Hundreds of Small Decisions: What a hemorrhoid brand learned from winning an inclusivity award

On September 30th, a hemorrhoid brand won an award for inclusivity.

That's us. Norms won Beauty Independent's 2026 Beacon Award for Inclusivity Champion. Carli accepted on Zoom, from a small box in a grid of about 200 people. Classic Carli…she told the virtual room she felt like she was at the Oscars.

When the nomination came in back in June, my first reaction was that we were the comic relief on the ballot. Inclusivity awards usually go to brands built by and for people the beauty industry overlooked for a long time. The other brands in our category are doing serious, specific work for those people. And then there was us: the butt cream.

Then Michelle LeBlanc from CVS Health presented the award, and she explained it better than our own submission did:

"Inclusion isn't a campaign, it's hundreds of small decisions about who gets to feel comfortable."

I've been thinking about that for the past few weeks. This piece is me working out why it's right, what it says about where inclusion actually happens, and what I still don't know.

TLDR

• A hemorrhoid brand winning an inclusivity award is funny. We think so too.

• The presenter's line is the whole thesis: inclusion is hundreds of small decisions about who gets to feel comfortable.

• In embarrassing self-care, the person who gets left out isn't one demographic. It's anyone who's too embarrassed, too uncomfortable or too stretched to get help.

• The decisions that earned this weren't campaigns. They were form factors, formulas, packaging and payment options.

• We were in good company. True Beauty Ventures, our lead investor, and Wizard Wellness, a brand in their portfolio, won their categories at the same extravaganza.

• I still don't know exactly where the line is between normalizing something and making light of it.

The Joke Writes Itself, So Let's Get It Out Of The Way

One of our working mantras since day one has been "hemorrhoids with a smile." The rule underneath it is simple: fun about it, never fun of it.

So yes, the hemorrhoid people won the inclusivity award. It's funny. The presenter knew it too. She opened by saying that any conversation that starts with butts is a good day for her, as a mom of three boys.

The joke only works because it's on us. That's been true of the brand from the start. If the humor ever lands on the person dealing with the problem, we've failed. If it lands on us and lets that person breathe out a little, it's doing its job.

Who Gets Left Out Of A Category Nobody Talks About

In most categories, exclusion looks like a product that wasn't made for you: the shade range that stops early, the formula that wasn't tested on your hair.

In hemorrhoid care, exclusion mostly looks like silence. Nearly 75% of adults deal with hemorrhoids at some point. Almost nobody talks about it. For decades the category's message has been the same: hide it, don't mention it, get in and out of the aisle fast.

That silence leaves out a lot of people:

• The new mom who's sore and can't comfortably reach.

• The person with sensitive skin who can't tolerate a plastics or parabens.

• The guy who walks past the aisle three times before he picks something up.

• The person for whom one more out-of-pocket expense is the reason they go without.

• The person who finds the whole thing too uncomfortable to touch.

None of those people are a "segment." They're just people with a reason not to get help. Inclusion, in a category like ours, is removing those reasons one at a time.

The Small Decisions (She Named Four)

What struck me about LeBlanc's remarks is that she didn't talk about our mission statement. She talked about the assortment:

• A spray, for people who don't want to touch.

• Single-use packets, for wherever life happens: the gym bag, the flight, the hospital.

• Paraben & Fragrance-free, for sensitive skin.

• HSA/FSA eligible on everything, because, in her words, "access is part of dignity."

There are others she didn't mention. Our education comes in every format, tone and length we can make it: a fifteen-second joke, a straight answer from a doctor, a long read for the person who wants every detail. Some of it looks like a pharmacy pamphlet, some like a meme. Whoever you are and however you look for help, there's an entry point. We run a free sample program for healthcare providers. We actually say "hemorrhoids" on the box.

None of these would make a campaign. Nobody's shooting a Super Bowl spot about an HSA/FSA badge, a spray that works upside down or a cream-forming gel with minimal mucosal migration. At least not yet. But that's the point. Each one is a small, unglamorous call about who gets to use the product without friction. Added together, they're the difference between a product that's technically available to everyone and one that's actually comfortable for most people.

Naming The Thing Is A Decision Too

I wrote earlier this year about why Norms looks the way it does (Designing for Destigmatation). The short version: a lot of brands in embarrassing self-care are designed to be discreet. Plain packaging, vague names, nothing on the box that would give you away.

I understand the impulse. I like the look. But discreet design quietly tells you that you should be ashamed. It reinforces the exact thing that keeps people from getting help.

So we name it. Clearly, on the pack, in the copy, in the search listing. That's a small decision too, and I'd argue it's an inclusive one. You can't feel comfortable with something nobody's willing to say out loud.

Good Company

This wasn't a solo win, and it wasn't just ours.

• Carli Roth (with support from Anna Simonse) led our submission and the back-and-forth with Beauty Independent. Her acceptance did what the brand tries to do every day. She said that at Norms , "everyone deserves to feel seen, supported, comfortable talking about the health issues that are often too hidden or too stigmatized." She also said this recognition belongs to our entire team and our partners, which is true.

• True Beauty Ventures, our lead investor, won Seed + Small Growth Investor. Carli thanked True Beauty from the “stage” but the host assumed she'd mixed them up with Beauty Independent. They said they'd take it as long as "beauty" was in there. She hadn't mixed anything up. That's the fund that’s included us from the start

• Wizard Wellness, Inc, another TBV portfolio brand, won Product Launch – Wellness for its Multi-Benefit Oral Strips.

• Claire McCormack at Beauty Independent wrote the first story about Norms in October 2025 and she was there to congratulate us. As Carli put it, “very full circle.”

And congratulations to K+BROWN, this year's runner-up, and to Flonatix Flonatix, Strands of Faith, Twenty/Twenty Beauty and Yeleen Beauty. Being on a ballot with them is a big part of what makes this feel so special.

What I Still Don't Know

An award is a nice reason to feel good. It's a better reason to ask harder questions.

• Where's the line between normalizing and making light? We use humor to lower the temperature. I believe it helps. But I'm sure there's someone out there for whom our tone reads as not taking their pain seriously. I don't know how many of those people there are, and I'd like to.

• Are we inclusive, or just less exclusive than the incumbents? Beating a low bar isn't the same as clearing a high one. We've made a handful of good decisions. The presenter said hundreds. We're not there.

• Who are we still missing? Being online-first is itself a decision about who finds us easily and who doesn't. So is every claim we choose to make, every language we don't yet support, every format we haven't built.

• Does any of this reach the person in the aisle? An industry award is a signal to the industry. The person walking past that shelf three times doesn't care what Beauty Independent thinks. The real test is whether they feel a little less alone when they finally pick something up.

LeBlanc said Norms proves that inclusion starts when we make the hard conversations easy. I'd put it a little more modestly: we've made a few of them easier. There are a few hundred decisions to go.

Or, as Carli said to close her speech: "Here's to the future of normalizing all embarrassing self-care."