Former British Vogue Editor Launches Supplement Company The What Supp Co.

A new supplement brand has entered the patch game. 

The What Supp Co. is a supplement brand founded by former British Vogue editor Kelly Gilbert and is now available direct-to-consumer. The current assortment includes three vitamin patch varieties featuring the brand’s trademarked PatchTech: Dip Out for chill, Protect Your Energy for energy and Recovery for detoxification, all $23 for 15 patches. 

While still a smaller category within the larger supplement market, wellness patches, which transdermally infuse nutrients, have been gaining steam, as they address the growing need for alternatives to pills — WWD previously reported that patches reached more than $3.3 million in sales over a one-year period, per Nielsen IQ. Gilbert recognized this growing market and chose to dive in with creating The What Supp Co. last April — she said her former deadline driven career as an editor made her equipped to move efficiently on developing the product.

“There are just too many pots of pills languishing in cupboards right now, and I just felt like there had to be a better way,” she said, emphasizing that the goal for The What Supp Co. was to promote compliance.

While Gilbert saw that patch vitamins and supplements in general were hot, she set out with a unique proposition for The What Supp Co., focusing on the needs of Zillennial consumers in particular. 

“You see the customer that’s queuing up at Sephora, and is really excited about the latest product drop.…They’re not being served in the supplement space, and The What Supp Co. wants to seek to answer that,” she said. “It’s that slightly younger demographic who perhaps isn’t so interested in treating deficiency and illness and is more interested in maximizing their wellness.” 

She added: “Wellness, for me, is really about balance. There’s an obsessiveness and earnestness about wellness, especially the supplements world, that I find quite a turn off.…I don’t want a 30-day supply of something. I want to roll and flex with how I’m feeling on any given day.” 

With this consumer and ethos in mind, The What Supp Co. patches are affordably priced at $23 and come in three use cases that target the concerns of this specific customer, like energy using ingredients like B vitamins and caffeine; detoxification using ingredients like glutathione and zinc, and chill using ingredients like ashwagandah and L-theanine.

Gilbert also differentiated the patches from others on the market by creating a vibrant design and adding aromatherapy benefits. 

“I made the patches colorful deliberately because a lot of transdermal patches are see-through or designed to be quite discreet. I made a choice to to make them…such that other people will see them on you,” she said. 

In addition, on the colorful patch, the benefit of the product, like Protect Your Energy, is printed repeatedly as a sort of “mini mantra,” according to Gilbert. 

Regarding the aromatherapy component, she added: “Because of the [four-layer matrix] patch composition, I’m able to include aromatherapy in the patches.…You can smell them and [it] adds a complimentary benefit to what the ingredients are doing.” 

In particular, Protect Your Energy employs sandalwood aromatherapy; Dip Out uses chamomile, and Recovery Mode features peppermint.

As far as marketing the brand, Gilbert is tapping into her creative background, leveraging her industry network and social media. She also noted that she has an advisory board for guidance, which includes Cult Beauty cofounder Alexia Inge; chief executive officer of Hush Sarah Miles, who is the former CEO of both Feelunique and Sephora U.K., and former Estée Lauder head of brand communications Georgina Dawson.

While Gilbert is starting with patches — with a new patch in the pipeline — she also plans to expand into other alternative formats, the first of which is expected to launch in the fall. 

Gilbert did not share first-year sales projections but said: “In terms of pre-seed investment, there’s $100,000 that’s gone into the business.” She added that soft launch sales exceeded expectations and she plans to raise capital in the future.