She was a singer in The Saturdays, a TV presenter on This Morning, and fashion designer for Very and New Look — so when Rochelle Humes launched a skincare brand for babies, it looked like just another new turn in her already varied career.
In fact, the entrepreneur says it’s her absolute focus for the future. “I have always been obsessed with skincare — there’s no brand I haven’t tried,” she explains. “And when I found out there was no brand out there doing what I wanted for my own children, I knew this was my new direction.”
The result was My Little Coco, Humes’s children’s toiletry business which launched in February 2020 and now encompasses 57 products from shampoo and bubble bath to bibs and high chairs. “It was a completely different career path, and it wasn’t necessarily the plan — in music you are always just thinking about the next album, you’re not taught to be business savvy,” she adds. “But I was able to use my skills from years in the entertainment industry to somehow cross over into the world of business.”
Inspiration struck in 2016, when Humes was pregnant with her second child, Valentina, and her first daughter, Alaia, was three. “I’d noticed so many products for children said they couldn’t be used on newborns, as they needed specially sensitive ranges — but my three-year-old was just as precious to me: I wanted a range that was gentle, mild, multi-purpose, vegan and cruelty- free and suitable for the whole family.”
Humes had previously worked with a UK manufacturer on a body glow range via a licensing deal. “I knew I trusted them, so approached them to make my products, but I was clear that this time I wanted to do it myself, not under licence. I would turn up to meetings like a bag lady, laden with moodboard, notes, stuff I’d printed off — it took years to get it right, but by 2019 we had the prototypes.”
Initially Humes’s mum designed the My Little Coco logo with the coconut. “We keep it in the family,” she smiles. “But when my daughter asked ‘why is there an onion?’ we had to laugh and changed the logo at that point — sometimes children are your best critics.”
Products ready, Humes took My Little Coco to meet retail buyers. I assume the celebrity name meant doors were thrown open? “No! I met retailers who liked the celebrity bit but wanted to take over manufacturing and do a licensing deal, something like ‘baby by Rochelle Humes’, with products that they had come up with. But I said ‘no: this is my business that I want to build, these are the products, you can’t change the name or take over’. But being taken seriously was really tough at the start: I had to convince people it wasn’t a vanity project, a quick photo-opportunity, this was my business.”
Boots agreed — and offered Humes a three-year exclusivity deal; My Little Coco’s skin and hair care products went on sale there in February 2020. Only a month later the pandemic hit. “It could’ve ended before it had really begun,” Humes admits — but luckily Boots, as a pharmacy, was one of few retailers able to remain open. The entrepreneur hired a brand director, and outsourced warehousing, and logistics; she now has a team of five: “I’m lucky to have their support and to be able to lean into my strong point, which is my creativity.”
Sales beat Boots’ forecasts and hit £1 million in the first year; since then the range has vastly expanded. It now includes a ‘bump mask’ for pregnant women — “a first to UK market,” Humes says, of which Boots.com sold one every minute in its first weeks on sale. A new beach line includes hats, sunglasses, sea socks, poncho and travel bags, multivitamin gummies and bibs. Last month, after Boots’ three-year solo-selling spell ended, My Little Coco went on sale in other stores, including Asda, John Lewis, Waitrose and Ocado; Humes expects the new stockists to help sales surpass last year’s £3.7 million.
The business, self-funded by Humes’s £100,000 of savings, is now profitable. What’s on the horizon for Humes — has she an exit plan to allow a pivot into another career area? “This is my fourth child — there’ll never be a time when I don’t have a role at My Little Coco,” she responds. Perhaps she soon be known as an entrepreneur rather than music or TV name? “It looks like it,” Humes laughs, “and I’m not mad at that at all!”
My Little Coco
Founded: 2020
Staff: 5
Turnover: £3.7m
Headquarters: St Albans
