Kiss Beauty Group Acquires Cool Girl Nail Brand Chillhouse

Chillhouse has a new home.

The millennial and gen Z nail brand has been acquired by Kiss Beauty Group, parent company of mass-market nail and lash brands Kiss, Falscara and Impress, for an undisclosed amount. According to Chillhouse, it will operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary within Kiss’s portfolio, with branding and corporate leadership remaining intact. Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton, founder and CEO of Chillhouse, is staying on in her current role along with husband and Chillhouse COO Adam Fulton, and the brand is retaining its flagship salon and spa in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood.

“My goal is to make Chillhouse a legacy brand. We are in it for the long haul,” Ramirez-Fulton tells Beauty Independent. In a statement, she says, “Partnering with Kiss Beauty Group, whose brands have helped shape this industry, inspires and empowers us to scale with intention and authenticity all while staying grounded in the creativity and culture at the heart of Chillhouse.”

“Chillhouse’s team brings extraordinary talent and a compelling vision that align closely with how we see the future of beauty,” says J. Paul Yang, chief strategy officer at Kiss Beauty Group. “As a category leader, we’re committed to championing Chillhouse as they scale their bold vision, while preserving the culture-shaping point of view that makes them such a powerful source of inspiration to the next generation of beauty consumers.”

Along with enhanced capital and operational support, the acquisition will fuel Chillhouse’s wholesale expansion as it gears up to launch in 1,100 CVS stores in early February with a 28-product assortment, including two new product launches: Tips Off, a press-on remover, and Tips On, a nail glue. After entering 325 Walmart doors in September, the brand will double its door count at the mega-chain to roughly 500 locations by March and add its gel polish line, Forever Wear, to its Walmart assortment.

In total, Chillhouse is carried at 2,000-plus retail doors around the country. On top of Walmart and CVS, it’s in Target and Free People. Wholesale accounts for 80% to 85% of its sales, with Target representing the majority of the brand’s wholesale volume. The remaining revenue is split roughly evenly between direct-to-consumer, Amazon and the SoHo flagship. Ramirez-Fulton says that Chillhouse’s revenue has been growing by about 75% year-over-year. Its target customer is women between the ages of 26 and 34.

Prior to its sale to Kiss Beauty Group, Chillhouse raised around $2 million in funding from noteworthy angel investors and venture capital firms. Among its investors were Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso, Cindy Crawford, Briogeo founder Nancy Twine, Michelle Cordeiro Grant, Jaclyn Johnson, Concept to Co, Kinsley Partners and Palette Ventures.

Under Kiss Beauty Group, which has broad global reach, Chillhouse expects to cross international borders via retail for the first time this year when it travels to Canada with Walmart. Kiss Beauty Group’s products are in over 100 international countries, and they’re stocked at retailers like Walmart, Target, Ulta Beauty, CVS, Walgreens, Amazon, Boots, Superdrug, Mueller and Rossmann.

Chillhouse’s assortment encompasses about 140 products across polishes and press-on manicure sets called Chill Tips containing 30 tips, glue, a nail file and a cuticle stick. The majority of its products retail between $12 and $16. This year, the brand is focused on incorporating more treatment-related products into its assortment. Super Tint, a hybrid product that pairs sheer color with nail-strengthening ingredients, is set to launch later this week. “That’s going to be a major launch for us. It’s going to change the game,” says Ramirez-Fulton.

“My goal is to make Chillhouse a legacy brand.”

Chillhouse opened as a salon and spa in New York City’s Lower East Side in 2017 with nail, face and body services such as manicures, pedicures, facials, dermaplaning, sculpting, cupping and massages. It soon branched out with locations in Manhattan and Paris, but shuttered them to focus on the flagship and burgeoning product business. Chill Tips launched during the pandemic in 2020 and immediately caught fire with customers when many salons were closed for precautionary reasons. 

“Our product business just really took off,” says Ramirez-Fulton. “So, we felt that in order for us to continue pacing to be a legacy brand in nail care, the flagship really needed to reflect where we were going.”

After eight months in the works and costs exceeding $200,000, Chillhouse introduced a newly redesigned SoHo spa and salon in September last year featuring an in-house cafe, life-size replicas of the brand’s polishes and brighter, glossier finishes. Spearheaded by Madelynn Ringo, the architectural brain behind Glossier’s and Modern Age’s brick-and-mortar stores, the space is optimized for events like ticketed nail art classes. The flagship also functions as a real-time venue for research and development, and the brand tests new formulas and product launches there to gauge customer reactions. 

“It wasn’t just about a facelift,” says Ramirez-Fulton. “We were all really invested in making sure that this feels like a brand new store.” She notes Chillhouse has been testing a quick dry product at the flagship for several months. “If it’s cleared here, then it passes the test. If not, it won’t,” says Ramirez-Fulton. “That’s a big thing that differentiates us from competitors, which is why I’m so passionate about this flagship.”

Kiss Beauty Group was started in Flushing, N.Y. in 1989 by John Y. Chang, Sung Yong Chang and Won Shik Kang. In 1992, it launched the nail brand Kiss at Walmart. Seven years later, it considered the possibility of an initial public offering, but the IPO didn’t materialize. Last year, the company shuttered K-Beauty-inspired makeup brand Joah Beauty.

Kiss Beauty Group’s acquisition of Chillhouse comes after a 2025 that saw beauty deal volume dip despite a few blockbuster transactions involving the likes of Medik8, Color Wow, Touchland and Rhode. The nail products category, a small slice of the beauty industry estimated at around $26 billion worldwide, has experienced a small number of deals in recent history.

In nails specifically, Nails Inc. was acquired by brand holding company Pacific World Corp. for an estimated 30 million pounds or approximately $40.35 million in 2024. The same year, Helen of Troy spent $240 million on Olive & June. Glamnetic has reportedly tapped investment bank Baird to explore a deal. The nail dealmaking is happening as players in the market adjust to artificial nail products rivaling and even surpassing traditional nail polish sales and cash-strapped consumers looking to replicate salon services in their homes. 

“Nail care is no longer a commodity category, it’s a lifestyle one. I think Chillhouse is amongst the brands really starting that wave,” says Ramirez-Fulton. “The recent deals as well as Chillhouse’s…partnership with Kiss show that acquirers are betting on brands that create culture, rituals and connection, not just products.”

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