Amenity Blog

It looks like aMENity has done it again!

Two weeks ago I received a special prerelease bottle of the newest Amenity product:  Foot Spray.  I’ve tried other foot sprays in the past and at first, I was a little skeptical of a luxury foot spray, but I figured it was worth a try.

The first few times I used it, what really caught my attention was the smell that for some reason reminded me of the odor of an herbal spa treatment I had a few months ago.  My girlfriend quickly mentioned that my feet smell better, which was a little bit of a shock because I didn’t know they smelled in the first place.  I also noticed a mild tingling, which I like because it
makes you feel as if the stuff is actually doing something.

So for the past two weeks I’ve been spraying it on the soles of my feet and in the insides of my shoes daily.  Although, I can’t speak to the healing of crevices at this point, I can say with absolute certainty that my feet are noticeably softer and the texture is much, much smoother.  Being a soccer player I have grown accustomed to having dry scaly feet, but now my feet
look and feel as if they are healthy and smooth.

I really cannot think of anything bad to say about the product at this point and I am eager to see if the patented ingredient will really heal crevices and smooth out my rough areas as promised.  I will keep you updated.

As the person responsible for safety and quality control at Amenity, it is my job to ensure that we use the finest ingredients known to us in the formulation of our unique clinical grooming products. Amenity does not test - nor have we ever tested - our products on animals. We offer our customers products of the highest quality which have been tested thoroughly in laboratory environments to ensure maximum safety.

Long before Lisa Lehan, Kimberly Pecoraro, and Dwight Schultheis launched a|MEN|ity clinical grooming, they knew the right image would be a key to their success. The team spent nearly a year working with their scientific advisors developing cutting-edge men’s skin care products using the newest patented ingredient technology with a specific customer in mind: an urban, style-conscious guy, between the ages of 21 and 44, who cares about his appearance. Now they had to find a way to get the attention of that famously hard-to-reach audience.

The team was in agreement that they wanted the name of the company to be something relatively pedestrian, short yet memorable. They didn’t want any made-up words or strings of initials, which they thought would be off-putting to their hyper-skeptical audience. After a process that included collaboration with a 3rd party consulting team from the Babson College MBA program, the name ‘a|MEN|ity’ was born. Besides the obvious association with bathroom amenities and luxury, it played on the word “man” to be absolutely intuitive who the products were for.

For packaging, the founders chose all black (with blue accents), a color rarely used by consumer brands. “It’s masculine, and that’s what we’re all about,” says Lehan. A no-nonsense motto — “The Pioneer of Clinical Grooming” — went on every item. a|MEN|ity still needed that intangible “cool” factor — some way for their product to jump out at young men (and the women who purchase for them). They wanted the artwork on the packaging to be attention-grabbing, and to elicit some sort of reaction in the shopper. “When you’re just another ‘me-to,’ ordinary product, the packaging should be amusing or mysterious, but when you have a product that is unquestionably better than anything else available, you need to communicate why it’s better,” says Schultheis. “When customers call asking for our acne pen that clears pimples,” Schultheis knows the tactic is working.

a|MEN|ity reinforces its competitive advantage with targeted promotions. Schultheis and the Company’s PR Director, Kim Lord Curtis, spend several days a month pitching roughly100 editors at men’s and style magazines, along with influential style websites and blogs. a|MEN|ity also holds “shave parties,” where barbers give haircuts in old-fashioned barber chairs. They have been held in buzz-inducing venues such as the first floor of Barneys New York and in the lobby of the Ritz Carleton Hotel / Sports Club LA Splash spa in Boston. a|MEN|ity even inked an agreement with Bentley last Fall to get its products included in the gift bags given to celebrities that were being chauffeured around New York Fashion Week.

All the effort is paying off: a|MEN|ity is found in hipster hangouts such as Churchill’s Barbershop in Miami as well as more mainstream outlets such as www.skinstore.com (“men’s grooming products are often purchased online in the US” indicates Lehan”). The company has appeared in more than 40 media publications, including The New York Time, GQ, Real Simple and Business Week. Many of those write-ups mention that a|MEN|ity products are used by celebrities such as band members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Killers.

Next up: next month the Company will launch a foot spray, as Lehan, Pecoraro, and Schultheis bet that hip urban young men want their feet to smell good, too. And they would know.

“I don’t think cowboys use these types of products” was the pharmacist’s response. I was in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, and the reference was to a|MEN|ity clinical grooming products. “Oh crap” I thought to myself, this is going to be a tough week.

I’m a sales representative for a|MEN|ity, LLC and it was my first day on a 5 night sales trip to Dallas. Just like in the movies, a man who appeared to my untrained eyes to be a real home-grown cowboy, came up to the counter and asked “what’s this.” He smiled big, touched his hands to his face, and said “what’s wrong with soap and water” in a slightly mocking, but honest inquiry, when he heard that they were premium men’s skincare products. That sparked an animated conversation between the pharmacist, the cowboy, and I. The cowboy proceeded to show us ingrown hairs on his neck which he “hates because they are really big and red.” He rolled up his sleeves and showed us the psoriasis looking patch of dry skin on his elbow. He squinted, pointing at his eyes, and told us that his wife recently purchased him a moisturizer but that he didn’t like using it because it was too heavy and greasy. Boy, did I luck out! I gave the cowboy some of our After Shave moisturizer for his eyes and face, The Balm for his elbows, and the Anti-Breakout Gel for the in-grown hairs on his neck. I did this with one condition – that he use the products every day for the next four days and comes back to the pharmacy on Saturday (the day before I leave) to tell the pharmacist and me about his experience.

When we all met on Saturday, the cowboy came in smiling. “Danny (the pharmacist), I love these products, they work, and they don’t smell like s*#@” That day a|MEN|ity got it’s first opening order from a rural Texas pharmacy.