Medalist Skin | First Beauty Brand to Launch with NCAA Athletes

I genuinely feel like I’m living in an alternate reality like in the best way possible. I spent the past week in Seattle, Palm Springs, and Santa Barbara. I finally took a solo trip and went horse backing riding! Give me a few more years, and I’ll officially become an LA resident.

A question I got asked this past week and can’t stop thinking about is if you could do what you’re doing now for the next 30 years (be successful and reach all your goals), what would you do the next 30 years?

I’m spending the next couple weeks in Ohio. I’m going to make a physical vision board this year cause last time I made one I manifested like 70% of what was on it. Gonna do all the Christmas things, maybe get a tattoo, maybe start Law & Order, see all my day one friends, finish a TON of books (I need to bring back from critical thinking skills), and rot a bit on the couch. Mostly importantly, prep for the launch of the Angel Diaries series!

Hope you have a great holiday season ahead 🎄 

AnnRagan Kearns is a 2x Founder and the Founder and CEO of Medalist Skin, a skincare brand for next-gen female athletes and active women, developed, tested and approved by Olympians🥇 AnnRagan is a former NCAA Division 1 Swimmer where she competed and earned her undergraduate degrees in Public Relations, Advertising and French at Penn State University and Boston College where she earned her Master's Degree in Business Communications. AnnRagan combines her sports experience with nearly 15 years in the beauty, wellness and sports industries. Before launching Medalist Skin, she launched Odyssey PR in 2020 and has represented brands like W Hotels Worldwide, Free People Beauty, Glamsquad, Nello, Your Super, SwimOutlet.com and has represented professional and Olympic female athletes.

What was the impetus for Medalist Skin, and what led you to this point?

I grew up as an athlete. I was a swimmer at Penn State for undergrad, and then did a 5th year red shirt year at Boston College. When I was swimming, I experienced a lot of difficulty with skin care problems and hair problems. I lost my eyebrows at one point when I was swimming. I had all of these blemishes just due to the chlorine. I thought there had to be brands out there that could help me with this, but I saw that there was nothing.

I got together with some of my other athlete friends at Penn State and asked if they felt like what's out on the market isn't really for us, or if we're being overlooked. They absolutely said yes. A lot of the athletes I was friends with felt like there was an incredible need for this in the beauty category, but there was no such thing as performance beauty until a few years ago.

I kept thinking about Medalist for years. I swam at Penn State from 2009 to 2013 and at Boston College from 2013 to 2014. Years went by, and I still had this idea in my head for Medalist. Finally, in January 2023, I decided to do this. It's one of those things that if you have an idea for years, almost a decade at this point, and that little voice inside your head just doesn't shut up about it, it's like, okay, now or never.

The stars kind of aligned in January 2023 when I finally started on the Medalist journey and started doing formulations for the products and researching products for female athletes specifically. 2023 is also when the year of the female athlete kind of took off. We had a lot of female sports and female athletes finally getting their day in the sun and getting the recognition that they deserve.

How have you been trying to translate Medalist's vision from a marketing and PR standpoint?

One of the main things we've seen, especially on our social channels, is just being relatable about what we experience as female athletes. A lot of our videos that have gone viral continue to grow, and we don't even mention the names of our products in any of them. It's just kind of a female athlete scrolling, and they see, "Oh my gosh. I can totally relate to that." Whether it's poking fun at training or teammate and coach dynamics, I think that's been incredibly important to our brand.

We are not going to be for everyone, but we are going to be for the female athletes and active women everywhere who are on the go all the time. We're focusing on the relatability of it all and appearing on our socials and in our branding with that teammate kind of voice. That's really missing in terms of performance beauty branding and identity.

When I swam at Penn State, I tore both of my rotator cuffs within the first two months of my freshman year. So a lot of my career at Penn State was being a hype woman for my team when I was out for 6 months. My role was just kind of trying to keep the morale up. It gave me a chance to really experience how to be a good teammate and how to prioritize those relationships on a team.

What have been some of the big milestones reached or that you're working towards since the launch happened?

We had a really exciting launch. We had nearly 20 press placements in outlets like Allure, Business Insider, Forbes, Mindbody Green, Well and Good, and The Gist. We also were nominated for two Industry Beauty Awards before we even launched. One was for our game face spray, nominated by Future (the publishing house behind Who What Wear and Marie Claire) for a 2024 most innovative beauty award. The other was by Beauty Independent, where we were nominated for 2024 best beauty brand launch.

We're also in talks with a few different retailers. We're working with popular boutique studios to become one of their locker room amenities and potentially doing a co-branded product launch for them. We're going to be in an NYC-based emerging CPG brand pop up from January to April of next year, and we just got included in Firtlook Investor’s October subscription box. We're also talking about doing a national rollout with a major grocery chain, and we're in talks with a few national cult fitness studios.

We are the first beauty brand to use exclusively NCAA athletes, current and former, in our launch campaigns on social, on our websites, and marketing. We've been really excited about the interest we've gotten from all different levels of athletes, from Olympians who medaled to girls who are just starting out on their JV basketball team this fall. We want to make sure every female athlete, no matter the skill level, feels seen and can resonate with our brand story. 

How do you approach brand collaborations and partnerships?

We do get a lot of inbound leads, but I also use specific communities to leverage connections and conversations. I do a lot of outreach on LinkedIn and research there. Some communities I've found useful are Launch Break, which is a community of former and current athletes of all levels in NCAA and beyond, and my former accelerator's alumni group (Dream Ventures Accelerator).

I think it's about leveraging the communities that you're already a part of. And if you're not a part of any, really doing the research out there to find the right communities that fit what you're looking for in terms of partnerships.

I'm all about collaboration over competition, and I think for performance beauty to keep growing, we do need to collaborate with some other brands out there instead of just trying to own the market outright.

Do you have advice for founders on how to approach getting press coverage?

Substack is huge as an opportunity for following editors who put out calls for pitches. It's interesting because each editor likes a pitch in a different way. So that's why I've been seeing a lot of Substack success because that editor puts their call for pitches and puts exactly how they want to be pitched.

If you are a product-based business, I recommend following Bryce Gruber's Substack. She is the head of affiliate for a conglomerate media group. Ali Walansky is another great one.

Always make sure that you're targeting the right editor in the niche. A lot of times, editors, if you do your research, will have their contact information in their Instagram bio. I don't advise pitching them on social media unless they specifically say that they're open to it. Their email is there for a reason, and it will get read.

Can you talk about the products, key ingredients, and what makes Medalist differentiated in the broader beauty landscape?

Our products go back and forth with the number one selling SKU on our website between the Clean Sweep wipes and the Game Face spray. Our third SKU, the Anti-Frick Stick, is a very heavily athlete-focused or movement-focused product.

The Game Face spray has hypochlorous acid in it, which is a a trending beauty ingredient right now that is a safe skin disinfectant. The history of that ingredient goes back to World War I where it was used as an antiseptic to clean and clear wounds for wounded soldiers.

All of our products are meant to have short-term benefits with long-term results. So you're getting that cooling, refreshing sensation to cool down and feel refreshed, but there's also long-term benefits of clarifying your skin and making sure that none of these nasty germs that you've accumulated while working out are going to affect your complexion.

How do you think about moments in sports and how they’re intrinsically ingrained in Medalist?

For tennis and golf specifically, they are lifelong sports. They are sports where you can go and play, but it's also sports that not everyone has grown up with or has learned to do. I think we're going as a society where we want to include wellness and fitness in our social activities.

I think that's kind of the reasoning behind golf and tennis specifically. Any kind of sport where you get to dress cute, like tennis and golf, has been embraced by the fashion world before beauty. I think the fashion world embracing the world of sport before beauty, in terms of capitalizing on these "tennis core" and "golf core" trends, has led to the spike of this performance beauty as well.

Do you think there's more that folks within the performance beauty space could be doing to capitalize on how some of these sports have become more mainstream?

I think there's more opportunity for beauty brands to lean into this performance beauty category because it's all about how you feel and the mind-body connection. If you don't feel like you can fit into the trendy new low-rise jeans, for example, that says something about the fashion industry and the need to make it more accessible for athletes as well.

As an athlete, I always gravitated towards beauty because fashion was often not accessible to me. I couldn't fit into their clothes, even when I was at my most fit as a D1 athlete. But with beauty, everyone can throw on a red lipstick or mascara and feel a little bit better about themselves. Beauty always felt a little bit more open and accessible and not closed off like fashion brands.

How did Medalist engage alongside the Olympics?

We sent 18 Locker Room Essential Kits / PR boxes to Paris Olympians throughout all different sports. We had a field hockey player, most of the gold medal basketball team (Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, A'ja Wilson), Olympic wrestlers, rowers, kayak/canoe athletes, swimmers, and more.

Throughout the Olympics, a lot of them were just excited to unbox and throw a little mention to us. All this was gifted, none of it was paid. It was interesting to see how many people were interested in accepting and testing out the product, even though it wasn't paid, to see how it fits into their active lifestyle and training..

Was there a personal favorite Olympic moment that you had?

I have loved watching swimming since I grew up as a swimmer. Katie Ledecky is always going to shine. I loved the basketball moments as well, and of course, gymnastics is always my favorite. 

I think you could tell that this gymnastics team this year had fun. They were there to kick butt, but they were there to have fun. I think that goes to show the change of attitude on the team. Simone Biles took time off, and she came back stronger than ever. She was having a blast while she was doing it. It shows the importance of treating your mental health and taking time to rest and nurture your self-care needs.

Is there a dream partnership or collaboration that you would want to do with any athlete?

Right now, we are in talks with some WNBA teams, so I would absolutely love to have any sort of partnership there. I've got some really fun ideas that we're toying around with some of the teams over here on the East Coast.

I would love to expand our NIL partnerships a bit more. Once we're able to grow our budget a little more, I would love to spotlight some athletes that may not be Olympic or professional or WNBA players, but they're doing important work. For example, an NCAA field hockey player that's also raising awareness for childhood cancer. I think it's important to spotlight those people as well, and show each side of the female athlete. We want to align ourselves with people who are using their influence to make their community a better place.

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