For years, the food culture seemed obvious.
It sold meal replacements, calorie counting apps, detox teas and promised quick weight loss. The message was blunt: shrinking makes you more worthy and desirable.
Today, the language has changed. Nobody talks about diet anymore – at least, they don’t use the word. The nutrition and wellness industries have picked up on the fact that women are becoming increasingly skeptical of traditional food culture, but we still harbor many of the insecurities that fueled it.
So these industries have turned: instead of selling weight loss, companies are now selling the appearance of wellness. Instead, we are told to optimize, balance, support, improve. Reduce bloating. Lose weight. Stimulate our body. Improve recovery.
It’s a bait and switch with the same underlying message: smaller is better. And when it comes to this kind of marketing, few companies reach the level that Arrae does. That is, in a bad way.
From bloat to ‘tone’: Building a brand around women’s anxieties
Founded in 2020 by Siff Haider and Nish Samantray, Arrae has quickly become one of social media’s most recognizable wellness brands.
The company built its reputation through influencer marketing, celebrity endorsements and ambitious branding. Everything looks great aesthetically and the products target common concerns among women.
Notice I didn’t say “health concerns.” I said “concerns.” There is a difference: a health concern is something like iron deficiency anemia, osteoporosis, hypertension or diabetes. One concern is feeling bloated after dinner, wanting flatter abs, feeling like your arms aren’t defined enough, and worrying that your body doesn’t look the way you think it should.
Medical conditions require evidence, but concerns simply require marketing. Arrae’s genius lies in recognizing that amplifying common concerns can be extremely profitable. Each product starts with a feeling many women already have and positions supplements as the solution.
The message isn’t subtle: you’re bloated, too stressed, or not stimulating enough. Buy this to make it yourself. All the cool kids do it.
The billion dollar business to convince women that their bodies are problems
Arrae’s product line
The company’s product line reveals the strategy immediately.
Bloat.
Tuna.
Calm.
Before we talk about Tone, we need to talk about Bloat. Bloat was Arrae’s first hit product and has seemingly served as the blueprint for the company’s marketing. This is not because the product is revolutionary. it is because it has been marketed to solve a problem – bloating – that is more common it’s actually not a problem.
In other words, Arrae has convinced us that a rounded belly is not normal or healthy, and that it flies in the face of basic physiology.
People get bloated from water retention, hormonal fluctuations, and because our stomachs are full. Digestion creates gas. For most people these things aren’t a physical problem, but wellness culture has made us fear bloating, telling us it’s some kind of proof that something is wrong with our bodies. This fear sells products like Bloat.
A $70 container of Arrae bloat has a combination of herbal ingredients that may help as diuretics and digestive aids, but for what? If you have problematic bloating, see a doctor.
Enter Tone: Creatine for women who fear creatine
If Bloat capitalized on digestive insecurity, Arrae’s Tone marketing capitalizes on the longstanding fear of weight training giving women bigger bodies. Even if that extra size is muscle. How many times have I heard women say they dread weight training because it will make them “bulky”?
Lifting weights doesn’t make women bulky at all, and even if it did, is it bad to have muscles? Arrae seems to want us to believe that it is. They say women should be “balanced”, “sculpted”, but not muscular. Throwing it back to the 50s, because this verbiage is reminiscent of the body standards of that era: women shouldn’t take up space, we should stay “feminine,” and while it’s okay to be strong, we shouldn’t be strong LIKE A MAN.
None of this is even slightly acceptable for any age, but especially now, when we should know better.
I wrote an entire Substack on creatine, breaking down the claims and research surrounding it. You can read it here.
Research on creatine consistently demonstrates its benefits for:
- Power
- Power output
- Muscle mass
- Exercise performance
The irony with Arrae’s approach here is that creatine needs no marketing gimmicks. the evidence speaks for itself. But instead of focusing on what creatine can do, Arrae’s ads focus on what women fear it will do: It makes us bulky, bloated, masculine, and heavier. It’s a fascinating strategy because instead of overcoming misinformation, they’re using it to sell a product.
“Stimulation” is not a scientific claim
One of the most common themes in Arrae’s marketing is assurance. Women promise that they can achieve:
- Lean muscle
- Sculpted arms
- Defined legs
- Raised buttocks
- Tight abs
Without:
The problem is that these distinctions exist largely in marketing language rather than physiology.
There is no mechanism by which a gum selectively sculpts your arms while flattening your stomach, and marketers know this. The intentional use of the word “tone” seems less intimidating and more female-oriented than “build muscle.” Very on-brand for Arrae, as their entire brand seems to be based on the messages that smaller is better and that maintaining what is considered a smaller, feminine shape should always be the goal.
The ads for Arrae Tone suggest that all it takes is a Tone Gummy and poof! Immediate fitness. Except that’s not how creatine works at all. It doesn’t work to build muscle by itself. It simply gives the user energy to exercise harder. It’s an indirect effect, but that’s certainly not reflected in Tone’s ad.
Also: creatine is not candy.
The Gym Bro Ick
An Arrae ad opens with a woman saying:
“Creatine was giving me the biggest gym bro.” This phrase can reveal more about a company’s marketing strategy than any list of ingredients ever could. Think about what it communicates: not facts, physiology or health benefits. It sells identity and distance from the type of person who has typically used creatine in the past: bodybuilders and gym bros.
Although creatine is now very popular among women, the message is clear: this is not “that” kind of creatine, it is creatine for women (except that creatine is creatine, it is not gender specific). It’s for women who want muscle, but not enough to look “big”. Fitness, but still thinness.
Does anyone feel like the list of “ideal” features for a woman’s body is getting longer, more exclusive, and less attainable? Yes, me too.
Because this matters
Some will read this and think, who cares? They’re just chewing gum.
But marketing matters, because marketing shapes beliefs and beliefs shape behaviors…like spending money on supplements we don’t necessarily need because of claims we shouldn’t believe.
When we hear repeated messages suggesting that being in a larger body is unacceptable – whether it’s bloat or bulk or whatever, we’re more likely to fear being that way. And when we hear repeatedly that every physical experience requires optimization, we’re less likely to trust our bodies.
This seems to be Arrae’s real business model.
The real product
I actually don’t have a problem with creatine (although I do have a problem with “anti-bloat” supplements). What I object to is the idea that women should be manipulated into taking evidence-based supplements through fear-based messages about their appearance.
Women don’t need to be told they’re going to get sculpted arms or a flatter stomach. And we certainly don’t need wellness companies framing normal digestion as a problem that needs fixing.
We deserve honesty, evidence and marketing that respects our intelligence rather than creating – and then exploiting – insecurities under the guise of “wellness”. Because there is nothing “good” or healthy about it.
