After five years in the game, Stix will henceforth be known as Winx Health.
On Tuesday, the reproductive and vaginal health company will unveil a new name, a new look and advisor Kerry Washington.
Winx Health was founded in 2019 with a strong mission: pregnancy testing and how women should be marketed to, specifically, reproductive and sexual health tools.
“We wanted to create a pregnancy test that was branded and designed for people who weren't necessarily trying to get pregnant, so there was no baby on the box,” says Stix co-founder Jamie Norwood. “We quickly realised that the market was much bigger than that, and that women's health is much bigger than whether or not they'll get pregnant.”
Winx Health Early Pregnancy Test Kit Provided by Winx Health
From there, the brand expanded to launch UTI testing, emergency contraception, supplements, and a massive education platform called Real Talk with over 500 articles.
“I like to describe it as the Gen Z version of WebMD,” Norwood said of the platform.
Norwood said the brand's current product offering ultimately led to the rebranding.
“The name Stix comes from a line of pregnancy tests,” she says. “Over the years, we felt like our name didn't represent all aspects of women's health and everything we offer, so we decided to take a leap of faith and change our name to Winx Health. [which] It's a nod and a wink to let people know that we're on women's side and that there are many different experiences with women's health.”
The process began eight months ago and included the creation of a new look and all new assets. The brand features vibrant colours, but has been revamped.
“It will look more like an evolution rather than an entirely new brand,” Norwood said.
Kerry Washington, courtesy of Winx Health
In addition to the rebranding, Winx Health has brought on Washington as an investor and health advisor, though the team did not disclose details of Washington's investment.
“We met Kelly about a year ago when she had heard about Stix (now Winx Health) through one of our investors,” Norwood said.
After our conversation, it was clear that it was a good fit.
“Kelly has spent much of her career advocating for sex education and reproductive justice,” Norwood said, emphasizing the particular importance of this being an election year two years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. “She'll be doing a lot of advocacy work this summer and into the fall leading up to the election on reproductive justice, letting people know that women's rights and women's health are very much at the ballot box.”
Winx Health Restart Morning After Pill by Winx Health
Advocacy is a core tenet of the brand, most notably through its “Restart Donation Bank,” where anyone can donate $20 or receive one free emergency contraceptive pill. The brand has donated 30,000 doses so far. In addition to this, the brand plans to double down on voter outreach and campaigns surrounding this year's elections.
“We are thrilled to be working closely with Wink's Health, a brand that has worked diligently to protect women's right to choose and privacy regarding their health,” Washington said in an email. “We are proud to invest in this innovative company that has helped hundreds of thousands of young women access the health care they want and need, especially now at a time when action is urgently needed.”
Additionally, the brand will be launching UTI testing and treatment, and vaginal health testing and treatment packages.
Winx Health UTI Test + Treatment Provided by Winx Health
“You pee on it like you would a pregnancy test and it gives you a QR code,” Norwood says. “You scan the test and it tells you if you have a UTI, and if you do, it contacts your doctor via SMS and you get a prescription within hours.”
While the brand also has therapeutic products and supplements, Norwood said testing remains its main focus.
“People are so confused about what's going on in their bodies,” she said, highlighting customer confusion about the difference between a urinary tract infection and a yeast infection. “We want at-home diagnostics to be as accessible, easy to understand and simple as possible. Staying in the diagnostics space is really important to us. That said, if there are any products that people with vaginas need that are currently confusing, hard to understand or hard to access, we want to improve that. So we're definitely staying in the vaginal, reproductive and sexual health space.”
Winx Health Vaginal Health Probiotics by Winx Health
With this in mind, the brand is now also focusing on Gen Z customers, but Norwood also sees potential in the menopause space.
The company declined to share specific sales figures, but Norwood reported that the brand, which is sold through on-demand retailers such as GoPuff and DoorDash, as well as local grocery stores in Pennsylvania, has turned a profit this year, which has helped the company aim to continue expanding its reach.
“We want to be everywhere our customers are, so we want to have retail stores everywhere,” Norwood said.
