No bottles, no bull: Brianne West’s next big thing
From kitchen-table experiments to multi-million dollar exits, Brianne West has built a career on shaking up wasteful industries. First beauty, now beverages. The Christchurch entrepreneur, environmentalist, and reluctant rich-lister tells deputy editor Tamara Pitelen how, with her new venture Incrediballs, she’s taking on Big Soda.
In 2020, Christchurch entrepreneur and environmentalist Brianne West sold her ethical beauty brand Ethique to a New York-based investment firm for “an undisclosed sum”. I’m going to call that sum ‘squidillions’.
Don’t, though, go calling Brianne a ‘self-made multimillionaire’. “I would have never done this on my own, without my family and friends who invested, without my team, never in a million years.”
Is Brianne a multimillionaire? Well, yes, she admits she is, although that label doesn’t yet sit comfortably. She was not at all happy at being added to the NBR women’s rich list this year, “I politely declined to talk to them. There are far more important things to focus on than wealth. Like making the world a better place by giving back.”
Most known as the founder of Ethique but soon to be known for her next venture, Incrediballs (more on that soon), Brianne is unarguably ‘a local girl done good’ by the conventional metrics of success, as well as by some unconventional ones. In 2012, aged in her twenties, she started Ethique, experimenting with solid shampoo bar recipes on her kitchen table. At the time, she was studying biochemistry at the University of Canterbury and was “two to three dollars away from bankruptcy”, saved only by the support of her family. Eight years later she sold the company for the previously mentioned squidillions, which appears to still be a global success under the ownership of the Bansk Group.
She has also ‘done good’ by preventing about 32 million plastic bottles from entering the environment during her time as CEO of Ethique (the company’s total is now 40 million bottles prevented); by being a fierce champion of sustainable business and environmental protection, as well as kicking a big dent in the beauty industry’s horrific waste statistics.
Why then, is she so uncomfortable about being named on a rich list? “I’m not interested in financial tracking; it all sounds so wanky, and I’m not interested in financial trappings like Ferraris and private yachts. I want to use my money to build businesses that change the world and hopefully help another series of crowdfunders achieve financial stability.”
She’s referring to the people who took a chance on her back in 2015, when she crowdfunded capital to expand Ethique. The gamble for those early crowdfunders paid off. When Brianne sold Ethique, many of them received a life-changing amount of money. Some paid off mortgages and her best friend’s mother was able to retire.
“I believe that Ethique changed the beauty industry. Before us, there were no shampoo bars on supermarket shelves. Then the likes of Garnier released a shampoo bar, followed by L’Oreal, Head and Shoulders, and more, because consumer demand had changed. That was the greatest sign of changing impacts that I could ask for.”
BIG SODA VILLAINS
Now, Brianne has her sights set on transforming the soft drink industry with her new business, Incrediballs. Once again, she is out to tackle the eye-watering amount of waste and pollution created by this sector, which is, she quips, “soda depressing”. The biggest villain in this piece is Coca-Cola Ltd, although that is also quite convenient in some ways.
“When you’re marketing, one of the most powerful things you can do is have a villain. Coca-Cola are the obvious villain because they are the world’s greatest plastic polluter, and I can’t understand many of their other business practices.”
Soon to launch, Incrediballs is in the business of making dissolvable drink balls. “Like bath bombs for your drink, but tasty ‘AF’ and 100% plastic-free,” states the website. Never one to go small, Brianne’s public goal is to save 50 million bottles by 2030. The idea is that, instead of buying a soft drink at the shop, you pop one of these balls into your reusable water bottle and instantly have a drink that tastes better and is better for you than the usual fizzy suspects. Brianne had hoped to launch Incrediballs in 2024, but a series of challenges with developing the product and then sourcing home-compostable packaging have seen the launch date pushed back several times. At time of writing, February 2026 was slated as the launch date.
When she’s not ridding the world of plastic bottles, she’s studying postgraduate at the University of Canterbury as a first step towards a PhD in marine microplastics (“I’m interested in looking at the effects of microplastics on viruses and how to best communicate environmental disasters”), recording her new podcast called Because Why?!, as well as rewilding a neglected lifestyle block, and collecting terminally ill and rescue animals. Does anyone else need a cuppa and a lie down?
NEURODIVERGENT
Recently diagnosed with ADHD (“no surprise to anyone who knows me”), Brianne acknowledges that the way her brain is wired gives her a different filter.
“It definitely helps me think about things differently, but it also makes you feel things very, very deeply. Rejection can be a lot harder for me than a more typical person. I take things more personally than perhaps somebody else but it makes me think outside the box a lot more, too, I just don’t understand why we do so many things the way we do them; it seems so stupid.”
This way of seeing the world is why Brianne came up with the idea of shampoo bars. The average bathroom has bucketloads of water, so why freight plastic bottles of liquid shampoo all over the world filled with 90 per cent water? Like, duh.
Her success though, has not come without a personal price. Along the way, high stress has made her physically ill and mental health is something she speaks about candidly.
“I am riddled with self-doubt, anxiety and neuroses of some description all the time. But I’m also quite determined, some people might call it unreasonable. I’m also not that fazed about failing, because what’s the worst that can happen? It’ll be embarrassing for a while.
“I got very stressed in the last few years of Ethique. I ignored my physical health completely. Even though I’m probably busier now, I’m better at maintaining balance.”
Much of the time, that balance looks like animals and rewilding. A few years ago, she bought a neglected lifestyle block in West Canterbury, “full of weed mat and dead plants”. “We’ve torn out the pine trees, planted native forest and built a dino dome for native lizards, and we’ve replaced the lawn with insect islands.
”Her animal sanctuary is home to three horses (two terminally ill, enjoying peaceful retirements), rescued cows, Highland cows (“that weren’t rescued but I adore them, they’re like giant teddy bears”), goats, frogs, rescue chickens, two bearded dragons named Nessy and Ahi, and until recently, an arthritic family dog who passed away. “I’ll get another dog sometime this year.”
The animal care is not just a lifestyle; it’s a grounding force. “Being outside with the animals is an enormous form of self-care. Just being able to go outside and hang out with the horses when they have a nap in the middle of the day. I can’t overstate how calming and relaxing that can be.”
Aside from the animals, what else makes Brianne happy these days? We’re back to the squidillions, more precisely, giving them away.
“I work with and donate to an awful lot of amazing charities. The money has given me the ability to support lots of causes that are under-supported. The environment gets just two per cent of philanthropic donations,” she says. “I don’t like talking about money. I’m uncomfortable, yet it’s proven in science that the number one thing that makes people feel better in a lasting way, that actually helps combat depression, is donating to charity. So it has enabled me to be happy in a different way.”
So yes, the local girl done good continues to do good. Go her.
QUICKFIRE WITH BRIANNE
Where would we find you on a Sunday morning?
I’m so boring. I’ll be at my computer studying microplastics for uni.
Your favourite exercise class?
Pump! Love it. Although I have my own gym at home so I don’t go to classes so much anymore.
What book are you reading right now?
Science under Siege by Michael Mann & Peter Hotez. It’s a very interesting (and depressing) look at the anti-science movement and ways to combat it.
What’s a habit you swear by?
I’m trying to read at night instead of doomscrolling. I am trying very hard to make that a habit. And the days I do it, I’m better in the morning, so, yeah, put down the phone.
One thing you wish more entrepreneurs understood?
You don’t have to take all your advice you’re given, and a lot of advice you’re given is rubbish.
Your go-to snack while working?
Sea salt pea puffs by Serious Food Co.
