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Today’s most culturally relevant beauty brands are rewriting how to use beauty merch to promote products, create a memorable brand, and build a community built on high standards. Instead of treating promotional products as an afterthought, they’re using physical products as strategic tools for community building, creator engagement, and long-term brand loyalty.
One brand quietly leading that shift? Saie.
Saie, pronounced “Say,” was founded in November of 2019 by Laney Crowell and has quickly grown into one of the most recognizable clean-beauty brands among Gen Z and millennial consumers. Known for its skin-loving formulas, minimalist aesthetic, and community-first mindset, Saie has built far more than a product portfolio—it’s built a lifestyle brand where Saie beauty merch, accessories, and physical touch points play a meaningful role in shaping how people experience and connect with the brand.
“Saie is a clean beauty brand on a mission to create positive change for people and the planet.”
The Popularity of Saie
Saie’s rise isn’t just about clean formulas (although this does play a big role) or trending products. The brand has positioned itself as a community-first beauty company—one that prioritizes transparency, accessibility, and participation.
From creator partnerships to heavy user-generated content to feedback-driven product development, Saie makes customers feel like collaborators rather than consumers. And by prioritizing better-for-you ingredients and better-for-the-earth initiatives, the brand differentiates itself in a crowded beauty market, turning shared values into long-term loyalty. Merch, in this context, isn’t a standalone revenue stream. It’s a physical extension of that philosophy.
Pop Up Events
Saie also uses Cafe Saie, a pop-up shop, to build brand awareness and engage with its community. The two-day event offers specialty coffee, like their exclusive Saie matcha lattes, as well as exclusive merch. In addition, there is a mobile vanity so attendees can touch up their makeup and get personalized recommendations from Saie Pro Artists.
How Saie Redefines What Beauty Merch Can Be
Rather than leaning into traditional merch, Saie focuses on functional lifestyle items, such as branded water bottles, high-quality cosmetic cases, and limited-time-only accessories, to drive awareness and create culture-first brand moments. These items feel useful and naturally fit into everyday routines, while still aligning with Saie’s clean, minimal aesthetic.
In other words, the Saie merch strategy relies on brand-owned lifestyle touchpoints, instead of promotional objects. When a customer carries a Saie water bottle to Pilates or pulls a Saie cosmetic pouch out of their tote, that’s a brand impression. When a creator includes a Saie accessory in a GRWM video, that’s organic product placement. For Saie, merch isn’t about wearing the logo. It’s about living with the brand and embracing what it stands for.
While Saie merch is available on their website, viewers won’t find an endless supply of branded gear. Instead, Saie experiments with alternative merch models, like Saie Vintage, which reframes merchandise as a form of circular fashion rather than traditional promotion. By offering curated, secondhand apparel through limited drops, Saie reduces reliance on newly manufactured items while still giving its community something exclusive to engage with. It’s a rare example of a beauty brand using merch as a sustainability lever—proving that brand-building doesn’t have to come at the cost of overproduction.
Saie’s Impact (Beyond Merch and Products)
Saie’s climate initiative shows that sustainability isn’t a side project—it’s a built-in operating principle. Rather than treating environmental impact as a marketing claim, the brand approaches it as an evolving responsibility, investing in practices that address emissions, packaging choices, and long-term footprint reduction. The result is a brand that frames climate action as ongoing work, not a one-time badge—building credibility through commitment instead of perfection.
Investing in Women
Saie highlights the importance of investing in women as pivotal leaders in climate action. UN findings indicate that women often face the harshest effects of global climate change, yet they play a crucial role in promoting eco-friendly consumer habits and fostering broader societal shifts. In response, Saie has assembled an exclusively female board composed of specialists from different sectors, offering varied insights and established expertise to advance their sustainability targets.
The Saie Way Docuseries
With The Saie Way docuseries, the brand pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to build a modern beauty company. Framed as an Earth-minded journey, the series brings Saie’s mission to life by showing—rather than telling—how the brand works toward positive change. From introducing a more sustainable approach to merch through Saie Vintage to supporting ocean-focused initiatives like Whale’s Paradise, viewers can see for themselves how Saie turns values into action.
Recycling Program
Saie makes it simple for customers to responsibly dispose of their used Saie products through a dedicated recycling program. They've partnered with Pact Collective to handle difficult-to-recycle beauty empties, turning what would otherwise end up in landfills into something more sustainable. The process involves thoroughly cleaning out the empty containers (ensuring no product residue remains), collecting at least five of them, filling out an online form to generate a prepaid shipping label, and then mailing the package or dropping it off if a local bin is available. This effort helps close the loop on hard-to-recycle packaging common in the beauty industry while keeping it simple to recycle Saie cosmetics.
Thoughtful Packaging from the Start
In addition to this take-back initiative, Saie emphasizes thoughtful packaging of Saie beauty products from the start—using biodegradable kraft shipping boxes that can be composted or recycled at home, 100% recycled FSC-certified paper for product cartons produced in carbon-neutral facilities, organic cotton balls as eco-friendly padding (instead of plastic alternatives), and water-activated cornstarch glue on their signature lilac kraft tape.
Every Body Campaign
Saie takes its commitment to positive change beyond the environment and into social advocacy with The Every Body Campaign—a powerful, industry-leading initiative focused on reproductive justice. Powered by Saie and uniting over 60 brands from the beauty and wellness sectors, it's described as the largest beauty-industry-backed effort of its kind to support reproductive rights for all.
The campaign partners directly with SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a Black-women-led organization founded in 1997 that's the nation's largest multi-ethnic group advocating for reproductive justice, particularly for BIPOC communities most affected by restrictive laws. All proceeds from the campaign go toward SisterSong's work, which includes funding services for birthing people, parenting support, and abortion care—especially in impacted areas like Georgia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Previous editions raised significant amounts (e.g., over $168,000 initially, with 2024 efforts aiming to exceed $300,000).
Beyond fundraising, it encourages civic action: visitors are urged to register to vote, research ballots, make voting plans, and use their voices to protect bodily autonomy. Saie's founder and CEO, Laney Crowell (a mother of two daughters), emphasizes the brand's responsibility to leverage its platform for justice, stating it's about creating a more equitable future for women and birthing people everywhere.
This aligns seamlessly with Saie's broader ethos of doing good for people and the planet, showing how the brand extends its values into human rights advocacy.
Building a Community: Saie Clean Beauty Crew
Saie keeps customers coming back with their engaging rewards program, known as the Clean Beauty Crew on TYB. TYB stands for Try Your Best and is a community engagement and loyalty platform. By joining, fans can earn "Saie coins" through everyday interactions and purchases, which can then be redeemed for discounts on future orders like Saie makeup at saiehello.com. It's designed to reward not just shopping but also active participation in the clean beauty community.
Key ways to earn coins include:
- Getting 5 coins for every dollar spent on Saie purchases through saiehello.com.
- Providing product feedback on Saie makeup and products, uploading user-generated content, leaving Saie beauty reviews, and completing other engagement activities or challenges on the TYB platform.
Beyond the points system, members gain exclusive perks like early access to test new products before they launch, first dibs on purchasing limited releases, invitations to special events, and a chance to connect with like-minded clean beauty enthusiasts.
To get started, simply sign up via their dedicated page—it's a fun, community-driven way to stack rewards while staying in the loop on Saie's latest drops and initiatives.
Content adapted from Saie's official TYB rewards program page at saiehello.com/pages/tyb and related site sections.
Saie's Lesson in Meaningful Merch
From its clever pop-ups and sustainable packaging to community-driven rewards and bold advocacy and more, Saie shows how beauty brands can weave merch into something bigger—a real extension of their values that fosters loyalty and positive impact. By keeping things intentional, from limited-edition drops to eco-friendly accessories, they've turned everyday items into touch points that make fans feel seen and connected, all while championing people and the planet.
The takeaway? In a world where consumers crave authenticity, thoughtful merch isn't just swag—it's a way to build lasting relationships. Brands looking to follow suit can draw inspiration from partners who specialize in creating custom, sustainable pieces that align with your story. At Gemnote, we've seen how this approach works wonders for lifestyle and beauty clients, turning simple products into community builders without the hassle.
Looking for Sustainable Options?
Gemnote makes it easy to source products from eco-conscious suppliers producing minimal waste. Over the last decade, we’ve built a catalog of sustainable products, textiles, and designs, as well as B Corp and Climate Neutral-certified suppliers, to give you the most sustainable options.
