For years, food culture seemed like a given.
They sold meal replacements, calorie counting apps, detox teas, and other things that promised rapid weight loss. The message was straightforward: shrinking yourself will make you more valuable and desirable.
Today, language has changed. No one talks about dieting anymore – at least, they don’t use that word. While the diet and wellness industries have wisely recognized that women are becoming increasingly skeptical of traditional diet culture, many of the insecurities that led to it remain.
So these industries have pivoted and now, instead of selling weight loss, companies are selling the appearance of health. Instead, we are told to optimize, balance, support, and strengthen. Reduces swelling. Let’s lose weight. Get your body in shape. Improves resilience.
This is a bait-and-switch tactic 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. I mean, in a bad way.
From swelling to “tension”: Building a brand around women’s anxiety
Founded in 2020 by Shiv Haider and Nish Samantray, Arrae has quickly become one of the most recognizable wellness brands on social media.
The company built its reputation through influencer marketing, celebrity endorsements, and aspirational branding. Each product is perfectly beautiful and targets common concerns among women.
Note that I didn’t say “health concerns.” I said “concern.” There is a difference. Health concerns include iron deficiency anemia, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Concerns include feeling bloated after dinner, wanting flat abs, feeling like your arms aren’t defined enough, and worrying that your body doesn’t look the way you want it to.
A medical condition requires evidence, but a concern requires marketing. Arrae’s genius lies in recognizing that there are huge benefits to amplifying common concerns. Each product begins with a feeling many women already have and positions the supplement as a solution.
The message is not subtle. Swollen, too stressed, or not tense enough. Buy this to fix yourself. All the cool kids are doing it.
A Billion Dollar Business Convincing Women There’s Something Wrong With Their Bodies
Aree product lineup
The strategy is easy to understand when you look at the company’s product lineup.
Distension.
tone.
I felt calm.
Before we talk about Tone, we need to talk about Bloat. Bloat was Arrae’s first big hit and appears to be serving as the company’s marketing blueprint. This is not because the product is innovative. That’s because it’s often marketed to solve a problem that isn’t really a problem: bloating.
In other words, Arrae has convinced us that a round belly is not normal or healthy, and that it goes against basic physiological facts.
Humans get swollen due to water retention, hormonal fluctuations, and a full stomach. Digestion produces gas. For most people, these things don’t cause any physical problems, but wellness culture has made us fear that bloating is some kind of evidence that something is wrong with our bodies. That fear is what sells products like Bloat.
A $70 container of Arrae bloat is loaded with plant-based ingredients that may serve as diuretics and digestive aids, but what are they for? If you have problems with bloating, see your doctor.
Enter Tone: Creatine for women who fear creatine
If “Bloat” tapped into digestive anxiety, Arrae’s Tone’s marketing taps into the age-old fear that weight training makes women bulky. Even if that extra size is muscle. How many times have you heard women say, “I’m afraid of weight training because it makes me gain weight.”
Women don’t gain weight at all even if they lift weights, and even if they do, is it bad to have muscles? That’s what Alae seems to want us to believe. They say that a woman should be “proportioned” and “toned”, but not muscular. Will we take it back to the 50s? Because this word reminds me of the physical standards of the time. Women shouldn’t take up space, they should remain “feminine”, and while it’s good to be strong, they shouldn’t be as strong as men.
These are unacceptable in any era, but we should especially be aware of them now.
I wrote an entire Substack about creatine and analyzed the claims and research on it. You can read it here.
Research on creatine consistently proves that creatine has the following benefits:
Muscle strength Power output Muscle mass Athletic performance
The irony of Arrae’s approach here is that creatine doesn’t need a marketing gimmick. The evidence speaks for itself. But instead of focusing on the effects of creatine, Aarae’s ads focus on what women fear will happen with creatine: becoming bigger, bloated, manly, and heavier. This is an attractive strategy because rather than overcome misinformation, they use it to sell their products.
“Toning up” is not a scientific claim
One of the most common themes throughout Arrae’s marketing is peace of mind. Women are promised the ability to:
Toned muscles, sculpted arms, defined legs, lifted buttocks, and toned abs.
Without it:
The problem is that these distinctions exist primarily in marketing terms, not physiology.
There’s no mechanism for gummies to selectively tone your arms while flattening your stomach, and marketers know it. The intentional use of the word “toning” seems less intimidating and more feminine than “building muscle.” It’s very on-brand for Arrae. Because their entire brand seems to be built around the message that smaller is better, and that maintaining a small, feminine shape should always be the goal.
Arrae Tone’s ad hints that all you need is one Tone gummy and a pouf. Instant fitness. However, creatine doesn’t work like that at all. Building muscle alone doesn’t work. It simply gives the user more energy to exercise harder. Although this is an indirect effect, it is not reflected in Tone’s advertising.
Also, creatine is not candy.
jim bro ick
One Arrae ad begins with a woman saying:
“Creatine gave me the biggest gym workout.” That one sentence may reveal more about a company’s marketing strategy than any ingredient list ever could. Think about what it says, not the evidence, physiology, or health benefits. This sells identity and distance from the types of people who have traditionally used creatine, such as bodybuilders and gym mates.
Creatine is currently very popular among women, and the message is clear. This isn’t “that” kind of creatine, it’s creatine for women (creatine is not gender-specific, other than being creatine). For women who want muscle but don’t have enough to look “big.” Fitness, but still skinny.
Does anyone else feel that the list of “ideal” female body characteristics is becoming increasingly long, exclusive, and unattainable? Yes, me too.
why is this important
Some of you may read this and wonder who cares? It’s just a gummy bear.
But marketing is important. Because marketing shapes beliefs, and beliefs shape behavior. Such as paying for supplements you don’t necessarily need because of claims you shouldn’t believe.
When we repeatedly hear the message that bloating, bulges, and other forms of larger bodies are unacceptable, we are more likely to fear becoming that way. And when we repeatedly hear that every physical experience requires optimization, we are less likely to trust our bodies.
This appears to be Arrae’s actual business model.
authentic products
Actually, I don’t have a problem with creatine (although I do have a problem with “anti-bloating” supplements). What I object to is the idea that women need to be manipulated into taking evidence-based supplements through fear-based messages about their appearance.
Women don’t need to be told that they can get toned arms or a flat stomach. And we certainly don’t need wellness companies that frame normal digestion as a problem that needs fixing.
We deserve marketing that respects honesty, evidence, and intelligence, rather than creating and exploiting anxiety under the guise of “health.” Because there is nothing “good” or healthy about this.
