Save this story Save Story Save this story A showerhead is not an obvious candidate for brand cachet. Yet Jolie has turned one of the bathroom’s most overlooked fixtures into a beauty-wellness product and a conversation piece. Through Erewhon drink collaborations, a Copenhagen Fashion Week art installation, and “Shower Thoughts”, its interview series featuring creatives and designers, the brand has made a long-ignored item newly desirable.
Nearly five years after launching with a single filtered showerhead, Jolie co-founder and CEO Ryan Babenzien is ready for the brand’s next phase. The beauty and wellness company, which is on track to generate $65 million in revenue in 2026, is introducing its second product on November 11: the Filtered Handheld Showerhead. Available in five of the brand’s signature colorways, including Modern Chrome, Brushed Gold and Vibrant Red, the handheld features a lightweight silhouette, a knurled aluminium handle and a magnetic docking system that allows it to snap into place.
It’s a milestone for a brand that’s built a multi-million-dollar business around a singular hero product, with distribution spanning Erewhon, Ulta Beauty, Costco, and Target. Jolie is among the cohort of brands that have turned mundane products into premium goods, like Touchland, Native, Blueland and Harry’s before it. That approach extends to Jolie’s creative direction, led by co-founder Arjan Singh, who has brought a fashion point of view and an elevated-yet-cheeky filter to the traditionally utilitarian showerhead category. Rather than relying on product imagery, Jolie’s campaigns focus on the feeling and emotion of showering, an otherwise-intimate daily ritual.
Campaign imagery for the Jolie Filtered Showerhead.
The idea began with a personal discovery, Babenzien says. After noticing his skin was unusually dry one winter, Babenzien, who previously founded direct-to-consumer (DTC) footwear brand Greats before selling it to Steve Madden in 2019, began researching the effects of shower water on skin and hair. His spark moment came in the shower, when he realized that a showerhead could be more than a bathroom fixture: it could become a beauty-wellness essential, the first step in a consumer’s daily routine. “Jolie was my ultimate shower thought to date,” Babenzien says, reflecting on the early days of building the brand.
Now, with years of performance proof behind it, Jolie is ready to expand both its product assortment and its awareness. For Valentine’s Day, Jolie partnered with romance publisher 831 Stories on an Instagram series pairing steamy reads with hot showers. In August, during Copenhagen Fashion Week, Jolie installed showers along the city’s harbor for swimmers, bringing the product into a public setting that combined art with function. It also launched campaign films starring Saturday Night Live cast member Veronika Slowikowska, with a preview airing nationally on NBC around SNL ’s 52nd season premiere.
Its editorial series, “Shower Thoughts”, also draws inspiration from the bathroom. Originally a written Q&A, it evolved into a video interview series in October, opening with creative director and designer Alex Eagle. Filmed in and around guests’ bathrooms, the series features creatives with distinct points of view who have built something of their own, reflecting Jolie’s ties to fashion, design, art, and culture. Other first-season guests include Vyrao founder Yasmin Sewell and fashion designer Mara Hoffman.
Creative Director Alex Eagle in Jolie’s Shower Thought s video series.
Together, the campaigns position the shower as a space for reflection, intimacy, and ritual. “Our brand is our focal point and our competitive advantage,” Babenzien says. Now, he wants to ride that to take over the rest of your water supply.
Jolie, named after Babenzien’s wife and the French word for “pretty”, launched in 2022. Before Jolie could build a brand, it had to make the case for the category itself. “I had conviction. I didn’t have certainty, and there’s a difference.”
From the start, Babenzien identified two challenges: educating consumers on why they should filter their shower water and convincing them they could install the product themselves.
To address the first, Jolie licensed publicly available water-quality data and created a free local water report. Users enter their email address and zip code to receive a breakdown of what is in their water, giving the brand a way to explain the potential impact on skin and hair in seconds.
Jolie calls it “step zero”: filtering shower water to reduce chlorine and other contaminants before applying shampoo, conditioner, or skincare. “Beauty and wellness go hand in hand. It’s not one thing; it’s a sequence of things,” Babenzien explains. “It’s what you eat, where you train, what you put in your body, what you put on your body and how you sleep.”
Hair concerns are the biggest initial purchase driver for Jolie, Babenzien says. While hair shedding and thinning can be linked to stress, hormonal changes and postpartum hair loss, the growing use of GLP-1 medications , which have been associated with hair shedding during rapid weight loss, has brought renewed attention to hair health.
Jolie points to clinical testing of its showerhead, reporting that 81% of study participants experienced reduced hair shedding. Skin concerns, including dryness and irritation, are another part of the brand’s appeal. Jolie says clinical testing showed a 50% improvement in skin dryness after four weeks.
Jolie Filtered Showerhead, in Brushed Gold.
Babenzien had planned to expand Jolie’s assortment sooner, but rapid growth of the original showerhead prompted him to hold off. “We’ve always had a product roadmap,” he says. “We decided not to release other products, because the business was growing so quickly and profitably. It didn’t make sense to complicate our operations and supply chain, or to complicate the proposition for the consumer.”
That focus has paid off. Jolie expects to post between $11 million and $12 million in EBITDA in 2026, and says it has processed two million Shopify orders for showerheads and replacement filters since 2021. The company counts 750,000 “daily active users” — Babenzien’s term for customers who use the showerhead as part of their everyday routine — and aims to reach one million by year-end.
Distribution has gone wide — a sign of a shift in strategy from earlier era DTC brands. Jolie launched on Amazon in June 2022, followed by Erewhon in April 2023, Ulta in January 2025, and Costco US in December 2025. In September 2026, it expanded into 600 Target stores. The brand is also stocked in 2,000 hair salons and says more than 10,000 stylists trust and recommend it. Each retail channel requires a different approach to consumer education, from shower-style end-caps at Erewhon to informational displays around Costco pallets.
Replacement filters turn the initial hardware sale into an ongoing customer relationship. About 75% of first-time buyers subscribe to receive a new filter every quarter, Babenzien says. Jolie retains 80% of subscribers at the end of the first year, he adds. The subscription model also appealed to Erewhon. “What we loved about Jolie is that we had never sold an appliance at Erewhon before,” says Vito Antoci, EVP at Erewhon. Erewhon does, however, sell plenty of beauty and wellness products, such as the Suri design-led electric toothbrush, Agent Nateur supplements and skincare, and Salt & Stone bodycare. “We felt it was the right fit because of its exceptional design and the recurring revenue model provided by filter replacements, a strategy we had not previously implemented.”
And nothing signals a brand’s place in the cultural zeitgeist quite like an Erewhon drink collaboration. Jolie and the retailer first partnered on the Spring of Youth iced elixir in 2025, followed by Sacred Water in July 2026. While the first was positively received, Sacred Water proved more polarizing, drawing criticism online and becoming late-night fodder, including in a Jimmy Kimmel Live segment.
Babenzien views the partnership through a brand rather than a revenue lens. For him, even the polarized response demonstrated Jolie’s ability to generate conversation well beyond the showerhead category.
Erewhon helped establish Jolie’s wellness proposition and introduce the brand to a broader retail audience. “Erewhon is a cultural phenomenon and has national influence across all retail in the US,” Babenzien says.
Antoci adds that demand has remained strong since its debut at Erewhon. “Since Erewhon had never sold a product in this category, we were thrilled to see strong customer demand in the first year, and engagement remains high,” he says.
Word of mouth has been critical to Jolie’s growth, Babenzien says, with packaging designed to make the bathroom fixture feel special. The first 10,000 units included a ceramic disc carrying a bespoke fragrance inspired by the waters of Sicily. The brand discontinued it due to overseas shipping complications, but the attention to detail remains, down to a branded wrench and a custom spool of plumber’s tape. Those tools serve a practical purpose, too: addressing Jolie’s second early obstacle by making installation feel like an approachable DIY task rather than a job for a plumber.
Babenzien says Jolie has generated more than 75,000 pieces of user-generated content, helping the business grow without relying entirely on paid marketing. His broader marketing philosophy centers on the idea that “people influence people”, with the aim of making Jolie a topic of conversation at dinner tables, in hair salons and among running groups.
Jolie showerhead art installation at Ofelia Plads, Copenhagen.
The design presented a different challenge: making an everyday fixture distinctive without allowing it to become trend-driven. The team looked to enduring design references including the Rolex Submariner, the Porsche 911, a black tuxedo and the little black dress. “All of these have evolved over decades, but their design identity is clear,” Babenzien says. Those established design codes now carry through to the handheld, which is immediately recognizable as a Jolie product and boasts the same attention to detail.
Its magnetic mount provides a tactile and audible cue when the showerhead is securely docked, making it easier to put back in place. For Babenzien, the experience of removing and replacing it was as important as its filtration function.
As for further product launches in 2027, Babenzien says: “If it’s related to water as it affects your skin, hair and health, it can live in the current Jolie product roadmap.” Next to launch will be a rainfall showerhead, with non-showerhead innovations to come later down the line.
The company has five full-time employees and has grown without institutional capital, the CEO says. While investors have expressed interest, Jolie is not currently raising capital. He remains open to a partner who could help accelerate its next phase of growth.
For now, Babenzien’s priority is managing that growth while keeping Jolie focused. The company is targeting $100 million in revenue in 2027, up from a projected $65 million in 2026.
“The challenge is in our own hands. We have to remain vigilant and focused on the mission, not lose sight of trying to get everybody to filter their shower water, and hopefully get them to do it with a Jolie.”
Beauty Brands Are Chasing Purity in a Polluted World
Does Beauty Need to Reinvest in Innovation?
Is Your Beauty Brand Actually Ready for Retail?
Meet the Wellness Brands Riding the Anti-Optimization Wave
Source: Lifestyle
0 Comments