Co-founded by Ali Beeck and Phoebe Perring, Australian beauty brand, Balmee has quickly built a loyal community thanks to its results-driven formulas, thoughtful branding and highly intentional approach to content.
What began as a shared vision between two longtime friends has evolved into one of the country’s most talked-about emerging beauty brands.
At the heart of Balmee is a commitment to creating lip care that goes beyond surface-level hydration, combining microbiome-focused innovation with fermented Australian botanicals.
BD spoke with Beeck about the inspiration behind the brand, how they’ve cultivated genuine consumer connection, and why authenticity remains central to Balmee’s rapid growth.
Balmee co-founders, Phoebe Perring and Ali Beeck
Congratulations on the success of Balmee! Can you tell us a bit about the background of creating Balmee and the brand's ethos?
Thank you! Balmee was conceptualised over two years before we – Phoebe and Ali, Balmee co-founders – launched the brand. We met many years ago working in PR in NYC, before both moving back to Australia. We had always talked about building something together and lip care quickly became the category we started to obsess over. While there were so many lip balms on the market, we felt there was still a gap for a balm that actually delivered long-lasting hydration – plus looked chic in your bag or on your desk.
In our research we stumbled upon a stat that if you apply lip balm twice a day, every day, you could be ingesting up to two whole tubes of lip balm per year. Because what you put on your lips doesn’t just stay there.
Once we read that, we knew our mission – to create a lip balm that considers more than just the lips. We teamed up with one of Australia’s leading microbiome manufacturers to develop our Original Lip Balm, featuring pre- and post-biotic ingredients through the use of fermented botanicals like Kakadu Plum and Aloe Vera.
"Good for you" is our product promise and our ethos. We believe living well isn’t black and white. It means doing what actually feels good, for you. Some days it's morning workouts and green juice, some days it's the couch and a glass of wine. Wellness isn't one-size-fits-all, and the Balmee community is built on that. Everyone is welcome here, no matter where they're at.
You have managed to create genuine sold-out momentum in a saturated beauty market. What do you think actually drives urgency today – product innovation, community trust, scarcity, or social storytelling?
It has to be social storytelling and brand world building. Founders today have direct access to the majority of their target market on social media – an opportunity that didn't really exist a decade ago. When you create content that is genuinely engaging and meaningful, and makes people want to be a part of the world you are building, you cut through even the most saturated of categories.
That's exactly what Balmee has been able to do. There are hundreds of lip balms on the market, but what we've built is a brand with a real point of difference – one that people connect with emotionally, not just functionally.
Our "good for you" ethos gives people something to belong to beyond the product itself. When someone discovers Balmee, they're not just buying a lip balm, they're buying into a community and a way of thinking about wellness that actually resonates with how they live. That's what turns a new brand into a sell-out brand.
Your social presence feels highly intentional and is building a loyal community. How do you approach the business's content strategy?
Every post we do needs to work hard. We don’t believe in ‘filler’ posts, or posting for the sake of it. Every post has a purpose, whether it’s reach and awareness, sales driving, community building, brand world building, product education, credibility, or social proof – nothing is posted without intent. We’d rather go a few days without posting at all, than to post something that means nothing to our audience.
When products sell out, there’s often a fine line between excitement and frustration for customers. How have you approached managing demand and restocks?
We ended up being out of stock for longer than we'd anticipated, but the response from our community made it one of the most validating moments for the brand. We had nearly 2,000 on our waitlist, which told us something really important about the connection people had already built with Balmee.
Through that process we learnt to never over-promise, and to always over-communicate. Keeping customers informed at every stage, especially those with products on pre-order, and staying closely connected to our suppliers is what ultimately kept our community with us through the wait. We were also able to work with our manufacturer to fill pre-orders during our sold-out period, which made a real difference.
What’s one social media moment, campaign, or unexpected piece of user-generated content that made you realise Balmee was moving from emerging brand to something people genuinely obsess over?
There have been a couple of pinch-me moments that really helped solidify Balmee in the market. The first was our feature on the Style-ish podcast within our first month of launch. The podcast carries so much credibility in the fashion and beauty space, and their audience trusts their recommendations – which really showed in the sales.
The second was an unplanned run-in with Kayla Itsines who has over 15 million Instagram followers just before our re-stock (if you haven’t already seen the content, you can follow along here, here and here), which resulted in a story post about Balmee to her audience, and our best sales day since launch.
Both moments proved that when the right people are talking about you, and the brand is in front of the right audience, it resonates in ways you genuinely can’t manufacture.
Now that Balmee is back in stock, what's the next phase of growth look like for the business? Any new products in the pipeline?
The restock has felt like a real launchpad for the next phase. We've come back with stronger operations, more stock, and a lot of learnings from our first run. Now it's about scaling – growing our community, building out our retail presence, and expanding our presence globally.
On the product side, we have two new SKUs in development that we're incredibly excited about, both staying true to the Balmee ethos – good for you, but bringing something new to the range. Watch this space!
You can shop Balmee here, and follow the brand on Instagram here.
Image credit: Supplied/Balmee
