across both TikTok and Instagram) Touchland amassed 170M organic social media impressions and have a total combined following of 640K. Touchland has also achieved recent success with retailers, reporting “a 292% YoY growth at Sephora (overall growth in-store and online),” according to the release.
We interviewed Andrea Lisbona, founder and CEO of Touchland to learn more about Touchland’s evolutionary rise from personal care brand to self-care lifestyle company, including how the brand is an innovator and disruptor in its market share, the influences behind its product development process, and plans for further R&D in the personal care product space.
Founding the brand & recent success
Prior to launching Touchland, Lisbona came “from a family of entrepreneurs, so I knew when it came to my profession growing up, I needed to create something that would make a difference,” she shared. Upon her arrival to the US, she experienced “the unpleasantries of hand sanitizers, especially considering how important it is to our health,” which was an inspiration for her to create the brand.
“In a world where personal care routines often feel mundane and joyless,” she explained, Touchland was born “with the goal to transform uninspired moments by bringing a splash of happiness and luxury to everyday rituals.” Therefore, she summarized, “through innovative design, beautifully scented products and a commitment to redefining personal care,” the brand has found its success.
Lisbona has attributed the brand’s rapid growth to two main factors, “our viral sticky coefficient and disruptive innovation.” By remaining “on the pulse of the newest trends,” and maintaining an active presence on social media, she explained, “our products are more than just personal care, we are a lifestyle, so I think that’s been a main differentiator in terms of our growth power.”
Additionally, she shared, “our community, inclusive of influencers and celebrities, have all been garnered organically so the authenticity behind genuine recommendations definitely contributed to our popularity.” Furthermore, she continued, “we are constantly evolving in terms of meaningful, disruptive innovation and releasing new formulas, new scents, collaborations and innovations by listening to our fans to create products that they’ll love and adore.”
Using innovation design and functionality to disrupt personal care
As evidenced by the company’s most recent success in the past fiscal year, Touchland is disrupting the personal care industry with its innovations in hand sanitizer products, but “our commitment to innovation and disruption in the personal care product space extends beyond hand sanitizers,” said Lisbona. Driven by “a broader vision to redefine and elevate various aspects of personal care,” she said, “our approach centers on challenging traditional norms and introducing products that not only meet essential needs but transform routine tasks into moments of indulgence.”
With a goal to “disrupt and innovate across multiple categories within the personal care industry… through cutting-edge formulations, unique design concepts, [and] an unwavering dedication to user experience,” explained Lisbona, “our mission is to continuously push boundaries, setting new standards for what personal care can be, and providing consumers with products that enhance their well-being in unexpected and delightful ways.”
One aspect of Touchland’s products that makes them unique, and subsequently appealing to consumers, is the brand’s packaging design. The products’ “unique shape is based off of the Golden Ratio design principle used to mimic natural looking compositions found in nature,” she shared.
Functionality is also a consideration, and “rather than bulky, sterile packaging, we created a sleek, rounded design that can fit into the pocket of any pair of pants, for an on-the-go experience, great for handbags, and backpacking across the country,” she said. Additionally, the products further lend themselves to lifestyle branding as “we’ve even developed accessories that can match to your design aesthetics and can easily clip on to your outfit with ease,” Lisbona stated.
Up next for Touchland R&D
Moving forward, Lisbona and Touchland are focused on creating innovative products with a lasting impact on the personal care space. “Brands in the personal care market shouldn’t look so deeply into chasing trends because trends move so quickly,” she said, and it would therefore “be difficult to create innovations that stand the test of time if you base your product development on what’s popular at the moment.”
Instead, the brand’s plans for future innovations acknowledge that the personal care market is dynamic, and concentration remains honed on seizing “trends and opportunities by redefining on-the-go essentials,” she explained.
As “focus on wellness, selfcare, and self-expression positions us to provide innovative, portable solutions beyond traditional personal care,” she added, the brand will continue to embrace “design, form factor, clean formulations, and scentsational fragrances” in product development opportunities and remains “committed to exceeding customer expectations for a holistic, convenient personal care experience.”
In the coming months, Touchland is “setting out to disrupt five essential categories in the personal care space,” as “hand sanitizer is just the first of the five categories,” said Lisbona. Plans for further innovation include “finding the whitespace in the market where mundane tasks and activities can become an elevated experience,” she added, as “we want to inspire our audience into taking simple personal care routines and making them into self-care rituals that will far surpass trend culture.”
Currently, the brand’s latest product release, hypoallergenic sanitizer Gentle Mist, launched at Sephora last month, will be available at other retailers including Ulta Beauty and Amazon this month, according to the company’s press release, and others will follow shortly as “our newest innovation will be coming soon,” she concluded.
