Grab your gym bag. We’re gonna do a little experiment.
Pull out your aerodynamic shoes, moisture-wicking shirt, compression shorts and sweatproof earbuds. They’re all designed with performance in mind. Now look at your dopp kit. At best, your deodorant has a “Sport” label — and who knows what that means.
Enter Art of Sport, a new direct-to-consumer skincare brand made for athletes, by athletes, and featuring a game-changing line of products that includes deodorant, antiperspirant, a 2-in-1 hair and body wash, body bar, sunscreen and, most recently, a recovery cream that was just launched on Friday.
The athletes in question, who also have ownership stakes in the company? Kobe Bryant, James Harden, Javier Báez, Ryan Sheckler and Sage Erickson, to name a few. Bryant is actually a founding partner, brought on by founder and CEO Matthias Metternich and cofounder Brian Lee.
For those less impressed by the top-tier talent, Lee is one of the cofounders of the Honest Company, Jessica Alba’s thoughtful, ethical and natural baby and beauty brand. While that may not seem like the most natural progression, it adds to the credentials that Art of Sport has been collecting like medals.
Also on board: Dr. Shekhar Mitra and Dr. Laurence Dryer, AOS’s lead scientists, who helped develop the performance-focused formulas that are both non-traditional in what’s included as well as what’s not.
For example, let’s take the Compete deodorant, Kobe’s favorite product of the bunch. It’s made with a mixture of matcha, green tea extract and arrowroot, providing a compound that wicks moisture without staining your expensive athleisure duds. But it also nixes aluminum and parabens, as well as a variety of other common, less savory chemicals found in most deodorants.
That’s Art of Sport’s raison d’être: telling you exactly how your athletic endeavors will benefit from their skincare, as well as how they’re different from the other guys. Oh, and helping you smell good, too. The range of products comes in three scents: Compete (citrus and green pear), Rise (cedar and vanilla) and Challenge (sandalwood, fir needle and basil).
Art of Sport (2 images)
And Kobe and the folks at AOS are so confident you’ll like it — even during the peak sweat of that hot yoga sculpt class you said you’d never go back to — that they’re offering a trial kit for $9 flat. It includes deodorant, body wash, a body bar and SPF 50+ sunscreen, all shipped to your door for free.
Heads up: You’ll have to sign up for a subscription to get the offer. If you’ve been burned by the auto-re-upping subscription model before, the full line of products is also available on Amazon.
And should the trial run convince you to dump your Degree, as WWD writes, Art of Sport has a few more niche products coming in the future, including “a version of kinesio tape to support muscles, circulatory systems and joints, and an anti-reflective stick that football players wear under their eyes to allow them to see better on the field,” as well as a female-focused product line.
All images courtesy of Art of Sport
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