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In Conversation with Odele Cofounder Lindsay Holden

Words by Sara Harowitz

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A shower can be a beautiful moment of calm. It can be self-care in its purest form; it can be relaxing and it can be luxurious.

But a shower can also just be a shower. It can be a five-minute rinse before the messiness of the day sets in. It can be a pile-up of kids with dirty feet from the beach. It can be a splashy wash for the dog after rolling around in too much mud (why always in the mud?).

The beauty of Odele products is that they’re made for all versions of the shower. On the one hand, their beautiful bottles, clean formulas, and gorgeous scents make using these shampoos, conditioners, and most recently, body washes, a real treat. On the other hand, their affordable price tags, mass market availability (see: Target), and accessible messaging make Odele products a no-brainer for all ages. These are shower products for everyday life.

“We’re firm believers that crazy-good does not have to equal crazy-expensive,” says Odele cofounder Lindsay Holden, speaking via Zoom from her home in Minneapolis. “Down to our core, we’re making sure it’s a shareable product.”

Holden and her two cofounders are mothers, so they are no strangers to showers—and shower products—being shared by everyone in the family. “Your husband might be using it,” she says of shampoo and soap. “Or you turn around and your kids are squeezing it out to make bubbles.” For that reason, Odele was created on the foundation of shareability: it should be quality enough to meet mom’s standards; it should be genderless enough for all identities; it should be affordable enough for the kids to use with abandon; it should be safe enough for all bodies. And, hey: it might as well look cute in the tub as well.

Odele body wash

“So many bottles have been made historically to scream at you from the shelf, but I’m a design junkie, and my partners are design junkies, too,” says Holden. “I want it to look good in my bathroom.”

With that in mind, Odele applied its same soft pastel packaging to its new dermatologist-tested body wash line, which comes in four offerings: Moisturizing (grapefruit and orange peel), Clarifying (bergamot and mint), Soothing (sweet aloe and cucumber), and Ultra Sensitive (unscented). As with its hair products, Odele body washes are EU formula-compliant, vegan, cruelty-free, gender-neutral, nutrient-rich, and scented with 100 percent natural ingredients.

“We felt like there was such an opportunity to really bring a more meaningful assortment at that approachable price point to body wash,” Holden explains, “where we could focus on and address different skin types like we do hair types.” Elevating the shower experience—whether that shower is full of quiet or chaos—is a noble pursuit. We all need to get clean.