A row of labels in the shampoo aisle at the Target on Salt Lake City’s 300 West claimed to market SadieB, a new haircare line from young Utah entrepreneurs Sadie and Abby Bowler.
That’s not what the sisters found on the shelves Friday afternoon. For at least the third time last week, the Bowler sisters went looking for their newly launched brand at the store at 1110 S. 300 West and were met with disappointment.
“That’s too bad,” Sadie said, gazing at the shelf where her shampoo and conditioner, made specifically “by girls, for girls,” should have been.
The new haircare line, SadieB, launched in roughly 500 Target stores and on Target’s website last week. The sister founders had seen photos and videos of their shampoo and conditioner on shelves in other Targets, but as of Thursday afternoon, they had yet to see it themselves. Salt Lake-area Targets were behind on stocking, associates told the Bowlers and The Tribune.
Such setbacks are the reality of business ownership, they have learned.
“This week has been emotional whiplash,” Sadie said. “We’re celebrating, and then we’re putting out a fire, and then we keep celebrating. It’s a roller coaster, but it’s been really rewarding.”
SadieB’s product launch is the labor of years worth of love and hard work, the Bowlers said Thursday. Sadie, newly 21, and Abby, 22, started the company as teenagers, buoyed by their entrepreneur father and the University of Utah’s Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. The brand launched in May 2022; less than two years later, it’s in stock at a major U.S. retailer.
“SadieB is a great example of what students can accomplish as entrepreneurs at the University of Utah,” Troy D’Ambrosio, executive director of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute and an assistant dean at the Eccles School of Business, said in a news release. “[Sadie] went from an idea to launching her product in stores across the country in only a few years.”
‘By girls, for girls’
Their product wasn’t on the shelves yet, but that didn’t stop the sisters from pitching it to shoppers browsing Target’s shampoo aisle.
One woman, shopping with a young girl, asked the duo if they had any recommendations.
“We actually just launched a product, we’re local to Utah,” Sadie told the woman. “[SadieB] is specifically for girls, and is focused on their activities and accomplishments.”
That pitch is the foundation of SadieB’s brand. Sadie said that, as a teen and aspiring hair stylist, she grew frustrated with the claims she was seeing on shampoo bottles, and in the beauty industry at large. Plenty of products made big promises, she said — to “fix” something that was wrong with her body. And when those promises weren’t fulfilled, Sadie said, she was left feeling like it was her fault. Like there was something “wrong” with her.
“We really reimagined a brand that didn’t bombard us with unrealistic and unfair beauty standards,” Sadie said.
SadieB’s purpose, the sisters said, is not to “fix” girls’ hair. It is to complement girls’ achievements and identities.
“We thought, ‘What if there was a brand that spoke to girls about what they were doing and who they were becoming, rather than what they need to fix about themselves?’” Abby said.
The “Adventure” line is for young women who like to hike or camp or play outside, and whose hair might benefit from some extra hydration. Women like Sadie.
The “Athlete” is for young women, like Abby, who sweat or swim and want some extra cleansing power in their shampoo.
“We designed the products to change the dialogue in the beauty industry,” Sadie said. “And then we started to personify these products that connected to parts of Abby and I, and to other girls.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Labels appear in anticipation of the new SadieB haircare line targeting gen z girls at the Target at 1110 S. 300 West in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024.
The girls that ‘get it’
As young female founders, the Bowler sisters said they were, on the whole, overwhelmed by the support and encouragement they’ve received from mentors in industry, both men and women.
Most people “get it,” Sadie said. But not everyone.
Abby recalled an entrepreneurship competition she and Sadie entered for University of Utah students, in which most of the judges were men. They didn’t “get it.” They learned later, Abby said, that the sisters had scored the highest on “every judge’s rubric, but they had made claims like we weren’t scrappy enough, we had to make connections. And so we didn’t win the competition because of ... the bias of those judges.”
Both sisters stress that they have had great male mentors, including their entrepreneur father and Davis Smith, the founder of the Utah-based outdoor gear company Cotopaxi. Smith, they said, taught them how to build a business based on social impact.
But they were especially inspired by the women who laid a path for them, who believed in their mission and offered their support.
“Our whole story is truly based on women lifting women,” Sadie said. “We can’t wait to help other female founders and girls [who] are chasing their dreams, because women lifting us made our dreams come true.”
Women are the economy’s strongest engine. They influence at least 80% of consumer spending, economists say. But they represent a fraction of leadership positions in the companies that market to them. It’s no small thing, then, to sell a product made “for girls, by girls,” the Bowlers said — that phrase was almost the brand’s name.
Their focus on girls is, they suspect, what got them onto Target shelves.
“Our product truly fills a white space,” Sadie said. “We’re the first and only brand on the shelf right now to be specifically targeted to Gen Z girls.”
But their message also “resonates with moms” — often the ones with the actual spending power, Abby said.
The brand name, by the way, is derived from one sister. But this is an equal partnership, they said. Sadie said she has wanted to be a hair stylist since she was young, and she handles such jobs as product development and marketing. Abby said she always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and work in “impact-driven” business — so she handles logistics, accounting and social impact.
“We’ve found that ... we’ve been so naturally able to take on these different roles in the company,” Sadie said. “It’s kind of amazing.”
(Courtesy SadieB/University of Utah) A line up of SadieB hair products, which founders Sadie and Abby Bowler say are created around girls' interests, not their flaws.
Mental hygiene
Sadie and Abby said they want their products to inspire confidence, not insecurity. They consider haircare part of a wellness routine, not a beauty regimen.
Mental health is also at the center of the brand’s mission. SadieB is a public benefit corporation, and is working on its B Corp certification. Its first nonprofit partner is Girl Up, a project of the United Nations Foundation, chosen specifically for its new mental health education program.
“Mental health struggles are something that Sadie and I have both experienced personally, something that friends have struggled with, and something we were very aware was a national crisis,” Abby said.
A lot of mental health care is focused on the point of crisis, Abby said. She and Sadie thought their contribution might be to support a more preventative care approach — the idea of “daily mental hygiene and taking care of yourself on a daily basis, so that hopefully fewer people get to that point of crisis.”
“Our offering to girls, like our product offering, is girl care ... which is personal care, and mental hygiene,” Abby said. “This whole routine is to care for your whole self, body and mind.”
Target is just the beginning for their brand, Sadie said. Their product is now on the shelves — or nearly on the shelves — in roughly a quarter of the Target stores across the country. They hope to grow that presence, then expand into other stores and become a household name.
“Our vision for SadieB is to become the number one personal care brand for girls,” Sadie said.
Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
