Pleasure from the garden
Review #25 - Flamingo Estate 🍅
Per your request.
Review #25 - Flamingo Estate 🍅
What Is It
Flamingo Estate sells “home essentials made from Mother Nature’s most precious ingredients.” First of all, beautiful mission statement.
Home essentials feels like the most appropriate term for their wide array of offerings ranging from candles to body soaps to olive oils to cleaning sprays to peak season fruit boxes (available to LA residents only).
Since “tomato girls” have their own aesthetic and food scented items are allegedly hot these days, an item from their Tomato Collection feels like a good starting point for the brand. I went for their hand soap—I know, I know, another soap. But it’s the best-selling item in the collection (save for a candle, which felt a tad too subjective to review), so what are you gonna do.
Good news is that there’s a fun (and actually edible) bonus item, which may or may not be the $80 dried strawberries. More on that later.
The Lore
This brand is less of a brand and more of an ongoing story about a property, the people who nurture it, and the literal fruits of their labor. So in order for me to comment on any portion of its online identity, I first have to give you a quick synopsis of the literal identity.
(I’m hesitant to link you to the full story of the estate as I know you’ll be thoroughly immersed and I fear you might not return. Yes, I understand the prior statement will likely yield counter-intuitive results.)
Flamingo Estate is the home of Richard Christiansen, an Aussie-born nature lover by blood and creative marketing guru by trade. After growing up on a sugar cane farm in NSW, he moved to the states, worked in marketing, and founded his own agency, Chandelier Creative—perhaps you recognize their work for Equinox, Rhode, Khaite, shall I continue?
After 20 years and coincidentally just before the pandemic’s onset, he stepped aside from agency life, renovated a former Playboy Mansion into what the Times refers to as an “Instagram playhouse,” and spent his quarantine attending to his “soap and candle experiments.” During this time, he befriended a local farmer who was feeling the repercussions of the restaurant industry’s devastation, which left her with lots of fruits and vegetables with no one to sell to. Richard began selling her boxes of fresh produce to his friends, many of whom happen to be high profile and/or net worth.
His network of farmers expanded and his word-of-mouth fruit dealing quickly developed into a legitimate business of its own. These are the high-end CSA boxes that make up just one element of Flamingo Estate’s current product line, in addition to the soap experiments I mentioned earlier, some specialty dried fruits—oh, and the $200+ honeys made in partnership with celebrity beekeepers (Julianne Moore, Ai Weiwei, Tiffany Haddish to name a few). Now you see why ‘home essentials’ is the best phrase for their offerings—it really covers all possible bases.
Brand / Aesthetic
Now you can see that Flamingo Estate (the property) and Flamingo Estate (the brand) are inextricably linked, both to each other and to their creator and primary inhabitants (Richard and Aaron Harvey, his creative/life partner, that would be).
I’m far from the first person to write about the brand—so many major media outlets already have—so I’ll let them do the heavy lifting. Vogue called them a “lush hedonistic playground” and WWD used the phrase “homegrown lifestyle powerhouse.” There’s not much left for me to say that hasn’t been said already, so I’ll just throw out some adjectives that come to mind: creative, maximalist, and charismatic.
The brand’s aesthetic emulates everything the house has to offer: vibrant colors, grandiose decorations, lush greenery, and abundant harvests. I don’t typically like over-the-top anything, but for some reason, I’m really drawn to Flamingo Estate.
I dislike using the word “vibe” because I find it to be a cop out, but in this case, it’s exactly what’s appealing to me about the brand. Interior tree enthusiast and friend of the estate Chrissy Teigen feels the same, musing about that “something special” Richard has in his “aura.” Now I don’t know Richard, although I wish I did, but it’s clear that this “special energy” we feel from the brand is a raw, concentrated extension of his personality.
That’s why I love Flamingo Estate. Straight up. I love it because it’s unique, personal, and I can feel the passion that goes into it. It’s obvious that Richard and his team are having fun with this all—they’re just having a good time making designer honeys and selling them to rich people. Truly, though. They’re unabashedly for rich people (which I’m all in favor of), another student of the Lisa Rinna School of Owning It.
Even though they recently secured investment, the creativity has yet to be diluted by the PE dollars. The small business spirit remains, and you can tell by two important markers: flexibility in their product offerings (whatever the harvest permits!) and creative risks (their recent Ozempic-related email subject line). None of the SKUs feel subpar, like a venture capital machine is cranking them out for the sake of increasing AOV (average order volume, I got you).
The voice is a bit ethereal and (sophisticated), but it’s not too self-serious. There’s a touch of playfulness and wit. You can feel the genuineness in all of its extravagance. While there’s a youthful excitement, it has that gravitas of a legacy brand, which you can hear in their copy and see in their design.
They’re doing what they want and they’re not trying to be something they’re not. It’s all a lot, and it’s all well-executed. You’ll find this personality and vibrancy beautifully displayed via their Instagram, so let’s get there.
Marketing
For those of you who didn’t read the NY Times article 7 times this past week, no worries. I took a screenshot of the most important part.
Yep, you heard that. Richard runs all of the socials. He signs each caption with an “xo” just like your grandpa does in his texts, and the endearing factor holds up. There’s an appropriate blend of highly-produced photos/videos and personal content, both of which are reason to give them a follow.
On personal content: It takes a lot for me to like something so painfully earnest, and yet, here I am, telling you this video made me feel something.
On creative content: the feed speaks for itself. Instagram is a visual platform, and a brand like Flamingo Estate, with design and expression at its core, is a shoe-in for success. I give so much credit to Aaron, the brand’s head of creative, for concocting what could be one of the most interesting companies on the market, visually speaking.
I’ve spoken about this before, but your Instagram content is only as cool as the stuff you’re doing outside the app (this holds up for people too…). The Estate and its bounty would be enough to hit the Offline Cool Stuff Quota, but they bring it a step further with the partnerships.
I know, just what you’ve been waiting for! These brand partnerships are some of the best in class, IMO. I’m not the first to have that opinion, though. We don’t have time to cover all of them, so here’s a select few:
The East Hampton Inconvenience Store in partnership with Mytheresa
Set in a Railroad Racetrack, this is a recommitment to their “good things take time” mentality in the form of a limited edition Shoppy Shop. I fear I won’t be able to make it there before the collection ends on Sunday, but if you’ve made a pitstop (sorry!), I’d love to hear how it was IRL.
The collab with Kohler to expand their Heritage Colors Collection
SO COOL. What a great example of a legacy brand getting involved with modern cool kid culture. And on Flamingo Estate’s part, what a great way to solidify this brand world with a reminder that the property is at the heart.
Limited Edition Ice Buckets with Gaetano Pesce
I am a sucker for the scarcity approach, so the fact that only 25 of these are in existence increases my desire by 200x. Plus, they look amazing.
Kelly Wearstler’s Gingerbread House
Their 2022 Christmas campaign was a California Modern Gingerbread House made by none other than Balthazar’s pastry chef Mark Tasker. Only 100 were made, and all proceeds went to Better Shelter. I can imagine we’re all thinking the same thing: did any of these purchasers eat their mini property?
Jane Goodall’s Tanzanian Honey. That’s all.
There are so many more I could talk about, including the Dalai Lama’s Candle Collection and Oscar the Grouch merch (the range!), but I’ll let you do that research on your own.
One last thing—I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention their emails. A recent one garnered a lot of attention from its subject line (in reference to something shrinking): “We’re on Ozempic.” I went wide-eyed seeing that in my inbox like the rest of their subscriber list. I even took the bait and posted it on my Instagram story.
I can imagine this garnered some angry replies, or at the very least, eye rolls, but I personally thought it was hilarious. To be clear, I wasn’t paying attention to the details of the email’s copy, but the zoomed-out, marketing brain perspective of “what a strange way for them to enter this conversation” made me do a weird snort-sigh of appreciation. I wonder if that email saw conversions…
Efficacy
Here’s the important part where I tell you if the products are worth the hype.
First, let’s start with the Spicy Strawberry Fruit Snack. I, of course, knew about this product’s existence, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of spending $80 on dried fruit, something that I don’t really care to eat in general. But when my friend
and I met for a post-EV Salon matcha ( is good at many things, and fostering friendships may be her finest skill), she pulled the jar out of her bag and I gasped like she was about to propose.
These Spicy Strawberry Fruit Snacks are really fucking good. They’re a little jammy, but not too sweet, with just a little kick. I understand why these are $80. I want these all the time. We decided they’d be especially good on vanilla soft serve with a little olive oil drizzle. Gourmet palates over here, am I right?
Now for the Roma Heirloom Tomato Hand Soap. I’ll admit, I didn’t really understand why or how tomato could be an appealing scent. In my mind, I expected the smell to resemble the flavor of a garden salsa flavored Sun Chip (which I love), although I couldn’t imagine how this translated into an aroma.
The hand soap, unsurprisingly, does not smell like a middle school vending machine snack. It does, however, smell mildly fresh. It’s not too strong—which is a good thing—but it has a subtle, herb-forward fragrance.
Scent aside, it fills all the major soap requirements: it suds nicely and it makes my hands feel soft. I will say, the pump is a little finicky, let’s just say I was the victim of a small soap explosion when I first installed it, but I smelled rich so I’m not that mad about it.
Overall Thoughts
This soap is fabulous, and it’s making me genuinely excited to wash my hands. I can’t tell if that’s weird or not.
Am I suggesting everyone to make this their primary hand soap of choice? No, that would be unreasonable. However, I am suggesting you make a luxurious soap (or any of their offerings, honestly) your primary housewarming gift of choice. I know if I received the Heirloom Tomato Dish Soap, I’d be thrilled. Speaking of—I hope someone in my family is filing away the Spicy Strawberry Fruit Snacks idea for a future birthday of mine.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5
In Other News…
My stockpile of Buffing Bars will last me through an apocalypse and yet I still want the new one with DS & Durga.
Pickleback shots got yassified.
First AI, now a rebrand. It’s been a big few months for Prose.
Sporty & Rich partnered with Sonos on a version of hot girl headphones.
A fun housekeeping note: can you believe I’ve done 25 of these? I’m going to be away, attempting to relax next week (if you’ll also be in Fire Island, HMU) so I’m thinking I’ll do a special edition newsletter that follows up on some of my past reviews. I’m feeling reflective, or whatever.
That’s all for now. If there’s a product you want reviewed or just want to chat, reply to this email or leave a comment. :)
Their tomato candle is the best burning (as in no tunneling, even burn, great throw) candle I've ever purchased, but my husband doesn't like the smell. ALAS.