The Soul Of (Re)Brand

The road, the reckoning, and the return to 'why'.

The Road To Rebrand

Rebrands can be tricky. Not just because they demand time, investment, and operational reengineering, but because they force you to confront some uncomfortable questions:

Why now?
What’s not working?
Who’s really going to notice?

These seemingly simple questions can stir up all kinds of uncertainty. This can lead to procrastination and sometimes, it’s enough to keep you from making the leap at all.

Then, if you do decide to rebrand, you realize it’s rarely for just one reason. More often, it's a layered, nuanced recognition that:

• You’re not trying to chase trends, but you do need to keep pace with culture.

• You don’t want to mimic your competitors, but you do want to stay relevant within your industry.

• You don’t want to alienate your loyal community, but you do want to reach the right new people.

• You don’t want to lose your essence, but you do want to evolve.

In many ways, a rebrand can feel even more daunting than starting from scratch. Because this time, it’s not theoretical. Your brand exists. It’s real. It’s your business, and your livelihood.

You’ve already invested in branding, packaging, and a creative direction. You have customers who love you, and data that backs it up. Which is exactly what makes change so risky.

You don’t want to lose what you’ve built.
You don’t want to lose momentum.

But you also know something’s not landing. And you probably have data to prove that, too.

Maybe drop-off rates are high. Repeat purchases are low. CTRs are lagging. YOY growth is slowing.

You’ve tried new marketing tactics.
You doubled down on paid media, but ROI never came.
You ran that influencer campaign, but it fell flat.
You signed that six-month PR retainer, but the pitch didn’t land with editors.

Your retail numbers are stalling, and now, you're questioning everything.

Does the brand still feel fresh, or do we look dated?
Is our story resonating with today’s consumer?
Do we need to lean harder into our core message, or pivot entirely?

You know your products work…so why isn’t your brand performing?

The Reckoning

I’ve been there.

Not just alongside the 36 brands I’ve helped revitalize, but with my own.

In 2013, I founded Oyl + Water, a brand development and marketing agency created for indie beauty founders who were doing things differently. This was 12 years ago, and we were all a little younger then.

It was the rise of indie beauty, peak girlboss energy, and the beginning of the founder-as-brand era. Clean beauty was making its way into the mainstream, and I was coming up right alongside it, helping first-time founders find their voice, their edge, their place in the market.

For nearly a decade, I lived and breathed brand building. Naming, positioning, packaging, launching. I witnessed the hustle, the heartbreak, the big wins, and the inevitable pivots. And I loved it. But as the industry evolved, so did I.

In 2022, I sunset the agency model and stepped into a new chapter. One that was more aligned with how I wanted to live and work. A decade wiser, I was now as a wife, a mother, and a strategist with more years, lessons, and clarity under my belt.

Everything about my process had evolved.
My values had sharpened.
My standards were higher.
My time was more precious.
And my work felt stronger, deeper, more intentional than ever.

But my branding? It hadn’t caught up.

Out of practicality, or maybe procrastination, I took the easy route. I dropped the Oyl + Water logo, swapped in RRM (which I do love), made a few copy and image updates, and kept on keeping on with the same vibe I had internally outgrown.

The truth is, I knew how much work a proper rebrand would take. I knew because I’d done it—and charged handsomely for it—36 times. And I knew the uncomfortable truth that every founder faces:

A rebrand isn’t just a design update. It’s a reckoning. And it is no easier than starting a brand from scratch.

To do it right, I had to ask myself the same hard questions I ask every client:

Why am I here?
Who am I serving?
How am I solving their problems—better and differently than anyone else?

Like every founder I’ve worked with, I was tempted to copy-paste the answers I gave a decade ago. They were good answers. They worked.

But I knew better. I knew I had to start again. Not from scratch, but from experience.

I had to look my failures squarely in the face and ask where I went wrong—and how I could have done it differently.

I revisited a career full of hard-won successes and asked what went right—what extra effort or small decision made all the difference.

I considered how my ideal client has matured—what knowledge, experience, taste, preferences, and budget they now bring to the table.

And I had to own—and clearly articulate—how my process has sharpened, and how it’s become even more distinctive.

This process was long. At times, grueling. (Side note: it’s creatively challenging to do this for a client. It’s existentially painful to do it for yourself.)

But somewhere in the mess of it, my entire process deepened. This was the glorious payoff of putting in the time. What I learned is this:

Whether you’re building a brand with soul, or rebranding to reconnect with your soul, it’s the same journey.

And it all comes down to three questions:

What are you leaning into?
What are you saying no to?
What are you holding onto as you evolve?

The Rebrand

Finally, what’s outside reflects what’s inside.

First, I’m leaning hard into my UVP: I build brands with soul. I work with soulful founders, and I draw out the deepest, truest, most authentic expression of their vision. Life’s short. I don’t have time for anything less.

I’m leaning into a bold new color palette. Red, for passion and vitality. Orange, for creativity. My archetype is the Creative Ruler. This tracks.

I’m leaning into macro, raw and real. Tactile, textural, sensorial. I want to see humanity, up close and personal. I’m here for the “flaws”. I want founders to see themselves in my brand, and I want people to see themselves in the brands that I create.

So I’m saying no to the overly polished, the overly edited, the overly retouched. AI-generated images will litter our lives soon enough. My hope is that my brand, and the brands I build, break through. Because when a brand has soul, we feel it. It resonates not just with our ego, but with our core emotions.

I’m saying no to one-size-fits-all brands and shortcut mindsets. It’s never been easier to throw together a brand on the cheap, launch an MVP on TikTok Shop, and hope for a viral moment. But when anyone can do that, doing it right becomes more valuable than ever.

While the articulation of my UVP has evolved over the last few years, and my tastes and preferences have matured, the manifesto I wrote in 2013 - before I had my first client - is truer today than ever before. So I’m holding onto it.

Finally, I’m holding on to soulful relationships. No one builds brands alone. I feel so fortunate to be surrounded to exceptionally talented people, from designers (thank you, Bekkah Clifford, for my new site), developers (shout out to Maria Carter, thank you!), fellow strategists, copywriters, consultants, and all of my brilliant colleagues at THE BOARD.

In the hustle and grind and the ambition that fuels us, it’s easy to forget that it’s relationships that fill us.