Making Sense Of Sephora’s Supplement Exit

The average American takes a supplement every day. In the United States, the beauty industry exceeds $100 billion, making it larger than the supplement industry, and Americans use about 12 personal care products daily. Yet the supplement market is nearing $70 billion and, by some estimates, is growing slightly faster than beauty this year, putting the two categories firmly in the same ballpark.

Still, supplements have been a hard pill for beauty specialty retailers to swallow. Now, Sephora is spitting them out. Last week, The Business of Fashion broke the news that the beauty specialty retailer is sunsetting the supplement category. Currently, Sephora sells supplements from Nutrafol, Vegamour, HigherDose, Moon Juice and The Nue Co. The chain expanded its wellness universe in 2022 to sexual wellness, but it appears to be reversing course there, too, with products from sexual wellness brands Maude and Smilemakers being removed from its website.

Sephora’s latest wellness retraction isn’t the only evidence of the trouble it’s had in the category. In the 2010s, it hopped onto the beauty ingestible train early by bringing on brands such as Hum Nutrition, The Beauty Chef and WelleCo, but those brands later disappeared from its selection. Hum Nutrition shifted to the mass market. 

While Sephora is retreating from wellness again, its beauty specialty rival Ulta Beauty is ambitiously pursuing it with the chain-wide expansion of its wellness assortment called The Wellness Shop. Ulta has aggressively onboarded hot supplement brands this year such as Sakara, Armra, Cure Hydration, Ritual, Apothékary and Bird&Be, and made wellness a focus of its online marketplace curation. The retailer is betting it can grab a slice of a global wellness economy the Global Wellness Institute estimates at $6.8 trillion today and nearly $10 trillion by 2029. 

So, why is Sephora abandoning the booming category? For the latest edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked nine industry insiders, including retail experts, wellness entrepreneurs and investors, about where Sephora’s supplement gambit went astray, what other retailers can learn and why most of them are still bullish about wellness at retail.

Jane Merten Founder, AllOut Advisors

Sephora’s decision to exit the supplement space reflects a broader reality: ingestible wellness doesn’t naturally align with how Sephora merchandises, inspires or converts. The shopping experience is highly visual and immediate, built around product discovery, artistry and fast gratification. Supplements, by nature, are slow burn. They require routine, adherence and benefits that are harder to see or measure in the short term.

Standalone supplement brands often struggle in this context. Without visible results or topical tie-ins, they lack relevance in a retail environment where every product competes for attention through performance and aesthetics. Where supplements do make sense at Sephora is when they’re embedded within a larger brand story. A biotin gummy from a hair health brand like Vegamour, for example, or a collagen powder from a skincare authority can support existing regimens and reinforce trust. It’s not about carrying supplements as a category; it’s about offering them as strategic brand extensions that complement topical treatments.

This is where Ulta’s approach sharply diverges. By building out a dedicated Wellness Shop with curated assortments and in-store storytelling, Ulta has created space for supplements to breathe and to be discovered. Their model treats wellness as a destination, not an accessory. That merchandising decision signals to consumers that inner beauty is just as important as outer beauty, and it’s working for a shopper who sees those two worlds as connected.

Could Sephora have made supplements work? Possibly, but not without fundamentally reframing how they’re presented, supported and explained. Rather than overextending into wellness, Sephora appears to be doubling down on its strengths: color, skincare and brand-led experiences. And that’s a smart move. Supplements aren’t going away, but in beauty retail, they may only thrive when they show up as extensions of authority, not as isolated offerings searching for context.

Anne Kurtz Brand Advisor and Founder, The Juicy Byte

If supplements were properly promoted and Sephora offered subscribe/save models, they would be a very steady business since the majority are used every day. Replenishment is high, and if made easy for the consumer, it’s a no-brainer. So, in theory, supplements are an even steadier stream of income than a topical product. However, that is clearly not what happened in the case of Sephora.

Sephora is about discovery and fun. Supplements are not that, and you cannot try them before buying. There is no instant payoff or even the ability to see if it works. Nearly everything they sell in stores, you can touch/feel/smell. The only type of supplement which would have an instant type of noticeable benefit would be melatonin, which I do not think they ever sold.

There is a credibility issue; not that I think Target, Whole Foods or Amazon have higher standards, it is the difference in how consumers shop. It is more common to buy home/health products at these stores. Ingestible health is not top of mind at a Sephora or Ulta. Topical products are what they are known for.

While supplement replenishment is high, Sephora would have trouble capturing it. Supplement discovery could be there, but repurchase would have likely been off its platform at an Amazon, Target or Walmart, where discounts or subscribe/save are options.

Sephora never really properly marketed supplements. They were not prominently displayed in store. More importantly, I do not recall ever seeing a smart pairing of supplements like acne skincare paired with a skin-clearing gummy or even hair loss supplement with a hair loss serum. There could have been far more education and cross-promotional, cross-brand marketing for bundling and increased basket size. I never saw any of these types of activations.

There are also the larger regulatory challenges around supplements, and evaluating efficacy and having strict standards for a retailer can be time-consuming and challenging.

Rachel Hirsch Founder and General Partner, Wellness Growth Ventures

Sephora quietly stepping out of supplements is one of the more fascinating retail signals of the year. Not because the category is shrinking, it’s not, but because Sephora has never managed to crack the code. Ingestibles should have been a home run for them: high-margin, high-velocity, perfect adjacency to skincare and haircare, and aligned with a consumer who’s already trained to buy beauty as ritual.

But supplements require a very different merchandising muscle, and instead of building that competency, they’re choosing to reallocate energy to the battles they’re already fighting: Ulta’s continued dominance, Target’s beauty takeover and the saturation cycle happening across emerging skincare.

In fairness, there is a precedent for how quickly this category can turn complicated. Goop was once the poster child for premium, aspirational wellness supplements, but after the lawsuits, Goop eventually pulled back from the more aggressive ingestible claims that had built early hype.

Yet, Sephora isn’t Goop, and in walking away, they’re leaving a wide-open door for mass retailers, wellness specialists and science-led DTC brands to claim the consumer Sephora could have owned.

Julie Kucinski Brand Consultant, The New Normal

"Hope in a jar" is over in beauty. The injectable age demands immediate, obvious results or the drama of devices. And Sephora may be the most instant gratification retailer there is! The slow, natural hippie era had its day. We're in the synthetic age of AI now. Even wellness is more devices, injections and data than diet.

That said, supplements are here to stay, but they belong in food or fitness in the U.S. We go to Sephora for magic. Even the yummiest gummy or drink can't compete there. Supplements are discipline, habit and, yes, hope.

Corey Scholibo Co-Founder and CEO, Dayo

This doesn't seem all that surprising to me. Sephora has always struggled with selling ingestibles, even when they were beauty related. For one, they don't have the real estate for it unless it is tied to a beauty brand with a large topicals section to anchor, so they relegated it to the back of the store. It never felt like this was really a priority.

So, I don't think they ever went for this customer in a real way, and I don't think they need to. Beauty from the inside out is still a push, but the credibility of topicals going to ingestibles in my view is limited. She is hiring two different companies for this task.

Wizz Selvey Co-Founder, Valerie

Sephora stepping away from supplements isn’t a signal that the category lacks potential, it’s a sign of how hard it is to get right. Supplements don’t behave like beauty. You can’t test a supplement on your skin. You can’t see instant payoff under store lighting and success relies on trust, education and consistency of using a product. The traditional beauty retail model is built for discovery and impulse. Supplements succeed through trusted advice, habit of consistent use and efficacy.

We’ve also seen many beauty brands launch supplements as an extension of their range. Some have done this well, but customers are increasingly demanding more from wellness products. They’re tired of trying supplements that feel promising but deliver little. Efficacy is becoming nonnegotiable. Products need science, bioavailability and proven outcomes, and the brands winning now are those that take that seriously.

At Valerie, for example, our liposomal formulations have superior bioavailability, which means better results and are developed by PhD scientists. We’ve developed the brand specifically for perimenopause, a defined life stage with unique physiological needs, not a catch-all “women’s wellness” promise. That’s where the category is moving: targeted solutions for different need-states and science-backed formulations rather than generic blends.

A key challenge in beauty retail environments is how supplements are positioned. They’re often merchandised as an add-on within a brand wall rather than as a destination category. When a customer walks into the store, they want to be able to choose from the best in class, whether that’s skincare, makeup or supplements. If supplements are fragmented across brands without a curated, expertise-led experience, it’s hard for the consumer to understand what’s right for them.

And that is the same with staff expertise. Beauty advisors are incredible at shade matching and skincare support, but supplements require a different skill set. In health food stores, guidance is part of the experience. If retailers want to build supplements into their ecosystem successfully, they need dedicated wellness zones, clear reasoning behind the edit, education at the shelf level and staff who can confidently support the customer's needs.

Beauty retailers can sell supplements, but only when they treat wellness as a category worthy of investment in education, credibility of the range and brand edit and results, not just shelf space. Consumers are ready, as they are seeking this out already, and we see this from the success of health stores, showing demand is growing.

Odile Roujol Founder, Fab Co-Creation Studio Ventures

At the same time as Sephora is getting rid of supplements, we hear from many companies about Ulta embracing the space. Surveys show that two-thirds of Americans take supplements and make them part of their daily routine. It’s not new. The newness is now companies like Function Health have data platforms to help people track blood biomarkers for what their body needs, and there are monitoring devices like Oura helping them understand their unique body conditions and navigate the complexity of the space.

The competition is high for brands and retailers. Erewhon has aisles dedicated to supplements and competent wellness associates to advise people. It tackles the different needs per period of life, concern (sleep, brain health, gut microbiome) or ingredient. Some med-spas are the new prescribers.

Any new U.S. retailer entering the space needs to focus on:

• A strategic curation of brands and products, as supplements are the Wild West, with light control of claims by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
• Their thinking must undergo a revolution to recommend products and brands, otherwise they can’t compete with the true experts in the category endorsed by “biohackers.”

Maggie Sellers Reum Founder and CEO, Hot Smart Rich

The "beauty from within trend" is real and something I have been obsessed with for years. Consumers want it, the category is maturing, and the demand is not going away.

But Sephora’s decision still makes perfect sense to me when you think about their business. Sephora is a prestige beauty retailer first, not a holistic wellness platform. Their entire business is built on categories with high margins, high repeatability and, most importantly, instant proof of performance in categories like color cosmetics, skincare, fragrance, tools. These win because you can see, smell or swatch the result now. Supplements just can't compete with that immediate payoff.

When I was overseas in South Korea earlier this year and had the chance to go to Olive Young, the contrast was stark. As Olive Young enters the U.S., it's entering in a similar style to Ulta as an all needs marketplace built to house supplements.

The bigger issue is that ingestibles entered the market long before the clinical efficacy and rigor caught up. A lot of early brands were selling vitamins as if they were "painkillers" with big promises and minimal proof. Today’s customer is smarter, more skeptical and much faster at cutting through what does not work.

Let's think about the customer, their need state matters as well. Wanting shinier hair is not the same as not being able to sleep. Sleep is a true painkiller category. It is urgent, emotional and immediate. Fertility is another. Bird and Be, an HSR Ventures portfolio company, sells through Ulta because the value proposition is crystal clear. They improve egg and sperm quality and support conception. They solve a real problem that millions of people are actively trying to fix. That is where supplements can behave like "painkillers" and solve a real problem rather than "vitamins," a nice-to-have fix.

If supplements were ever going to work in prestige beauty, the playbook would have required real clinical proof, strong differentiation and merchandising built around specific outcomes rather than broad aesthetic wellness. Prestige beauty trains the customer to expect impact on the spot and supplements just cannot deliver that.

I firmly believe that supplements will continue to thrive at Ulta, Target, Amazon and DTC. These channels have different expectations and different purchase journeys. But in prestige beauty, Sephora doubling down on what it does best is the right move. When the category is this competitive, being the best comes from knowing exactly what game you are playing and refusing to get distracted.

Kimberly Dillon CMO, Plant & Prosper

I think supplements were always a tougher fit for Sephora than makeup or skincare. Supplements require trust, education and the right context. You are ingesting something, the results are not immediate, so skepticism is higher. Makeup and skincare you can at least touch, try on and smell.

You can't try on a gut debloat pill.  They tend to perform better in environments that signal authority or lived experience, like gyms, health food stores or DTC with a ton of testimonials and influencer videos to lend credence and educate. Sephora excels at emotional, visible, low-risk purchases, which do not naturally align with how consumers evaluate supplements.

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