Launch Date: January 2021
Geography: Toronto, Canada
Founder: Amy Welsman, Founder + CEO
Executive Team:
2026 Full Year Projected Revenue: $8M - $10M
Primary Category: Bodycare
Other Category: Personal Care
Funding: Angel Investment
Primary Distribution Channel: DTC
Other Distribution Channels:
Key Retail Partners:
2026 Projected Offline Distribution Points: 1,000
Founded in 2021, Paume is redefining hand care with award winning, luxurious, specially formulated skincare for hands. Each formula targets the unique needs of the hands: from nail strength and length, to hydration, skin tone and texture, sun spots, eczema, and the signs of aging.
Insights: Amy Welsman, Founder + CEO
Why now and why you?
Our hands are our most exposed part of the body, other than our faces—and the body part we most neglect from our bodycare routines. For decades, hand care meant a tube of basic cream with a fruity fragrance tossed in our handbag. Meanwhile, the same consumer following a five-step face routine has never been offered a real regimen for her hands. The skinification of bodycare has trained consumers to expect serums, actives, and SPF in their bodycare. And the shift from anti-aging to healthy aging has put hands in the spotlight—they reveal age faster than any other part of the body, and consumers know it. Hand care is finally ready to be a category, not an afterthought.
Paume is pioneering this category. We're the only brand treating hands as a dedicated skincare category—same actives, same science, same ritual as facial skincare—and the market is responding. We've doubled revenue year over year for four consecutive years and earned shelf space at retailers like Nordstrom, Ulta Beauty, and Shoppers Drug Mart.
We didn't enter a category. We're building one. The traction, the retailer trust, and the repeat-customer enthusiasm validates our mission as we build a legacy brand.
What fuels your competitive advantage?
Category ownership. We didn't enter hand care—we redefined it. Legacy players sell a single lotion in a tube while Paume sells a routine—cleanse, treat, protect—built on the same logic as facial skincare. That reframing is difficult to copy without rebuilding a brand from the ground up, and it's the lens buyers, editors, and customers now use to evaluate the category.
We have developed a product line built for ritual, not impulse. Our SKUs work together as a system, which competitors can't easily replicate: average order value and repeat purchase. Customers come for one product and come back for the routine.
Authentic validation. Nordstrom and Ulta.com don't take chances on speculative brands. Their bet on us—and the sell-through that's followed—gives us shelf, data, and credibility.
Our community. Hand care is intimate; it's about how someone feels in their own skin every day. That story is founder-led and community-tested, and it gives us a cultural traction no incumbent can manufacture.
What’s your proudest accomplishment to date?
What we're most proud of isn't a single launch, retailer, or press hit—it's the kind of company we've built from the ground up: a profitable, founder-led brand that's grown by doing more with less.
In a category where most beauty startups have been built on VC capital and a grow-at-all-costs mentality, we've focused on sustainable growth. We have doubled revenue every year for four consecutive years, while increasing our profitability and keeping our team lean. We have successfully expanded into Nordstrom and Ulta Beauty without overextending our team or our supply chain.
That discipline isn't glamorous, but it's the accomplishment we're proudest of because it's what gives Paumethe right to think long-term. We're building a category—which isn't easy—and profitable, sustainable growth is what makes that possible.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you?
Having been part of an earlier stage startup before building Paume (I was the first employee at Knix), I came into this fairly wide eyed and prepared for the challenges that inevitably lay ahead. This isn't easy, or else anyone would do it. That said, I would say I wasn't prepared for all the fluctuations on the marketing side. Something that works one day doesn't work the next, and the volatility can be extremely frustrating. I wish something had prepared me for that! New trends, new platforms, new ways to capture attention; it's a never ending treadmill!
What would you tell your past self before starting this journey?
Enjoy all the wins to the fullest, and don't forget them when the bad inevitably comes. Resiliency is key to survival, and rejection is going to happen. It's how you handle them that makes the most successful brands and founders.
What does success look like in the next 3-5 years?
Success looks like building steady momentum on what we have already built: continued and sustainable growth, expansion into more retail doors, continued velocity on shelf, building on our incredible team to support this momentum, and overall, more people who are getting results and joy by cleaning and caring for their hands with Paume.
What's one industry trend that is overhyped, and what's being overlooked?
Overcomplicating your skincare routine with multiple steps. A few, multibenefit products, if formulated correctly, should deliver the results you need. Simple can be better with the right products.
How do you think the industry needs to evolve?
Founders and brands need to focus more on creating a few core high quality SKUs to grow their brands vs. using innovation to grow. So many brands fall into the trap of launching too many products, but it taxes your supply chain and your team and doesn't drive real growth and more customers. As hand care is a niche category, we need to stay disciplined and keep our assortment tight. It also forces us to focus on maximizing the benefits of each product, and producing high-quality formulations that aren't trend-driven but legacy products.
If you could wave a magic wand, what one wish would you make for your business?
My one wish would be that we would never have to raise money again and maintain the team's ownership while continuing our sustainable growth and momentum.