There’s nothing remotely fun or exciting about using hand sanitizer. But if your little bottle of germ-killing spray was a beautiful, bird-shaped work of art, would you be inclined to use it more? Would you think of it as a ritual of self-care?
Olika, a Scandinavian-inspired personal care brand, has spent a lot of time rethinking hand sanitizer. For most people, it’s a pretty forgettable product, but it’s a market that is expected to reach $2.9 billion by 2025. This is thanks, in part, to the last few record-breaking flu seasons.
Olika says this hand-sanitizing spray is just the first product of many. Its goal is to elevate the personal care products we use every day, to give the big conglomerates like Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson a run for their money. It hasn’t announced what its next product will be, but given how many ugly products there are on the drugstore aisle, Olika has a lot of work to do. Perhaps next it will develop a more elegant alternative to the Q-Tip or the cough drop.