Beneath the Surface
Moving On From J.C. Penney, Sephora Will Open Shops Inside Kohl’s Locations
The beauty retail landscape is being reshaped by marriages between major chains. Less than a month after the revelation that Ulta Beauty will open more than 100 in-store formats at Target locations in the fall of next year...
What’s It Going To Take To Turn Around The Makeup Category?
The numbers are staggering. Prestige color cosmetics sales plummeted 31% to $1.4 billion in the third quarter of 2020, according to The NPD Group. With the exception of nail products, which were aided by the closing of...
Has The Beauty Industry Reached Peak Incubator?
Before releasing The Ordinary in 2016, the brand that changed skincare with affordable, ingredient-centered products, parent company Deciem had developed at least a dozen brands. Named for the Latin word for “tenth,” founder Brandon Truaxe steered it...
How Indie Beauty Brands Are Celebrating Diwali—And Inviting Everyone To Join In
As brands inspired by Indian beauty or I-Beauty multiply, the traditions that inform it are increasingly becoming part of the conversation in the beauty industry outside of India. Holiday traditions, of course, are important facets of cultures around...
Ulta Beauty Will Place In-Store Shops At Target Locations. Is The Move A Good Idea?
The traditional demarcations in the beauty industry separating mass from class have been fading for years. Now a marquee high-low retail partnership between Ulta Beauty and Target will test whether any of the remaining boundaries hold....
Are Beauty Companies’ Grants And Mentorship Efforts Delivering On Promises To Boost Black-Owned Brands?
The killing of George Floyd on May 25 and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests instigated a racial reckoning in the United States and elsewhere in the world that led to calls for police reform and increased diversity in...
