Sometimes the coolest collaborations come from a date turned friendship.
Such was the case for Remi, owner and co-founder of Freck Beauty. She teamed up with graphic designer and now, co-owner, Nasera Alayon of Softcore Studio after they matched on Tinder. Walking around Echo Park lake, the pair realized their connection transcending first-date awkwardness—they were going to find a way to work together.
Months later, they rolled out the designs for Freck Beauty, a queer-owned skincare line born from Remi’s life-long dream of wanting freckles. At the time, the line only had it’s signature Freck product, but when it came time for the company to expand, they brought Nasera into the fold.
While both owners come from design backgrounds, they have highly-specialized training in their respective fields. Remi came from an interior design background, while Nasera was working in the highly-competitive cannabis branding market. With both of their experience making things beautiful, they turned Freck into a skincare brand that is undeniably fresh, fun, and lingers with an air of coolness long after you’ve used their products. It’s not just a beauty brand—it’s an attitude that translates across all branding and packaging assets.
When conceiving a new product for Freck Beauty, Remi admits that they perfect a formula, then comes the naming. The copy for Freck is incredibly direct, simple, and, yes, cool. With product names like “So Jelly” (an under-eye firming cream) and “Rich Bitch” (a luxurious body lotion), the copy only adds to the idea that Freck is not only just a state of mind but a kind of assertiveness. All the copy comes from Remi and Nasera themselves, and have noted that it can be a fine line to walk between effortlessly cool, and the pitfall of hip, clean skincare copy.
Color selection was also critical to the pair when they started crafting the packaging. Given Remi’s background in interior design, they wanted the tones for the products to fit into the color scheme of people’s homes.
“We want your Freck Beauty product to be the brag item in your skincare routine,” says Remi. The brand traditionally shies away from blues and teals, colors often seen in the skincare space. Instead, they opted for something both bold and decidedly reserved in a way that speaks to the sleek, Eastside Los Angeles cool that both Remi and Nasera embody.
“Freck beauty is as much about what we say as what we don’t say,” says Remi. Cleanliness and transparency are the driving virtues of the brand, and Remi and Nasera wanted to reflect that through the packaging and ingredients, and in addition to being a clean beauty brand, they want to expand on that notion by adding sustainable packaging offerings in the future. That’s because they see the packaging as a representation for their personality and the brands, so they’re always looking to iterate on their designs to make sure the emotion feels right, even when they experiment with new materials like paper and glass.
Perhaps the most swoon-worthy aspect of Freck is how type-forward the packaging is, and it’s thanks to Nasera that Freck oozes luxury with its use of italicized font and negative space.
“Freck is known for being a design-first brand, and our type palette reflects a relationship between Helvetica and a contemporary serif for some spice, which is fun because Helvetica is supposed to represent this idea of perfection. When paired, these two make for a nostalgic yet refreshing take on old versus new.
Italics appear throughout the Freck Beauty brand and allude to our eagerness for tomorrow. “When I think of italics, I think of great female typographers like Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer. Both can bring so much feeling and depth through letterforms. Why not make a brand that reads like poetry? That’s the stuff that we geek out on,” said Nasera.
In 2021 the beauty brand plans on launching more products that lean into the “beauty” part of their beauty and skincare line. “We’re equally moving in the direction of makeup and skincare,” says Remi. “I think it’s really important to relate to a brand, and not just the product.”
After having sampled Freck Beauty’s products, I can attest that they were effective, light-weight, and smell incredible. As for them taking up the mantle of “brag item” in my bathroom cabinet? Let’s just say I feel like a Rich Bitch using them.
