Key Takeaways:
Founded by siblings Lucie and Sam Beecham, in the heart of London’s Camden Town, non-nicotine vape company Ripple+ came to life. The brand was born from an unexpected nicotine crash in 2019, when the duo returned to London from New York—suddenly cut off from the ultrahigh nicotine pods they had been casually using in the US. Neither had been a heavy smoker, but the severe withdrawal that followed was a wake-up call.
“It made us realize how dangerously easy it had become to consume the most addictive substance available for humans,” Sam told BeautyMatter. The moment sparked Ripple+, a brand built on a simple, provocative message, “F*ck Nicotine,” and a mission to reimagine inhalation through clean, functional formulations.
Positioned at the intersection of wellness and design, Ripple+ launched with recyclable, lab-tested, vegan devices infused with aromatherapy blends. The move tapped into a growing consumer shift away from dependency-driven products and toward functional, nonaddictive lifestyle solutions; a market now reshaping the future of beauty, wellness, and home fragrance, with the global home fragrance market estimated valuation in 2024 at $13.7 billion to $24.9 billion.
Lucie and Sam’s approach to Ripple+ is as complementary as their personalities. Sam drives the business vision, while Lucie leads on creative and brand identity. Both are united by a belief that products should be as beautiful as they are purposeful. From the start, Ripple+ was built on two pillars: nicotine-free functional inhalation and aromatherapy as a tool for mood and mindset. “We’ve always made things we genuinely wanted ourselves,” Lucie said, a philosophy that continues to guide the brand’s evolution from pocket-sized devices to sculptural home fragrance.
Ripple+ debuted with a single, straightforward proposition: a sleek, nicotine-free inhalation device infused with clean, vegan aromatherapy blends. Designed deliberately to counterpoint the bulky, neon-colored devices dominating the category. The product quickly went viral for its Apple-like aesthetic and functional appeal, attracting both wellness-conscious consumers and design-savvy early adopters.
Now, the wellness disruptor is evolving into a lifestyle brand spanning wellness, fragrance, and design, all while keeping a founder-led, small-batch, community-driven model. The brand is at the front of the new wave of British fragrance houses that merge wellness, scent, and design in a way that resonates with young consumers globally.
From there, the brand’s offering expanded in unexpected directions. Incense droplets, sculptural reed diffusers, and upcoming fragrance oil burners all reflect Ripple+’s commitment to reimagining scent for a younger, design-conscious demographic. Each product is rooted in storytelling, inspired by memories, moments in nature, and emotional states, and is created to be proudly on display rather than hidden away. In doing so, Ripple+ has blurred the lines between wellness, beauty, and home, positioning itself as more than a product line; rather, it's building the foundations of a lifestyle house.
The brand has built its product pipeline on small-batch agility and an open feedback loop with its community. “Everything we make is super small batch,” Sam explained, noting that the reed diffuser design has already been updated three times in just eight months based on consumer insights. Each launch is treated as a live test, with surveys sent directly from the founders to capture details like where customers are placing products in their homes and how strong they want the scent throw to be. This iterative approach balances the brand's emphasis on high design with functional performance, ensuring Ripple+ products evolve in real time alongside consumer needs.
Since its US debut, Ripple+ has rapidly built a presence across both the American and UK markets, establishing itself as a globally recognized name in functional fragrance. The brand’s distribution strategy blends mass visibility with prestige positioning, from placements in 90 international airports to luxury retail partners like Liberty London, Selfridges, and Harrods, alongside mass retail access through Sainsbury’s. Ripple+ has also secured lifestyle-led partnerships, with products stocked in The Standard Hotels worldwide, reinforcing its status as an accessible luxury brand that meets consumers wherever they are—at home, in transit, or at leisure.
Since launch, Ripple⁺ has scaled with a mix of community-led growth and strategic retail partnerships. Today, the brand is stocked in more than 3,000 global retailers, including Walmart, World Duty Free, and Selfridges, while maintaining its founder-led small-batch model. “Over one million people have now switched to Ripple+,” Sam shared, “and what excites us most is that more than 250,000 Ripple⁺ devices have already been recycled through our in-house program.”
The company has also built strong consumer trust, collecting 10,000+ five-star reviews from customers on their quitting journeys. Its latest Zero Nicotine flavor sold out in 24 hours, generating a waitlist of over 10,000 customers for the next drop. “That level of demand showed us just how ready people are for functional, nicotine-free alternatives,” Lucie explained.
Ripple⁺’s reach continues to expand: The brand has shipped to 50+ countries worldwide and, in late 2024, launched Ripple⁺ Home with incense and reed diffuser collections. The founders also emphasize social responsibility, partnering with Phoenix Futures to support people in recovery from addiction. Headquartered in Camden Town, London, the company runs with a lean 15-person team, underscoring the agility behind its rapid global momentum.
Ripple+ has deliberately positioned itself at the intersection of fragrance, wellness, and lifestyle, setting it apart from functional wellness brands and traditional fragrance houses. What began as a nicotine-free diffusion device has now evolved into a broader sensorial offering, spanning functional diffusers, reed-based home fragrance, and travel-ready formats. This evolution reflects Ripple+’s ambition to build an “accessible luxury” fragrance house that can flex across categories, formats, and markets. By marrying high-design aesthetics with performance-led functionality, the brand is tapping into consumer demand for products that enhance both self-expression and everyday rituals.
Looking ahead, Ripple+ is building toward its ambition of becoming a “Great British House” rooted in modern lifestyle design, wellness, and sensory innovation. Rather than chasing fast-moving beauty categories, the founders are taking a deliberate approach, expanding into adjacent spaces that strengthen the brand’s identity. Upcoming launches include fragrance oils, oil burners, and essential oils, designed to extend the Ripple+ ritual from portable diffusion devices into the home environment. For now, the brand is steering clear of personal fragrance, choosing instead to own the space between wellness devices and home scent innovations. By balancing restraint with ambition, Ripple+ layers that foundation for a scalable brand universe that can grow across categories while remaining anchored in its mission to transform rituals of self-care and spacemaking.
This positioning is well timed: The global home fragrance market is projected to reach $27.6 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of more than 8% (Allied Market Research). Consumers are increasingly turning to multisensory wellness rituals such as diffusers, candles, and oils, as everyday luxuries that merge self-care with home design. By anchoring itself in this intersection, Ripple+ is not just participating in category growth but shaping a narrative of British heritage-meets-modern wellness that could allow it to scale like Jo Malone or Molton Brown while appealing to a younger, design-conscious demographic.
Ripple+ has carved out a rare position in the beauty and wellness landscape: a founder-led, design-forward brand that is as much about community and culture as it is about product. By blending functional wellness with the storytelling and craftsmanship of fragrance, the brand is building a lifestyle house rooted in accessibility, aspiration, and innovation. Its trajectory reflects a broader consumer movement away from dependency-driven categories toward rituals that nourish, inspire, and beautify daily life.
With its sights set on becoming a “Great British House,” Ripple+ is not only scaling distribution and refining its product pipeline but also reimagining what a modern fragrance brand can be. For investors, retailers, and consumers alike, Ripple+ represents a compelling case study in how a challenger mindset, creative agility, and strategic restraint can create the foundations of long-term global influence.
