Sarah Forrai and Lewis Battersby co-founded the Contour Cube during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.
Since then, the Contour Cube has been named "the world's first ice facial tool" and has been recommended by A-list celebrities including Supermodel Kendall Jenner and Makeup Artist Lisa Eldridge.
After incorporating ice in her morning facial routine for years, Forrai, 32, told International Business Times UK: "We were in lockdown and my mum loves ice facials - she swears by them. She was icing her skin and she told me to get into it and I do everything my mum tells me, so I did!"
"I thought that icing my skin was really messy and something I suffer from is Reynaud's phenomenon where I can't hold ice cubes for long periods of time," she added, going on to explain: "As I did my research about ice facials, I was like, this has been around for centuries, makeup artists use it. I thought, surely there is a tool to make this easier, but there wasn't any tool for it. "
The Contour Cube has "completely created a brand-new category in the beauty market", Forrai said, telling me that "cryotherapy is a growing thing and there hasn't been something that has been made for the purpose of facial icing yet".
"One of our biggest challenges was educating people on it and getting them to understand how they can incorporate it into their skincare routine," Battersby added.
The co-founders told me that the first prototypes of the Contour Cube were designed and curated using a 3D printer.
"We used the 3D printed prototype to perfect the shape and then we sent it off to a manufacturer to produce the first 100. Then, we decided to launch on TikTok," Forrai told me.
"When we initially launched the brand on TikTok, we were really big in the US and the UK. I didn't think anything of it, I just wondered if there would be any demand for this thing that I made for my mum," the co-founder explained.
After posting on their TikTok profile, which currently boasts a staggering 424,000 followers, Forrai told me: "The first video hit like 10 to 20,000 views, but we got immediate sales. The third video that I posted, about why we designed and created the product, got one million views, completely sold out and was trending in every country."
On TikTok, "I found myself in this small business community", she added.
The co-founders also recalled that after launching on TikTok, within three months, the Contour Cube was stocked in Urban Outfitters.
"TikTok was really unique because it got us the exposure that we needed without having pay for the advertising. TikTok also got us into these major retailers like Urban Outfitters so early on," Battersby explained.
Being onboarded by Urban Outfitters, the international lifestyle retailer that generated more than five billion dollars in revenue last year, allowed the brand to expand into other retailers.
"In the US, it was Urban Outfitters and now it is Anthropology and Uncommon Goods. In the UK it is Sophora UK, Beauty Bay and ASOS," Forrai explained.
The pair told International Business Times UK that in less than four years, the Contour Cube has generated more than 100,000 sales.
Although the brand has been met with much consumer demand, the pair do not have employees.
"We work with manufacturers. But at first, we were packaging and shipping our orders at home by ourselves" Battersby told me.
Having launched the product on social media, Forrai said that she has learned that "it's not even viral videos, it's like viral word of mouth - that's the strongest form of marketing ever".
So far, since 2020, the pair have spent just 280 thousand dollars in paid advertising.
In 2022, the pair told me that Supermodel Kendall Jenner shared the Contour Cube in an Instagram story.
"A year after we launched the product, we woke up one morning and we were like 'why do we have so many sales?' When I finally figured out what it was, my friends had sent me so many screenshots because Kendall Jenner had posted about it," Forrai explained.
After recognising that the Supermodel had shared the product on her Instagram profile, which hosts a staggering 294 million followers, the co-founder added: "I didn't even realise she would post something unpaid, but she actually uses it. That was crazy!"
"It really boosts the exposure, the brand awareness and the opportunities," Battersby added.
Just last year, the Contour Cube was featured as Kendall Jenners top-pick on Kourtney Kardashians e-commerce platform, 'Poosh'.
Forrai told me that she was "mind-blown" after the supermodels team reached out, considering it was "the second year in a row and she still loves us".
Forrai and Battersby also told International Business Times UK that just last month, A-list Celebrity Makeup Artist Lisa Eldridge "posted a beauty haul on YouTube that featured the Contour Cube".
In the video, Eldridge said that she bought a Contour Cube after finding out that her friend had one.
Addressing her viewers, the A-list Makeup Artists clarified: "None of this video is sponsored... Any of the brands mentioned here today, will be surprised to see themselves mentioned."
"A lot of MUA's use it to prime the skin because it helps the makeup stay on for a long time," Battersby told me.
However, the co-founder admitted that the pair had "originally thought it [the Contour Cube] would be used for contouring the skin, but then people started reaching out to us and told us that it helped with anxiety or even migraines".
"People have also used it for post-workouts and getting redness down," he added.
Forrai went on to explain that the product also "helps you wake up and de-puffs your eyes, it gives you a natural facelift in a way and it soothes breakouts because it sucks the oils out of your skin".
"Even in the clinic space, during cosmetic treatments they like to numb the skin beforehand and ice the skin afterwards" she added.
"You can also fill the Contour Cube with green tea for inflammation. You can put aloe vera in it as well, or coconut milk for hydration. We have a whole recipe book on our website that will help people target different things with recipes to play around with."
Customers are also able to scan the QR code on the Contour Cube packaging to create personalised ice facial recipes online.
The Contour Cube's website boasts several ice facial recipes, including lemon water for brightening, rose water as a natural toner, black tea for puffiness, coffee for dark circles, tomato as a natural exfoliator, soda water as a natural cleanser, turmeric to tackle redness and flaxseed and castor oil for hydration.
With regard to the different colour-ways of the Contour Cube, Forrai told me that she "wanted to keep it simple but also wanted people to be able to colour co-ordinate their different recipes".
After being onboarded into 450 Priceline Pharmacy stores in Australia and all the Chemist Warehouse stores in New Zealand, the pair appeared on the business reality television series Shark Tank.
"We got four out of the five sharks to invest in the business," Forrai explained.
While addressing the Investors on Shark Tank, the co-founders were asked about how they are protecting their product from competitors and duplicates.
Forrai responded to the questions with: "We do have trademarks globally, we've got design registrations in place and also a patent pending. We are first to market and first to mind."
The pair told International Business Times UK that they utilised the exposure that they gained from Shark Tank by posting short clips of the episode to further advertise their brand on TikTok.
Advertising the Contour Cube on a range of platforms, including YouTube and Instagram, has been hugely beneficial considering their business is marketed towards a "super broad age demographic", Forrai said.
"From tweens on TikTok to our age range and my mums age and above. My mum even markets the Contour Cube to women experiencing menopause," the co-founder added.
Despite many customers returning to the store to purchase additional products as gifts, Forrai informed me: "We are working on a Contour Cube 2.0 to have that returning customer rate and to make the recipe process easier. We also want to focus on that chilled skincare space."
Having already developed the brand to include miniature and travel-sized ice facial tools, "we have also just created the world's first ice facing towel", Forrai told me, noting that it has already become "one of our bestsellers".
"When you ice your face, obviously the ice is going to melt as you use it and some of our customers mentioned it. So, I thought, why not create an ice facial towel," she added.
While discussing the brands future, Battersby also explained: "Because we have almost created this new category, we feel we have a responsibility to innovate a to push the boundaries with it. Because nobody knows the limit of the space, we have a really exciting opportunity to be a leading brand in cryotherapy."
