The Retail Revolutionary Behind The Detox Market
And How To Get On Their Shelves
February 13th, 2025 • 7 min read
Fifteen years ago, ‘Clean Beauty’ wasn’t a movement. It wasn’t even a recognized category. But when Romain Gaillard took a closer look at the personal care industry, he saw something alarming - products filled with harmful chemicals, hiding behind misleading labels.
The wake-up call came when a close friend was diagnosed with cancer. As they researched the environmental and personal care toxins surrounding them, Gaillard realized just how little transparency existed in the beauty space. That realization led to a mission: to create a trusted place for safe, non-toxic beauty products, where people could make informed choices about what they put on their skin.
A Fight for Shelf Space
The Detox Market didn’t have an easy road. Back then, major beauty retailers weren’t interested in “clean” products. Reflecting on the early days, Romain recalled, “We did a series of popups and the beauty space was like ‘We don't want clean beauty inside’, so they put it in fashion. So we end up in a beauty store in the fashion area, which didn't make much sense!’
But Gaillard knew clean beauty wasn’t just another trend, it was the future. He persisted, proving to retailers that consumers wanted better choices. Over time, The Detox Market built a reputation as the authority in clean beauty, setting the standard for ingredient transparency and product performance.
From Pop-Up to Pioneering Powerhouse
Today, The Detox Market is a multi-location, award-winning leader in clean beauty. What started as a small pop-up is now a trusted destination for non-toxic beauty and wellness products, earning them masses of loyal customers and several awards, including:
Thoughtfully Magazine’s Award for Best Green Beauty Retailer (2016)
WWD Wellness Award for Best Retailer (2018)
Beauty Independent's Beacon Award for Best Large Indie Retailer (2020)
What It Takes to Get Stocked at The Detox Market
The Detox Market carefully selects every product, ensuring it meets strict ingredient and performance standards. Brands that get stocked have something unique to offer - whether it’s filling a gap in the market, bringing innovation to clean beauty, or delivering an exceptional product experience.
The retailer reviews hundreds of brands each year, but fewer than 2% make it through. Brands that succeed align with the company’s mission and offer something valuable to the clean beauty community.
For brands looking to secure shelf space, preparation is key:
✔ Strong product quality - performance and ingredients matter.
✔ A compelling brand story - retailers need a reason to take notice.
✔ Networking - "An introduction goes a long way. There’s always a formal process, but if you can get directly to a buyer, that can be a game-changer. If your product fills a white space, everything moves much faster." Romain advised.
✔ Market fit - products that fill a white space stand out.
What’s Next for Clean Beauty?
The Detox Market continues to lead the way in ingredient integrity and sustainability, but Gaillard sees even bigger shifts on the horizon. Categories like fragrance, beauty tools, and home wellness are areas of growing interest, places where clean beauty can make just as big of an impact as it has in skincare and makeup.
“In our space, a lot of things [are] happening with fragrance and if you look at our distribution of categories versus mainstream… there's a huge lack, there's a huge difference in kinds of fragrance. So fragrance is an important one… tools is quite interesting, a lot of things are happening with tools in the past few years and it's an easy thing to bring on, so those are two categories we've been looking at, and a bit of home stuff”.
And while AI is changing how retail operates, Gaillard believes there’s no replacement for the human connection in brand curation. Data can help refine selections, but choosing the right brands still requires expertise, intuition, and a deep understanding of the consumer.
"Using AI to decide on products… I mean for us, it's very different because we want to have a human connection to the products . We decide when it comes to and so that's more like at a brand level... Of course, it's going that way in terms of how you can already do that with Excel, Co-Pilot, or ChatGPT, you know the slow sellers, the low frequency,, and you can change that - but on the curation of brands I think the human aspect is still very important."
The Launchpad
Looking ahead to 2025, The Detox Market is doubling down on its mission to uplift and accelerate the next generation of clean beauty brands. Keep an eye out for The 2025 Launchpad, a program launched in 2020, dedicated to accelerating clean beauty brands owned by Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color. The initiative provides creative resources, retail strategy consulting, and senior-level mentorship to help founders thrive in the beauty industry.
Discover the latest in clean beauty, handpicked by experts with The Detox Box, a monthly subscription featuring top-performing, non-toxic products delivered straight to your door.
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