How to Come up with Unique Names for your Beauty and Cosmetics Business

What start­ed as ancient Egyp­tians cre­at­ing dra­mat­ic eyes with kohl has evolved into a mul­ti-faceted indus­try that embraces every­thing from beau­ty ser­vices to per­son­al prod­ucts and beau­ty appliances.  Tons of peo­ple, includ­ing fresh entre­pre­neurs and celebri­ties, have start­ed their cos­met­ic and beau­ty brands, and many more are plan­ning on start­ing theirs.  The com­pe­ti­tion is steep, and if you’re think­ing of start­ing a beau­ty and cos­met­ic brand any­time soon, you need to equip it with a sol­id brand iden­ti­ty, and that begins with find­ing a unique brand name.  But find­ing a sol­id name like Glossier and Colour­Pop Cos­met­ics is chal­leng­ing; many busi­ness dreams die because their founders could­n’t find a pow­er­ful name that’d give their ideas a fight­ing chance in the market.  For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve helped over 30,000 entre­pre­neurs crack the code to find sol­id brand names, and we’re going to give you a detailed guide on how you can find the best name for your beau­ty and cos­met­ics brand.

Why Your Beauty & Cosmetic Brand Needs a Solid Brand Name

Just because you’re start­ing a classy beau­ty and cos­met­ic brand does­n’t mean your busi­ness wouldn’t have to active­ly fight and out­per­form oth­er com­pet­ing firms to win your tar­get cus­tomers’ love and attention.  Com­pe­ti­tion in busi­ness is fierce. For starters, 4.4 mil­lion and 5.4 mil­lion busi­ness­es were start­ed in 2020 and 2021, respec­tive­ly, and judg­ing by the trend, entre­pre­neurs will like­ly cre­ate over 5 mil­lion busi­ness­es this 2022.  And with mil­lions of brands cre­at­ed year­ly, it’s not sur­pris­ing that the aver­age cus­tomer sees any­where between 5,000 to 10,000 ads every sin­gle day. And yes, a good por­tion of these ads will be com­ing from your competition.  Like Drunk Ele­phant, the only way your brand can shine in the beau­ty and cos­met­ic industry—besides hav­ing an excel­lent product—is get­ting a cap­ti­vat­ing brand name, and that’s because a great name can help your busi­ness to:

• Stand out and estab­lish its identity 
• Win your cus­tomer’s attention
• Estab­lish a sol­id bond with customers
• Boost your brand’s reputation
• Dri­ve sales
• Reduce your cost of advertising 
• Attract tal­ent­ed employees

Now that you have a basic idea of why your beau­ty and cos­met­ic brand needs a great name, here are six steps that’d lead you to the per­fect brand name.

Six Steps to Finding a Unique Name for Your Beauty Brand

1- Have a Strong Brand Vision

The first step to cre­at­ing a sol­id brand iden­ti­ty for your busi­ness starts by ask­ing your­self what you want your brand to be when it grows up and what you want cus­tomers to asso­ciate with your brand.  Words are pow­er­ful. Every­thing around us has a name; those names reveal mean­ing and radi­ate feel­ings and emo­tions that pro­vide a sol­id ref­er­ence for us as we communicate.  To effec­tive­ly ease cus­tomers into your brand, you must devote time to know­ing if you want your beau­ty and cos­met­ic busi­ness to be known for its dar­ing style and col­lec­tion, tire­less pur­suit of inno­va­tion, or for its broad reach. Get­ting well-defined ideas of what you want from your brand will make nam­ing your brand way easier.  After fig­ur­ing out the big ideas that you want your brand to ful­fill in the future, the next thing is to fil­ter these ideas and select a few that res­onate with your busi­ness. These ideas will become the crit­i­cal ingre­di­ents for your brand identity.  Now, you must under­stand that your focus should­n’t be on your business’s oper­a­tions, like your classy lab­o­ra­to­ries and the next-gen equip­ment you use, but on lit­tle details like how you hope to boost cus­tomers’ self-esteem by mak­ing high-class beau­ty prod­ucts afford­able for everyone. 

2- Create a Powerful Brand Tone 

Under­stand that your brand’s name is only as pow­er­ful as the tone it com­mu­ni­cates. Your tone reveals your brand’s true per­son­al­i­ty. If done right, it will attract tons of cus­tomers, and if done wrong, it’ll repel them.  Get­ting a great tone that aligns with your busi­ness is the best way to con­trol how your tar­get cus­tomers per­ceive your brand.  So take a moment to con­sid­er your cus­tomers, who they are, what they do, and what they want, because this would help you decide if the tone for your brand should be:

• Pres­ti­gious
• Ami­able and inviting
• Prag­mat­ic or practical
• Intrigu­ing
• Fun and Playful
• Mod­ern and innovative
• Emo­tion­al­ly impactful

One way to find the best tone for your brand is to take a long look at your com­peti­tors, find out their brand’s tone, and decide if you want to go with the flow or break out into new grounds.

3- Figure Out Your Branding Elements

Get­ting a clear tone is excel­lent, but your jour­ney to the per­fect name does­n’t end there because you’d need to know what your brand­ing ele­ments are. Why? Because these ele­ments are the foun­da­tions that’d help you craft great name ideas.  Grab a pen and paper and jot down your brand’s:

• Big ideas: What big ideas does your busi­ness plan embody?
• Val­ues: What val­ues dri­ve your brand?
• Sto­ries: Does your brand have a sto­ry cus­tomers can con­nect with?
• Indus­try specifics: What val­ues in the beau­ty indus­try do you abide by?
• Ben­e­fits: Will your cus­tomers enjoy any unique benefits?
• Feel­ings: What emo­tions do you hope to stir in your customers?
• Val­ue propo­si­tion: What sets your brand apart from oth­er brands?

4- Craft Your Naming Criteria

Assem­ble every idea you’ve gen­er­at­ed and craft a project state­ment that embod­ies pre­cise­ly the kind of name you want for your brand.  Here’s what your project state­ment should look like:

• I’m look­ing for an intrigu­ing name for my beau­ty and cos­met­ic brand that radi­ates pas­sion, lux­u­ry, and mys­tery. The name should be excit­ing and approachable. 

Your project state­ment is an excel­lent reflec­tion of the cri­te­ria the per­fect name for your brand must satisfy. 

5- Start Brainstorming

It’s time to put pen to paper and start cre­at­ing bold, unique, and cap­ti­vat­ing name ideas for your beau­ty and cos­met­ic brand.  Brain­storm­ing is a lot of fun, but it can also get exhaust­ing pret­ty fast, and that’s why we encour­age any­one look­ing for a sol­id brand name to gath­er mem­bers of their fam­i­ly, friends, or even their col­leagues, dis­cuss their nam­ing cri­te­ria with them, and have them help with find­ing unique and catchy name ideas.  But don’t stop there; you can also ease your brain­storm­ing ses­sion by draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from a robust busi­ness name gen­er­a­tor.  Whether you’re brain­storm­ing alone, with your nam­ing team, or using a busi­ness name gen­er­a­tor, ensure you gath­er an exten­sive list of words that aligns with your business’s nam­ing criteria.

6- Test Your Name Ideas

Your brain­storm­ing ses­sion should lead you to a lot of pos­si­ble brand names. And the next step you need to take is to cre­ate a short­list by select­ing the best three to five words that sat­is­fy your nam­ing criteria.  Now, under­stand that find­ing a great name is one thing, and using it is a dif­fer­ent mat­ter alto­geth­er. Our expe­ri­ence help­ing over 30,000 brands find the per­fect names has taught us that, most times, the coolest, edgi­est, and trendi­est names aren’t always the best option because they’re often chal­leng­ing to scale and might end up caus­ing long term mar­ket­ing issues. So, to help you select the per­fect name from the short-list of poten­tial names you’ve gath­ered for your busi­ness, look for the word that’s:

• Easy to remember 
• Sounds pleas­ant and easy to say
• Aligns with your brand’s goals
• Stirs a pos­i­tive emo­tion­al reaction
• Unique and hasn’t been used by a competitor
• Loved by your customers
• Has a .com domain and social media handles

Nam­ing a busi­ness isn’t an easy task, but these six steps would sim­pli­fy the process and help you find the best name in no time.  With that said, let the nam­ing begin!