Retail Unwrapped from The Robin Report

Is Your Brand Scented?

Dana Wood — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

With offices on four continents, more than 500 employees toiling in 119 countries, and a client roster that includes Marriott and Westin hotels, Heathrow and Tampa International airports and an eclectic mix of retailers (Kookaï, Altar’d State, Plato’s Closet and Play It Again Sports)—not to mention a bustling DTC business in home diffusers—ScentAir likes to describe itself as “the global leader in scent marketing.”

Of course, it’s the client ScentAir won’t confirm, Disney Resorts, that probably contributes a mega chunk to the 32-year-old, Charlotte, North Carolina-based enterprise’s bottom line. “As a privately held company, we respect the privacy and preferences of all our clients and do not disclose client-specific information without their express permission,” says Evin Ellis, ScentAir’s Director of Global Marketing & E-Commerce. “Many of our clients consider their scent programs to be an integral part of their brand experience and differentiation and therefore choose to keep these details confidential.”

But here’s what Ellis is more than happy to share: the positively rosy current state of the ambient scent market. “We estimate the total addressable market (TAM) for scent marketing at around $3 billion globally,” he says. That’s a lot of piped-in perfume.

Does scent marketing work? And the answer is: Just ask Baccarat, Altr’d States, The Northface, and Disney.

Translating a Retailer’s Core Values Into a Signature Scent

Though she isn’t as willing to hazard a guess at the scope of the ambient market as Ellis, Scent Marketing, Inc. CEO Caroline Fabrigas is equally bullish on the category’s prospects. Serving clients that span boutique and mega-chain hotels (Arlo,1 Hotels, Hyatt Place, Baccarat, Auberge Resorts), retail (The Northface, Converse, Wayfair, Aeropostale), wellness (Physique 57, The Well) and commercial real estate developers (Fisher Brothers, SL Green, Naftali Group), when she says the scent marketing business is booming, it’s an understatement.

“For a smaller company, we have some great clients,” says Fabrigas, who has a core team of seven working from the company’s Scarsdale, New York, headquarters and an equivalently sized crew to whom she outsources projects. She mentions Coach as a new retail win, and recent experiential ventures like scenting Fifth Avenue during the holidays. When we spoke, she was just about to head to Boston to discuss partnering with the MTA.

But how, exactly, does Fabrigas and her team translate a hotel, retail store, workout studio or multi-unit Miami condo into a scent? There are multiple ways; the most elaborate and costly is custom development. For Kindling, the signature scent for 1 Hotels, Scent Marketing took the key stakeholders through a four-step process that includes: Discovering the brand’s core values and unique connection with nature; defining the initial prototype via an exclusive olfactory ingredient palette; designing and developing a prototype scent; and delivering and diffusing the finished product throughout the brand’s properties.

“We call it a journey,” Fabrigas says of the custom process. “It takes about 10 to 12 weeks and starts with an intake session and analyzing the brand.” After Scent Marketing has landed on an initial prototype, the ideal next step is an in-person “sniffing session” that may yield a request for a tweak or two. “But that’s rare,” says Fabrigas, “because of all the pre-work we’re doing.”

If a brand doesn’t have the budget, time or desire to express itself by building a signature fragrance from scratch, other options for landing on a scent for a public space include “Guided Scent Curation.” In this case, Fabrigas and team visit the untapped archives of some of the world’s major oil houses. The third, least costly, process is for a brand to buy directly from the company’s in-house scent library.

With a quick look at the scent library section of the Scent Marketing website, retailers can pick from ready-made fragrances. The names of the scents evoke their emotional and psychological effects: Full of Energy, Teak & Herbs, Walk in the Woods, Fresh Tea, Exaltation, Pink Grapefruit and Mint Focus.

Evoke a Beloved Vacation Scent at Home

While it doesn’t have direct ties to hospitality or real estate, Tocca has long had a stellar candle and reed diffuser business. An offshoot of the boho-chic namesake fashion brand, which launched in 1994, Tocca’s home products followed beauty, which made its debut in 1997. According to COO Joyce Barnes, Tocca added home in 1999, kicking off with its still-popular “blue box” classic candle collection. “We were a fashion brand at the time and had started to dip our toes into beauty with three products: a solid perfume, a dry body oil and a laundry delicate,” Barnes recalls. “We saw home as a logical next step in our beauty division. And to be frank, our candles were popular straight out of the gate.”

Named for posh vacation destinations—think Chamonix, Amalfi, Montauk and St. Tropez—the candles and diffusers have been a solid boost to Tocca’s balance sheet. “We are first and foremost a fine fragrance house, so our eau de parfums continue to be the majority of our business,” says Barnes. “But we’ve been pleased with how home fragrance gives us the opportunity to expand into other channels.”

And for now, at least, the home scent sector is looking bright. “People are investing in their homes, and fragrance is a beautiful way to really personalize their environment,” says Barnes. “We also continue to see customers’ interest in exploring different ways to layer fragrance in their lives. They don’t just want to wear their favorite scents; they want to live among their favorite scents, too.”

From Commercial Lobbies to Living Rooms: The Rise of D2C

Even more extensively than ScentAir, Scent Marketing is making sure consumers have multiple ways to nab the fragrances they become addicted to when staying at chic hotels and shopping at their favorite stores. On scentfluence.com, its D2C site, a full range of property-affiliated candles and room sprays is on offer—everything from Fireside for Baccarat and Deep Blue Med Spa Collection to Fisher Bros @Ease. The company’s physical store, Scentfluence Aroma Design Studio, is based in Scarsdale. Scentfluence is about to make its debut on Amazon in addition to the debut of “The Perfect Weekend” candles currently landing at Wayfair stores across the country.

None of the category’s success is a surprise to Dr. Liz Lehman, licensed physician and CEO of Alluminate Life, an international wellness brand crafted to enhance mind-body health. “Any public gathering place that is designed to evoke a mood, feeling, or brand identity benefits from an ambient fragrance,” she says.

And while public scenting is on the uptick, it certainly isn’t new. “I remember Disney World smelling like sunshine and laughter as a child,” Lehman recalls. “Hospitality groups have used scenting for years.” Today, the phenomenon is on a distinct upward trajectory. “As research studies continue to publish the psychological link between scent, behavior and mood, and consumers desire a more enhanced experiential environment,” says Lehman, “I have no doubt that scent in public spaces will be as important as furnishings and lighting.”

Fabrigas couldn’t agree more. “I think of scent as being ‘a logo in the air,’ another way to communicate your brand message,” she says. “It’s really powerful and actually more memorable than something you can see.”

Big Beauty Bets: Louis Vuitton and Old Navy

Dana Wood — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 04:01:00 +0000

If ever we were at a high-low inflection point, it would be now. To unpack that, let’s start high and then go low. While it doesn’t get more bougie than Vuitton’s new venture – just check out the monogram “accessories,” like the pint-size double-zipper lipstick bag for $870 – it’s also easy to see how its unique positioning could give it a leg up on the competition and help capture a piece of the $450 billion global beauty pie. This isn’t just luxury, it’s “ultra luxury,” and it was crafted to be collectible.

We should not normalize these LV prices. Whether we can afford it or not, it’s makeup. It’s not a bag that lasts for decades. We put it on, wash it off, and then it expires. Hermès doesn’t even charge this much. Absolutely insane.

Keepsake, Monogrammed & “Un-Dupable” Beauty

With its stratospheric price points (even the lip balms are $160), Vuitton is raising the bar on luxury beauty and hoping to push the new collection into keepsake territory. Adding to its staying power – not to mention sustainability? It’s all refillable, doubling down on the notion of keepsake beauty.

Developed in collaboration with British mega makeup artist Dame Pat McGrath, who holds the title of Creative Director for this venture, the collection is centered around lips and eyes. Why? According to McGrath, a legend in the editorial, runway and advertising sectors, lips and eyes help consumers “create the full character.” Well, ok.

There are 55 LV Rouge lipsticks — 27 satin finish, 28 matte finish – all broken out by color categories: Nudes, Roses, Pinks, Plums, Reds and Oranges. The names, at least in the ones in English on the French powerhouse’s U.S. site, feel a little all over the place. Though some are descriptive, à la Tonic Orange and Rose Eugénie, others, like Rumbling Storm and Chasing Dreams, are more nebulous.

The wildly expensive LV Baume lip balms, 10 shades in total, range from clear to a dark burgundy brown. Infused with a raspberry mint scent developed by Vuitton master perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud, they’re pumped with hyaluronic acid and shea butter and deliver benefits like 48-hour hydration and a “smoothing effect.”

What can I say about the eyeshadow quads besides the fact that they’re available in eight colorways and are straight-up stunning? For that price, they should be. And did I mention the five-piece lip and eye brush set for $1140? Now those are some tools of the trade.

While the entire LV collection landed with a splash, the biggest buzz has emerged around the insanely adorable “Beauty Accessories.” Launched in both the house’s famous Monogram and Damier patterns, the mini cosmetics LV trunks were also launched in limited edition hues like Tender Bliss (a bubblegum pink), Monogram Rouge (a rich burgundy) and Rouge Louis (a fiery red). As testament to the power of LV reinventing beauty keepsakes, the more brightly colored items have already sold out on the U.S. website.

These cosmetics keepsake social media superstars, which have been all over TikTok and Instagram since the collection’s August debut, range in price from a Mattifying Paper Case for $560 to a Trunk Lipstick Case for $2990. If the Trunk Lipstick Case houses a single lippie and clocks in at nearly three grand, one shudders to think how much the five-lipstick number would cost.

The Other End of the Spectrum: Old Navy

How do we know Gap Inc. CEO Richard Dickson is dead serious about getting Old Navy’s new beauty venture off to a flying start? He’s tapped John Demsey as an advisor. The ultimate finger-on-the-pulse guy, Demsey, who was pushed out of an illustrious, multi-decade career at Estée Lauder Companies over one questionable Instagram post, has a recognized knack for knowing what people want exactly when they want it. Is Demsey several decades older than the Gen Z and millennial core target Old Navy is targeting with this new master plan? Yes. Does it matter? Not in the slightest.

Old Navy’s merchandising mantra, “Affordable But Curated,” seems to be leading the new beauty venture, to be launched this fall. According to a statement released in early September, here’s what we do know: A mix of Old Navy-branded merchandise and a curation of under $25 SKUs from Gen Z beloved brands like E.l.f., Mario Badescu and Tony Moly, will kick off with a “test-and-learn” roll-out to 150 Old Navy doors this fall.

As a deeper way to gauge feedback, a handful of those 150 doors will have dedicated shops-in-shop manned by dedicated Beauty Associates. If all goes well, Old Navy will expand the beauty program to its 1100+ doors throughout 2026.

For what it’s worth, I polled my informal focus group, aka my 19-year-old daughter and her fellow hyper-groomed Florida State University sorority sisters, about whether they might be lured into Old Navy’s new beauty department. The consensus? Probably not. They don’t shop there for clothes, and unless Old Navy will be serving up something they can’t find at Sephora or Ulta, they’re guessing it won’t be carving time out of their packed schedules. On my end, I’ll be on standby at the Old Navy at Tyrone Mall in St. Petersburg. After all, I love an elevated beauty bargain as much as the next savvy consumer.

What These New Ventures Reveal

Unless you’re in management or on the boards of these two publicly traded companies, it’s impossible to know for sure the true rationales behind these new beauty ventures. But here’s what we can tell you about the business behind these beauty launches.

Vuitton is worried about how viable and covetable mass market makeup is becoming and wants to plant a stake in the luxury sand with ultra-high quality, design-forward and refillable products that will ostensibly last for years.
Vuitton is anxious to provide more entry level price points for aspirational consumers and is piggy-backing on the strength of its massive small leather goods category.
Old Navy CEO Richard Dickson is keen on boosting the retailer’s lagging relevancy. By tasking well-regarded designer Zac Posen (Executive VP and Creative Director for Gap Inc. and Chief Creative Officer for Old Navy) to craft a sharp new handbag collection, Dickson took the first step in that direction. Now, with Demsey adding his expert two cents, it’s on to cosmetics.
Old Navy is hoping to steal a slice of the beauty-curation pie essentially owned by Urban Outfitters in the last decade-plus.

Closing Thoughts & Parting Shots

As luck would have it, one of my colleagues at The Robin Report, Glyn Atwal, tasked his students at Burgundy School of Business with diving into an in-depth case study of Louis Vuitton La Beauté.

A fascinating read, the report doesn’t shy away from laying out the hard truths. In a section dubbed “Negative Consumer Commentary About Louis Vuitton La Beauté,” Atwal’s students corralled a handful of brutal soundbites from Reddit.

Here’s just one: “We should not normalize these prices. Whether we can afford it or not, it’s makeup. It’s not a bag that lasts for decades. We put it on, wash it off, and then it expires. Hermès doesn’t even charge this much. Absolutely insane.”

As Atwal’s students sum it up, “Ultimately, Louis Vuitton’s expansion into the beauty market is a risky move to diversify its offerings and establish a foothold in a growing, resilient industry. By leveraging its brand recognition, partnering with industry leaders like Pat McGrath, and prioritizing product innovation, Louis Vuitton seeks to challenge traditional notions of luxury. However, it faces the tough challenge of justifying its ultra-luxury prices at a time when consumers increasingly question the true value of brands, placing greater emphasis on authenticity and quality beyond just a well-known name.”

Personally, I find myself more intrigued by the Old Navy beauty venture, especially given the oceans of ink spilled recently on Dickson’s latest moves across not only that brand, but Gap as a whole. From The Hollywood Reporter and Vogue Business to Puck and Business of Fashion, industry-watchers are tracking Dickson’s every move. So are we.

Lensing out from Old Navy to Gap Inc. more broadly, Dickson will be leaning on Demsey to provide beauty insight across all brands. Demsey’s counterpart in accessories? None other than Coach turnaround king Reed Krakoff. By bringing Krakoff and his impeccable, design-forward taste into the equation, I have zero doubt the merch will look incredible.

But will it sell? That remains to be seen.

Dove Takes an Anti-AI Oath

Dana Wood — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 04:01:00 +0000

Of all the people to lead me down the Big Beauty AI rabbit hole, I wasn’t expecting Malcolm Gladwell. But then he swung by the global IBM Research headquarters in Yorktown Heights, New York, to de-brief with two major L’Oréal honchos – Matthieu Cassier and Gabriel Bertoli – about the 1.5-year-old AI collaboration between the two corporate giants, and then it was off to the races.

In its new ad campaign, “The Code,” Dove explores the explosive impact of AI in shaping perception and estimates that up to a whopping 90 percent of the content consumers currently engage with is generated by AI. And with AI-generated imagery in particular, the depiction of beauty is obviously skewed toward an unobtainable level of perfection. Dove is renewing its vow to champion real beauty, with a commitment to never use AI to create or distort women’s images.

AI’s Beauty Play

Cassier and Bertoli, both long-time L’Oréal guys, hold similar sounding but slightly different titles. Cassier is VP Research & Innovation, Chief Transformation & Digital Officer. Bertoli is Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Research & Innovation, and is also an AI professor at the Paris-based ESCP Business School. In other words, Cassier and Bertoli already had their fingers on the pulse before Gladwell came knocking for the latest episode of the podcast Smart Talks With IBM.

Dubbed “L’Oréal and IBM: AI-Powered Beauty,“ the episode is a fun, sometimes playful peek into the way the world’s biggest beauty company has been harnessing the power of AI. As the three men toggle between serious business and bravely applying long-wearing Maybelline hits like Vinyl Ink lipstick and Superstay 24-hour compact powder foundation to their faces, it becomes instantly clear that legacy beauty companies have a massive leg up on even the hottest digital-native brands.

The legacy superpower? Data. Decades and decades of information about not only their proprietary product formulations and the ingredients that fuel them, but their also customers as well. Sure, Rhode may gotten itself acquired for a cool billion, but it hasn’t been in business for 116 years like L’Oréal.

Eschewing One-Size-Fits-All AI

Of course, L’Oréal is not alone in recognizing that treasure troves of company-specific info bytes can be paired with powerful AI tools to shape future business. Take Estée Lauder Cos. for example. Although it’s pairing with Microsoft and not IBM, it too is deploying AI to shorten the timeline of getting personalized, customer-specific products to market, as well as streamlining internal ops.

Though she recently stepped down from her roles as Chief Data Officer and Executive VP Enterprise Marketing, Jane Lauder was a major catalyst in helping EL Cos. leverage the power of AI. At a conference staged last year by The Next Web — “Beyond Skin Deep: AI’s Impact on Beauty and Bias” — Lauder told the crowd that while she knows people don’t readily associate the 75-year-old EL Cos. with technology, in fact it drives every product it makes. “Beauty is one of the most personal [consumer goods] categories,” she said. “And personalization is driven by data. That’s how we bring AI into this whole equation.”

After studying how other industries work with AI, Lauder developed what she calls “The 5 Ts” – five takeaways that can help companies integrate the constantly changing technology:

Create an internal task force to ensure all employees stay on the same page in terms of AI use
Ensure trust that all company data remains secure and protected
Hire the most AI-savvy talent
Train senior leaders so they know the right questions to ask
Trial, i.e., keep iterating with AI until the desired outcome is achieved

For massive global beauty conglomerates, off-the-shelf AI offerings won’t cut it. They demand – and can pay for – custom technology shaped by their own unique needs.

Fulfilling Both Current and Future Needs

In an extremely in-depth January 2025 article on its website, McKinsey & Company guesstimated that GenAI could bolster the global economy by up to $10 billion through adaptation by the beauty industry alone. While the research firm didn’t pinpoint a timeframe, no matter when it happens, it’s still a lot of coin, even for a consumer goods sector that’s already expected to garner approximately $677 billion this year.

Dividing AI-fluent beauty companies into two camps – “Takers” that buy off-the-shelf technology and “Shapers” that bake in their own proprietary data – McKinsey rattled off multiple ways in which AI can change the game. Here are just a few:

Trend identification and social listening
Micro-segmentation based on consumer data
Summarized customer information for retail sales associates
Creative content versioning
Media optimization
Rapid package-concept development
Store design and planning
Code automation

As for internal ops, McKinsey says AI can help with all of that, including talent search, recruiting, performance analytics, onboarding and sales and customer support.

Core Ways Beauty Consumers Are Tapping AI Tools

When it comes to product purchases, there are three main ways beauty retailers are already deploying AI: virtual try on, skin analysis, and product personalization.

Virtual Try On: Since it’s largely confined to makeup shade selection, virtual try on has its limitations. But for anyone who has wasted hard-earned cash on a lipstick or blush that looked great in the clear package or box shade swatch, but god awful in real life, having the option to “try before you buy” has its benefits.

Of course, consumers can’t assess texture via virtual try on, or how well a particular makeup product performs. But they can at least get a sense of whether a color works with their skin tone. And in doing so, possibly save themselves a few bucks. Not surprisingly, Gen Zers, who are no fans of in-store “shade-matching” by beauty advisors, are especially keen on virtual try on.

Skin Analysis: According to Precedence Research, the global AI skin analysis market is sitting at roughly $1.8 billion right now and is expected to jump to a not inconsiderable $7 billion by 2034. Evidently, AI skin analysis helps consumers not only assess the condition of their complexion, but also serves up product recommendations to address whatever it is that ails them: fine lines, dark spots, acne, etc. In addition, some AI tools can help consumers track progress over time.

Like so many other professionals, I’m sure dermatologists are positively thrilled that AI tools are performing tasks that have long been their bread and butter.

But guess what the more forward-thinking and tech-savvy skin docs are now doing? Incorporating AI skin analysis tools into their practices. After all, if these tech platforms can save time and “recommend” more and more products sold in the retail area of a derm’s office, why not?

Product Personalization: Brands like Prose and Function Of Beauty have shaped their entire business models around having consumers fill out extensive online questionnaires prior to purchase. From preferences around shade, fragrance and product texture to specific ingredients that target a consumer’s precise needs and beauty goals, if executed well, personalization not only helps stem the overwhelm attached to the sheer size of the market it also instills loyalty. Talk about a win-win for brand and consumer alike. After all, who doesn’t love a bespoke experience? And from a brand perspective, who doesn’t love a repeat purchase?

How Dove Is Still Keeping It Real

In its decades-long quest to celebrate “real” women – curves, freckles, frizzy hair and all – Dove has made it its mission to help beauty consumers learn to love themselves exactly as they are. In its new ad campaign, “The Code,” the beauty giant explores the explosive impact of AI in shaping perception and estimates that up to a whopping 90 percent of the content consumers currently engage with is generated by AI.

And with AI-generated imagery in particular, the depiction of beauty is obviously skewed toward an unobtainable level of perfection. This isn’t sitting well with Dove, nor, one assumes, its multinational parent, Unilever. “The rise of AI poses one of the greatest threats to real beauty in the last 20 years, meaning representation is more important than ever,” reads some of The Code copy. “That’s why Dove is renewing its vow to champion real beauty, with a commitment to never using AI to create or distort women’s images.”

To help like-minded brands and consumers turn back the AI bias tide, Dove has generously supplied a 72-page PDF of its “Real Beauty Prompt Playbook” on its website. Targeted to “creators of any kind, plus parents, guardians and anyone interested in learning more about prompting,” the playbook is an anti-AI manifesto of sorts, and a much needed one at that.

Taking Cues From Next Gens

No matter how laudable Dove’s efforts are to turn back the beauty bias tide, the fact is, AI isn’t going anywhere. And rather than try to resist it, beauty brands and retailers should probably take a closer look at how Gen Z is deploying it.

Digital-savvy to the nth degree, Gen Z gathers its lengthy list of product recommendations from TikTok and Snapchat and then dives right into AI for custom-fitting. According to beauty-tech purveyors Revieve, 58 percent of Gen Z relies on selfie-based AI product try ons, such as its industry-first digital hair color experience or its makeup advisor. And it’s not just a lip or eyeshadow shade; in many cases, it’s an entire “look” crafted from multiple makeup products.

Personalized skin analysis is another fixation for younger beauty savants. Because they’re highly unlikely to head to a dermatologist at the first sign of skin issues, they’re tapping AI for complexion help and to research ingredients and formats they’re wary about, such as face oils.

While beauty mega-retailers Sephora and Ulta have had solid AI games for years now, and Revieve already has a lengthy list of brands and merchants using its technologies (Shiseido, Murad, Living Proof and Walgreens, to name just a few), it’s probably time that every single player in the space to step up to the AI plate. Take a cue from Gen Z: we’re never going back to a time when the customer was completely disempowered; tap into the AI technology that’s literally at our fingertips.

Leonard Lauder, Requiem for a Gentleman

Dana Wood — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 04:01:00 +0000

Heard. Seen. Respected. Valued. If there’s truth to the oft-quoted Maya Angelou adage that people remember you more for how you made them feel than what you said or did, all the loving tributes to Leonard Lauder posted and shared in recent weeks support this observation in spades. The elder son of Estée Lauder was not merely excellent at deeply, thoughtfully listening to people from all walks of life, he shaped the entire beauty industry over the course of his multi-decade career.

People who dealt with Lauder day-in and day-out give testament to the fact that his old school, respect-based management style is a true rarity. There are some who met Leonard Lauder only on a single occasion but their memories help flesh out the bigger picture of this once-in-a-lifetime guy.

Before diving into what some of the biggest players in the business had to say about Leonard Lauder, let’s look at the highlight reel of what he achieved for the brand and company his mother established back in 1946.

After a boyhood spent helping pack Estée Lauder boxes, Leonard, a native New Yorker, did a stint in the U.S. Navy followed by attendance at Columbia University, where he scooped up a business degree.
Landing at Mom’s company in 1958 with the then-grand notion of taking the U.S.-based business global, Lauder spent the next four decades doing precisely that.
Steadily rising through the ranks as President, CEO and Chairman, he is widely credited with the EL Co’s move into Europe and Asia, is viewed as the mastermind of one of its biggest brands – Clinique – and, with the acquisitions of Aveda, MAC, Bobbi Brown and La Mer, crafted the blueprint of the modern prestige beauty conglomerate.
On the money front, Lauder took the company public in 1995 and saw the coffers build from less than $1 million when he officially joined to a recent market cap of $24.3 billion.

Is EL Cos on a somewhat shakier fiscal ground today? Yes, which we’ve fully covered here, in this look-see at family succession drama. Will that matter to Leonard Lauder’s legacy? Not in the slightest.

Heard About Town

Since his passing on June 14 at age 92, some of the biggest titans in the beauty industry have shared the impact Lauder had on their careers. While the cynic in me is rolling her eyes at some of the blatant relevancy bids attached to a few of these tributes (even the most cursory of encounters with Lauder are being served up as earth-shaking, changed-my-life events), plenty of people who dealt with Lauder day-in and day-out give testament to the fact that his old school, respect-based management style is a true rarity. And yes, there are some who met Leonard Lauder only on a single occasion but their memories help flesh out the bigger picture of this once-in-a-lifetime guy.

Bobbi Brown

Bobbi Brown thanks Lauder for teaching her “everything” (and for her boat). To say Leonard Lauder changed Bobbi Brown’s life is a massive understatement. In 1995, just four years after the successful but not yet ultra-well-known makeup artist had created her line of 10 neutral lipsticks, Lauder saw promise in the venture and snapped it up.

I think we all know what happened next: staggering global success for the Lauder-owned Bobbi Brown brand. As one of the few founders who stuck around after the acquisition ink was dry, Brown eventually became disenchanted with the way her brand was being run by EL Companies. And as soon as her non-compete expired, Brown couldn’t launch her edgy, inclusive and already wildly successful Jones Road brand fast enough. Still, as her memorial Instagram post attests, Brown holds a special place for Leonard Lauder in her heart.

“I’m gutted but grateful,” she wrote. “I learned everything about growing and nurturing a brand from him. He gave me permission to be myself and told me to never ask for permission but to beg for forgiveness, which I often did. Steven [Plofker, Brown’s real estate developer husband] and I built the first freestanding store in Montclair NJ without permission and asked him to come and bless it and he did that with a smile on his face of pride.”

In the handful of images Brown used to illustrate her post, she included one of her sailboat christened TYLL (short for “Thank You, Leonard Lauder”) and ended by saying how grateful she was for the recent three-hour lunch she’d had with the famous makeup mogul and art patron.

Yes, Brown could leave her Lauder-acquired namesake brand and launch a new one that is somehow making her even more famous and successful, and the great man would still make plenty of time for her.

John Demsey

John Demsey applauds Lauder for helping create, “The Greatest Prestige Beauty Company of All Time.” As a former executive group president who exited EL Companies under not-so-great circumstances (code: after 31 years at the corporation, he was forced out after higher-ups freaked out at one of his social media posts), John Demsey could have easily taken a pass at weighing in on Lauder’s legacy.

But given how he felt about the man, there was no way Demsey was letting that happen. “Leonard Lauder was the most brilliant and cultured man I have ever met,” Demsey told Beauty Inc. “He leaves a legacy of vision, creativity, passion, humanity and kindness. We would not have the beauty industry we have today without the foundation he created for over 60 years.”

Ron Robinson

Ron Robinson spotlights Lauder’s massive prescience with Clinique. Long before creating his own thriving and award-winning BeautyStat Cosmetics brand, product formulator Ron Robinson spent years toiling in the development labs at some of the biggest conglomerates in the beauty business.

And in a pretty adorable post on LinkedIn, Robinson recently shared an early 1990s picture of himself, clad in an Estée Lauder Companies T-shirt, hard at work. “As a cosmetic chemist who had the privilege of working with Clinique, I want to express my heartfelt admiration for his legacy,” he wrote. “Leonard Lauder’s vision for Clinique revolutionized the beauty industry, and I feel fortunate to have been a part of it. I was so very, very proud to work for his company.”

Michele Shakeshaft

A makeup artist dubs Lauder a, “People-First Leader.” Yes, lots of industry-famous (and legitimately famous, too) people have shared their thoughts about Lauder in the past month. But I wanted to wrap up by giving a platform to someone who isn’t quite as well-known.

I hadn’t heard of makeup artist Michele Shakeshaft prior to researching this piece, but after punching “Leonard Lauder” into the Instagram search bar, her page – The Style Shakeup – popped up. Here, Shakeshaft, who is affiliated with the Bobbi Brown brand, shared a cherished memory with her 4300 followers. She had the self-expressed “honor” of prepping Lauder for an onscreen appearance in Washington, DC, and loved every minute of it. “I was nervous when I arrived, but my nerves were calmed as soon as I walked in,” Shakeshaft recalled on Instagram. “He wouldn’t let me ask questions about him. He said, ‘You know enough about me, I want to learn about you.’ He was kind, funny, curious and gracious. The world has lost a people-first leader.”

An Anomaly In a Cutthroat World

Having had the good fortune to have interacted with Lauder on many occasions throughout my journalism career, I throw my own two cents in here. He was generous with his time and attention when meeting with me and my fellow beauty editors; at public events his deep love, admiration and delight for his first wife, Evelyn, was palpable.

But what matters, at the end of the day, is that Leonard Lauder may have broken the mold. In a business that’s not known for being especially warm and fuzzy, he was a wildly empathetic leader who nurtured both people and brands alike. Every CEO in America – make that the world – should take a page from his book.

Hailey Bieber Scores as e.l.f. Purchases Rhode

Dana Wood — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 04:01:00 +0000

Three short years – and post-pandemic ones, no less — that’s all the time it took Hailey Bieber and her team to build a Gen Z favorite, billion-dollar skincare and “hybrid” makeup brand and find a buyer. All the while, Glossier, the Selena Gomez-founded Rare Beauty and several other super-hyped industry darlings seeking exits couldn’t.

Bieber is retaining her roles as Rhode co-founder, chief brand officer and head of innovation, while also adding the title of strategic advisor to e.l.f. Beauty. The annals of beauty history are chock-a-block with brand founders who talked a big game about sticking around once their companies were bought, but eventually hit the bricks once the acquisition excitement wore off and the reality of a powerless future sank in.

You’ve got to wonder what the top guns at Merit and Kosas, two other beloved, skin-forward makeup brands that have reportedly also been deal-shopping, were thinking when news broke that the publicly traded, Oakland, California-headquartered e.l.f. Beauty snapped up Rhode.

Billion Dollar Payday

Under the terms of the agreement, e.l.f. will pay an initial $800 million for the Beverly Hills-anchored Rhode ($600 million in cash, $200 million in shares), with an additional $200 million earnout kicking in over the next three years if the brand continues to perform as it has since its 2022 debut.

But that’s the billion-dollar question, right? Will it continue to perform? For the moment, Bieber is retaining her roles as Rhode co-founder, chief brand officer and head of innovation, while also adding the title of strategic advisor to e.l.f. Beauty. The annals of beauty history are chock-a-block with brand founders who talked a big game about sticking around once their companies were bought, but eventually hit the bricks once the acquisition excitement wore off and the reality of a powerless future sank in.

Rhode’s Tiny (But Mighty) Product Portfolio

So just what is e.l.f. getting after ponying up so much coin? Certainly not a vast product portfolio built up over decades of R&D and firmly tested in the retail world. Nope, although it’s headed to Sephora in the U.S. and Canada this fall, Rhode is purely DTC and comprises a minuscule product portfolio, none of which exceeds $38. The lineup includes a handful of makeup offerings (Pocket Blush, Peptide Lip Tint, Peptide Lip Shape), skin beautifiers (Pineapple Refresh cleanser, Peptide Glazing Fluid, Glazing Milk, Barrier Restore Cream, Barrier Butter, Peptide Lip Treatments), one juggernaut ancillary (a Lip Case that houses both a phone and one of the brand’s Peptide Lip Treatments) and many, many duos and sets that parse and bundle that tiny cache of products every which way.

Rhode, which nods to Bieber’s middle name, is steeped in results-oriented, easy-to-understand science. Following a North Star of “edited, efficacious and intentional” products, it’s not about slavishly following a 10-step skincare routine or plunking down in front of the makeup mirror for a multi-step sesh.

Why so focused and streamlined? Because the Rhode girl is busy. The Rhode girl has lots and lots of Snapchats, TikToks and IG Reels to scan and get inspo from. And clearly, the brand capitalizes on trends Bieber ignited long before she even had her own line of products, namely the whole “glazed-donut skin” phenomenon. The former model and wife of troubled music wunderkind Justin has been a beauty junkie for years, with a popular “Who’s in My Bathroom?” YouTube channel and a brand ambassadorship with BareMinerals makeup dating all the way back to 2018.

Mega Social Clout Moves the Merch…for Now

Without question, Bieber is a singularly beautiful human – about as aspirational as aspirational gets. Factor in her starry family lineage (she’s the daughter of Stephen Baldwin and niece of Alec), wildly famous husband, stellar fashion sense and a BFF list packed with Kendall Jenner and both supermodel Hadid sisters (Gigi and Bella), she also has tremendous social media clout.

How big is her following? Try nearly 55 million on Instagram and another 15.4 million on TikTok. Numbers like these have helped generate $212 million in DTC-only sales – on the Rhode website and its TikTok and Instagram accounts — for the 12 months ended on March 21.

Still, as rosy as the Rhode picture looks now, there’s a cautionary tale in the form of Kylie Jenner that the upper management of e.l.f. would be wise to heed. Remember, in 2019 when Coty scooped up a 51% stake in Kylie Cosmetics for $600 million? That brand is currently a shadow of its former self, Jenner’s relationship with Hollywood It Boy Timothée Chalamet and 393 million Instagram followers (yes, you read that right: 393 million) notwithstanding. Kylie kinda crashed. Will Hailey too?

Way for e.l.f. to Save Some Fiscal Face?

Combing through my own personal writer archive for The Robin Report, I see that when I last weighed in on e.l.f. – in September 2023, just after it had snapped up the affordable-clean skincare brand Naturium for $355 million in cash and stock — it was in a highly enviable place. As in 18 straight quarters of growth at the time of publication.

Today, e.l.f., while still outperforming a good chunk of the market, isn’t quite the on-the-rise, wannabe mega-conglomerate it once was. Less than two years ago, it was leaning into clean and wellness with the acquisitions of Well People and Naturium, and the incubation of Keys Soulcare, a mind, body and spirit brand crafted in collaboration with 15-time Grammy winner Alicia Keys.

While Rhode doesn’t overtly market itself as clean, a term that has become increasingly meaningless, there’s definitely a wellness-centric, self-care vibe in the messaging. And for sure, whatever Bieber is communicating is resonating with Rhode customers; the handful of pop-ups the brand has staged in New York and L.A. have been packed to the rafters.

Without a doubt, e.l.f. Beauty chairman and CEO Tarang Amin is banking on a similarly stellar turnout as Rhode makes the leap to brick and mortar this fall. If and when that happens, e.l.f. Beauty’s own recent mini-decline will be less of a focus.

In a damning take on the corporation’s 18 percent dip in April and overall downward trajectory, Yahoo Finance described e.l.f.’s stock as “extremely volatile,” with 47 moves greater than five percent in the last year alone.

Although tariff proposals surely played a role in last month’s stock decline, an even bigger drop – 27.4 percent — occurred after e.l.f. disclosed disappointing fourth-quarter 2024 results. After the Rhode announcement, e.l.f. stock jumped in a positive direction for the first time in quite a while. Let’s hope, for Amin’s sake, that uptick takes.

Inside Beauty Product Recalls

Dana Wood — Wed, 14 May 2025 04:01:00 +0000

It’s 2025, summer is right around the corner and sun worshippers are about to slather “suntan lotion” all over their paler winter skin. So why is the known human carcinogen benzene still finding its way into myriad sunscreens lining American drugstore shelves? Further, why does benzene play a role in so many of the acne products U.S. citizens of all ages use to clear up pesky breakouts?

Chemical straighteners have contained formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen also responsible for nervous system disorders, respiratory problems and skin conditions, since as early as the 1920s. When combined with heat, as it always is when hair is chemically straightened, it’s toxic not only for the consumer but for the hairstylist administering the treatment as well.

Benzene Behind the Times

In short, blame the creaky old Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Instituted in 1938 (yes, you read that right – 87 years ago), prohibits the Food & Drug Administration from regulating beauty products, save for color additives, before they go to market.

After they go to market? All bets are off. And that’s what’s driving an uptick in recent beauty product recalls, including sunscreens and acne remedies laced with dangerously high levels of benzene, a chemical compound “intermediate” used to produce other chemicals (from dyes and rubber to plastics and pesticides); it’s also found naturally in forest fires and volcanoes. Previously, beauty product recalls were issued for dry shampoos and spray deodorants containing benzene. In fact, when that happened, in fall 2022, Unilever yanked a whopping 19 dry shampoos across its Nexxus, Dove and Tresemmé brands.

But more recently – as in the first quarter of this year – the beauty product recalls have mostly been centered around acne fixes. All contain benzoyl peroxide, which can evidently break down and morph, in a sinister fashion, into benzene. While the FDA actually allows a miniscule amount – two parts per million (2 ppm) – of benzene, Valisure, an independent research lab that does third-party safety testing on consumer goods, found levels up to 100 ppm and sounded the alarm.

Among the beauty product recalls cited are La Roche-Posay Effaclar Duo Acne Spot Treatment, Walgreens Acne Control Cleanser, Walgreens Tinted Acne Cream, Proactiv Emergency Blemish Relief Cream Benzoyl Peroxide 5%, Proactiv Skin Smoothing Exfoliator and SLMD Benzoyl Peroxide Acne Lotion.

Onus Is on Beauty Brands to Police Themselves

When cosmetics are recalled, it’s not as if the FDA rolls up to your local CVS with an empty box and sweeps the shelves. Rather, it puts the onus on the brands to do that while alerting consumers that the recall has been issued.

In some cases, isolated batches of particular products will get contaminated forcing a voluntary recall. That’s the case with Gen Z favorite Drunk Elephant, which recently had to scoop up close to 100,000 units of its Beste No. 9 Jelly Cleanser, Protini Polypeptide Cream and Lala Sample Packettes of multiple products.

Another Gen Z-beloved brand – Summer Fridays – got firmly in front of a recall situation on social media. After multiple accounts of redness and irritation caused by its Jet Lag Mask began surfacing online, the brand took to Instagram to offer full refunds and share the news that the product is being reformulated without essential oils. The brand also vowed to establish “new, more stringent manufacturing protocols using OTC-level guidelines to ensure each step in the manufacturing process is carefully monitored and checked for full compliance and adherence to our high standards.”

Disproportionate Toll on Black Women

If only the makers of chemical hair straighteners – not to mention the FDA — were as invested in consumer safety as Summer Fridays. In its excellent and thoroughly alarming two-part investigation, “Dereliction of Beauty,” the watchdog publication Inside Climate News delves into the literally deadly ways Black women have been underserved by America’s all but nonexistent cosmetic regulation.

Specifically, Inside Climate News takes aim at formaldehyde, a star ingredient in a massive chunk of the chemical relaxers Black women have relied on for decades to present a pop culture-defined more palatable and “business-like” version of their natural coils. I strongly urge everyone to read this investigative report in its entirety but allow me to topline the issue at hand.

Chemical straighteners have contained formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen also responsible for nervous system disorders, respiratory problems and skin conditions, since as early as the 1920s. When combined with heat, as it always is when hair is chemically straightened, it’s toxic not only for the consumer but for the hairstylist administering the treatment as well.

Way back in 1987, the Environmental Protection Agency sounded the alarm about formaldehyde. This was followed by a damning study by the International Agency for Cancer Research – an arm of the World Health Organization – a year later. Flash forward to 2025 and the FDA still has not banned formaldehyde in chemical relaxers. If that doesn’t tell you we’re largely on our own in all this, I don’t know what does.

The Potential RFK Jr Effect?

It’s become almost a cliché, if not comical, to compare the number of banned cosmetic ingredients in the EU (ranging from 100 to 2400, depending on your source) with the U.S. (11). Tasked by President Donald Trump to “go wild on health,” it will be interesting to see when – or even if – the newly appointed United States Secretary of Health and Human Services will turn his attention to the beauty industry.

In broad strokes, Kennedy is anecdotally anti-pharma. One wonders what he might make of the cosmetics industry’s biggest lobbying body, the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC), which is known to fiercely protect Big Beauty from excessive ingredient and manufacturing oversight. At first blush, PCPC seems like exactly the kind of group Kennedy would have a big, big problem with. And given his fixation with ingredients he deems toxic, formaldehyde-laced hair relaxers just might be headed for the scrap heap.

MoCRA: A Small Step in the Right Direction

Passed by Congress in 2022, MoCRA (Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act) was heralded as a huge step up from the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. But how effective is it when it still doesn’t require the beauty industry to ban – or even require consumer notification of – egregious ingredients like parabens and phthalates?

Upping the count on banned ingredients wasn’t necessarily the point of MoCRA, rather, its chief goals are to widen the purview of the FDA regarding manufacturing oversight, to boost transparency regarding potentially allergenic masking fragrances and to institute standardized product-testing processes, for, say asbestos in talc.

As for troublesome ingredients, it looks like we’ll all need to continue to be diligent label-scrutinizers for the foreseeable future. Consumers will have to assert their personal power to search for “recalled cosmetic products” on a regular basis. Vigilance may prove to be the best self-defense.

Milan’s Amazon Beauty Store: Test-Run or Opening Salvo?

Dana Wood — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 05:01:00 +0000

Between its widely heralded digital push into prestige beauty in the U.S. and a gleaming new storefront on the heavily trafficked Piazzale Cadorna in Milan, with a store brimming with dermatology-centric skincare brands à la La Roche-Posay, Vichy and Avène, Amazon Beauty is firing on multiple cylinders. But the question is: Why now? What is Amazon seeing in its crystal ball that’s making it so bullish on physical store beauty?

Given that a good chunk of the industrialized world opens the front doors of its homes and sees at least one Amazon package parked on the front steps, the Amazon logo has become ubiquitous. However, perched at the front door of the new Milan store, the Amazon logo just looks…a little down-market and utilitarian.

Dubbed Amazon Parafarmacia & Beauty, the store features “technology-enhanced shopping” alongside pro consultation services. There’s also a fully operating onsite pharmacy, so customers can stock up on non-prescription meds and vitamin supplements after they’ve finished shopping for crow’s feet-zapping eye cream.

Amazon Beauty, Prelude to a Rollout

In a statement, Giorgio Busnelli, VP of consumer goods at Amazon Europe, noted that the doctor-brand product assortment featured in the Milan outpost will be mirrored, albeit online only, in staggered digital rollouts in Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. Brands including Eucerin, CeraVe, Bionike and Relastil will be steadily available online in a big chunk of Europe.

So that’s evidently stage one — breaking these brands, digitally, into new markets. Of course, it’s not like the French-origin La Roche-Posay, Vichy and Avène aren’t already available in virtually every pharmacy in Europe. And Bionike, Relastil and CeraVe are readily available through Amazon in Germany.

“We’ve designed this store to bring us one step closer to our customers and deliver an innovative experience, merging cutting-edge technology with expert advice,” said Busnelli. “This broadened selection reflects our dedication to meet the needs of our customers, both at our physical store in Milan and online in Europe.”

If you’re wondering why Amazon Beauty opted for Milan for its first beauty and pharmacy outpost instead of tourist magnets Paris or London, maybe the idea was to embed itself in a bustling metropolis. Yes, Milan is a world capital of fashion, but it’s also home to booming finance, media and graphic design industries.

There’s a lot going on there year-round and a massive market of Milanese residents in need of quality skincare and pharmaceuticals who are positive about Amazon. According to Statistica, in 2023, Italian shoppers had a positive perception of Amazon. Online shoppers assigned a score of 7.3 out of 10 for the broad product offering on the marketplace, while they also appreciated the cheap prices (6.2 score points).

But still, Amazon is notorious for testing physical retail and pulling the plug when it doesn’t work. A test in Milan isn’t exactly on the global beauty radar.

Once You Get Past the Logo, It Looks Bright and Shiny

Given that a good chunk of the industrialized world opens the front doors of its homes and sees at least one Amazon package parked on the front steps, the Amazon logo has become ubiquitous. And on that logo, there are a lot of opinions about what it represents, but the Amazon line is that it is a smile conveying customer satisfaction. However, perched at the front door of the new Milan store, the Amazon logo just looks…a little down-market and utilitarian.

The sparkly glass doors lure customers into a space that looks to be all about bright and shiny drugstore design with white walls, bright lighting and a lot of electronic signage. Featuring a Main Gallery with digital-display product and ingredient learning stations, a “derma-bar” stocked with a selection of the doctor brands where customers can receive a digitally delivered skin analysis, and the pharmacist-manned supplements section, it looks like a jacked-up, Bezos-money version of a traditional European pharmacy.

So, Why Does It All Sound a Little CVS?

I haven’t been to this splashy new concept shop, so I’m framing my highly unsolicited opinion of Amazon Parafarmacia & Beauty on pure hunches. But based on the pictures and descriptions, I have to say I’m getting “CVS in America” vibes. Though the CVS near me, in St. Petersburg, Florida is modestly sized, it has a fairly decent beauty department featuring a well-lit designated area for its marquee-name “dermo” skincare brand, La Roche-Posay.

Our TRR colleague Glyn Atwal visited the store in Milan and reports, “The store is located not in a luxury shopping district but in the vicinity of the busy Cadorna train station. And let’s be clear, this is not a prestige flagship store experience. The store could be a small pharmacy in any French town that is the place to pick up medications and buy a range of beauty and personal care products. So, Amazon’s positioning for this new venture remains unclear. Is it a drugstore, a beauty retailer, or a dermatology service?”

Atwal goes on to share, “Amazon is smart to focus on skincare. It is a rapidly growing segment where personalization is shaping the future of the beauty industry. Sales staff wear white lab coats, creating an impression of clinical expertise. However, this feels somewhat staged. While the coats are free of Amazon branding, will consumers buy into this theatrical approach?

The selection of brands is quite limited and those seeking luxury skincare or exciting new challenger brands may find themselves disappointed. Is the retail experience memorable? Not particularly. Amazon can do better to leverage technology to create a truly immersive beauty experience—an area where it holds a potentially distinct advantage over incumbents.”

A First Crack at Masstige, à la Ulta?

It’s the high/low mix at the new Amazon Beauty store that has me a bit stumped. The major digital push Amazon has been making into prestige beauty in the U.S. also feels like a disconnect. As hard as Amazon has tried to maintain the look and feel of legendary, visually distinctive brands like Kiehl’s and Clinique in its online storefronts it hasn’t quite gotten there.

The Milan store seems equally neither here nor there. Atwal adds, “Does Amazon have the expertise to compete in the beauty industry? Innovation and technology could set it apart, but for the world’s largest online retailer, this remains a work in progress. There were no price promotions or discounts, which may support Amazon’s desired positioning but contradict what consumers typically expect from the brand.

For Amazon Beauty to succeed in Europe, it must adapt to each market’s unique beauty DNA. For instance, Germany’s beauty market is more value-driven, with luxury beauty accounting for just 25 percent of the overall beauty and personal care sector, compared to 36 percent in the U.S.”

But this is deep-pockets-Amazon we’re talking about. If any company can afford to take a flyer on a concept that might not work, it’s Amazon.

Meet Kecia Steelman: Ulta Beauty’s New CEO

Dana Wood — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 05:01:00 +0000

We’re in for an Ulta Beauty regime change. Kecia Steelman picks up where Dave Kimbell left off as new CEO. In a nothing-if-not utterly efficient and forward-thinking move, Ulta Beauty wasted zero time in seamlessly updating the “Investors” section of its website to reflect the seismic shift that kicked off 2025: outgoing CEO Dave Kimbell would be replaced by incoming president and CEO Kecia Steelman. Yes, Steelman had already logged a decade at the publicly traded beauty retail behemoth, all but ensuring a smooth handover, but Kimbell’s stellar track record will no doubt cast a long shadow.

While coming off a recent mega-hit – a multi-branded collection themed around box office smash Wicked – as well as a better-than-expected holiday season, Steelman will face several early challenges in her first year in her new job.

Kimball Hit It Out of the Park

While the highlight reel of Kimbell’s achievements throughout his 11-year tenure is extensive, this factoid especially stands out: in a highly competitive market, in which the beauty consumer has no shortage of both physical and digital venues to shop, Ulta grew to more than $11 billion in annual revenue and delivered double-digit growth in diluted earnings per share. This beat the goal the company set for itself in 2021 – to reach $10 billion by 2024 – by a hefty margin.

How did Ulta Beauty, the largest beauty retailer in America, pull this off on Kimbell’s watch? By carefully architecting a truly distinctive value proposition. With nearly 1400 stores across the U.S., a unique high/low assortment of prestige and mass products, a huge selection of hair and skincare devices and in-store salons offering services ranging from blowouts and facials to lash extensions and ear piercings, Ulta truly does, as it says in its own words, offer “all things beauty, all in one place.”

Disruption Was the Goal from Day One

At his last “Investor Day” presentation this past October, Kimbell and his team rightfully patted themselves on the back for being way ahead of the curve on multiple fronts, including inclusivity and a member loyalty program that’s second to none.

Claiming it got the ball rolling on “beauty for all” way back in 1990, Ulta’s inclusivity push obviously began long before Kimbell arrived in 2014. But during his tenure, Kimbell’s team not only continued to center a diverse clientele encompassing Hispanic, Black and Asian customers, but it also amped-up its roster of Black-owned brands. After committing to the 15 Percent Pledge, it more than doubled its lineup from 2021 to 2022, jumping from 13 to 28 black-owned brands.

And as for loyalty members, how does 44 million sound? That’s a lot of eyeballs on Ulta’s 25,000 products, spread out over more than 600 brands, 300+ of which fall under the retailer’s “Conscious Beauty” banner. Although “clean” has lost its luster, and there’s far less traction around brands that are sustainable, cruelty-free and crafted with fewer egregious ingredients than there was a few years ago, Ulta remains committed to that cause.

Throwing a Spotlight on the Associates

Like every super-successful retail honcho, Kimbell knew a massive chunk of Ulta’s bottom line was, and is, driven by its sales associates. Yes, getting the product assortment right is key – and increasingly tricky in these trend-a-second, TikTok-driven times. Deciding where to plant the flag, location wise, has also been challenging for Ulta, particularly with Sephora and Bluemercury nipping at its heels. The LVMH-owned Sephora has 574 American stores, and Bluemercury, which was acquired by Macy’s, Inc., in 2015, is up to roughly 180 here in the States.

While fending off the competition, Kimbell successfully nurtured his 50,000+ bench of associates. And in the January press release announcing his departure, he drew focus to these well-trained individuals. In addition to praising Steelman as a “strategic leader with a proven record of driving operational excellence,” Kimbell nodded to his gratitude for the motivated workers on the front lines. “Serving as CEO of Ulta Beauty has been the highlight of my career, and I am proud to have led and worked alongside so many associates who are passionate about delivering great experiences for our guests,” he said.

Steelman’s Steady Management Climb

Yes, Steelman has big shoes to fill, but she’s more than up to the challenge. Hailing from a background that included stints at Family Dollar, Home Depot and Target, Steelman joined Ulta in 2014 as SVP of store operations and ascended to chief store operations officer just a year later. By 2023, Steelman was promoted to president and COO, tasked with managing corporate strategy, operations and supply chain.

Without question, the biggest feather in Steelman’s cap – so far, at least – is the partnership deal she brokered with Target in 2022. Through 500 Ulta shops-in-shop, Steelman is responsible for introducing trendy, coveted brands to Target, including Ouai haircare, Fenty Beauty and the Gen Z-beloved The Ordinary.

Clouds Looming on Steelman’s Horizon

While coming off a recent mega-hit – a multi-branded collection themed around box office smash Wicked – as well as a better-than-expected holiday season, Steelman will face several early challenges in her first year in her new job.

For starters, a certain digital behemoth (cough, cough…Amazon) is gaining traction in prestige, the healthier of the two core product sectors in beauty. Is there any comparison between the all-senses, “discovery” vibe of shopping at Ulta for luxury beauty and the blah, click-and-add-to-cart Amazon experience? Absolutely not. But you can’t underestimate how much convenience can play into a shopper’s mindset, even for goodies like premium skincare, fragrance and makeup.

Another big issue for Steelman, as well as everyone else in the business of selling beauty, is that the category as a whole is not expected to post the gains it’s seen in the last few years. Yes, mass beauty is doing worse than prestige. But, per Ulta’s own research, neither category is predicted to achieve growth of more than low-to-mid single digits between now and 2027. Compared to 2022, which saw gains of more than 12 percent, slow growth has to sting, even if it’s an industry-wide problem.

Maybe it’s time for Steelman and company to look beyond U.S. borders. Yes, Ulta Beauty has a distinctly American feel, but that doesn’t mean its core raison d’être – All Things Beauty, All in One Place – isn’t exportable. True beauty lovers can never get enough, and take it from me, to ease into an Ulta chair for a DermaRadiance Facial right after splashing out on Peach & Lily Glass Skin Refining Serum or The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 Hydrating Serum with Ceramides sounds like a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Estée Lauder CEO Succession Drama

Dana Wood — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Hear that thud? It’s the other shoe, dropping. One day after a barrage of reports hit the airwaves, Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) confirmed that it has handed Stéphane de la Faverie the top job. In ascending from Executive Group President to President and CEO, de La Faverie will replace the outgoing – and increasingly beleaguered – Fabrizio Freda, and effectively leap-frog over granddaughter and second-largest ELC family stakeholder Jane Lauder. It’s a story of the Estée Lauder CEO succession drama.

De la Faverie is staring down a bloated brand portfolio in serious need of pruning. For every Deciem, there’s a GLAMGLOW. And while the Tom Ford Beauty brand – which sprang to life at ELC – remains a stunningly crafted bright spot for the corporation, do they seriously have any idea how to run the fashion side? After plunking down a cool $2.8B, let’s hope so.

Come January, de la Faverie will segue from managing a sizeable slate of brands (Estée Lauder, AERIN, Jo Malone London and the edgier Deciem, Le Labo and Kilian Paris) to steering a massive, nearly $16B, publicly traded portfolio that includes all of the aforementioned brands plus the baked in-house Clinique and Origins plus an unwieldy assortment of acquisitions ranging from powerhouses MAC and Bobbi Brown to the once-buzzy but fading Smashbox and Too Faced. Oh, and the Tom Ford fashion business, too, while he’s at it.

Working Straight Up the Ranks

De la Faverie, who logged nine years at L’Oréal – most recently as General Manager of Giorgio Armani Beauty USA — before landing at Lauder in 2011 as Senior Vice President and Global Brand President overseeing Aramis and designer fragrances, has been on a steady upward trajectory at the beauty behemoth.

Taken under Freda’s wing, de la Faverie moved up the ranks. In 2016, he was tasked with reviving the past-its-prime Estée Lauder brand, a position he took to with gusto. Embracing digital-first and data-led marketing, de la Faverie achieved the seemingly impossible: widening the customer base to include even Gen Z.

Somewhat boldly, the official press release surrounding de la Faverie’s ascension to President and CEO also points out the success he had attracting Chinese customers to the Estée Lauder brand. Given how much Freda has been bashed for betting the farm on China, it’s a wonder the ELC in-house PR team would even go there.

Still, this is the honeymoon phase, and there’s no question that the tri-lingual de la Faverie is a man of the world. Routinely praised for his collaborative approach to problem-solving and his firm grasp on global markets, not to mention his Midas touch with the industry’s new favorite category – fragrance – de la Faverie was well-poised to emerge as the front-runner for one of the biggest, most coveted jobs in beauty.

A Top Family Contender Is Pushed Aside

For Jane Lauder, who has held numerous high-profile jobs at the family firm and reportedly owns a 6 percent/$1.7B stake, the appointment of Faverie to the CEO spot must truly sting. Just days before it was formally announced, Lauder, Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Enterprise Marketing said she would step down but remain on the board.

The younger of Estée Lauder’s two billionaire granddaughters, Jane was – is – all business. While the unimpeachably glamorous Aerin carved out an artsier path at ELC, first as Creative Director of the flagship brand and later purveyor of all manner of chic lifestyle merch under her own name, Jane hopped straight into the trenches. She has served as Global Brand President for both Origins and Clinique and as recently as this past July, was named as a co-leader of ELC’s profit recovery plan, alongside de la Faverie.

At First Blush, The Emphasis on China Looked Brilliant

And about that profit recovery plan… While there are two main forces working firmly against the brands in the ELC portfolio, namely the near obliteration of department stores and the collapse of the Chinese consumer market, it’s the latter that Freda is most readily associated with.

In its initial stages, Freda’s bullish bet on China paid off in spades, helping to boost ELC stock to a record $300+ in 2021. That’s quite the leap from where it was sitting in 2009 at $20 per share when Freda joined ELC after a long run at P&G. More recently, it was hovering around $92 dollars in August, although there was a slight positive spike when it was announced de la Faverie would be stepping into the top job.

The Challenges Ahead for de la Faverie

Of course, there’s more to the equation than just department stores in decline and an anemic, post-Covid Asian market. Thanks to the oh-so-acquisitive Freda, de la Faverie is staring down a bloated brand portfolio in serious need of pruning. For every Deciem, there’s a GLAMGLOW. And while the Tom Ford Beauty brand – which sprang to life at ELC – remains a stunningly crafted bright spot for the corporation, do they seriously have any idea how to run the fashion side? After plunking down a cool $2.8B, let’s hope so.

But lensing out to the bigger picture, TikTok-besotted beauty consumers are getting less brand loyal by the day. With attention spans ground down to mere seconds, it’s harder and harder for massive machines like ELC to make a dent.

Can they do it? There’s certainly the manpower, although one piece of the current ELC profit recovery plan is to slash five percent of the workforce, or roughly 1300 jobs.

Still, there have been recent viral hits coming out of ELC, like the rediscovery of Clinique’s legendary Black Honey Almost Lipstick by young enthusiasts, which the brand has smartly spun off into an entire Black Honey franchise.

To really nail success in his new job, Stéphane de la Faverie will need to come up with a Black Honey equivalent in each and every one of his brands – and then do that over and over and over again.

Discount Prestige Beauty at TJ Maxx Is on Fire

Dana Wood — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

There’s a shift in the elitist cosmetics business, powering an uptick in sales of prestige beauty at TJ Maxx and their sister brands. As we approach the business finale of 2024, myriad YouTube “haul videos” are documenting the phenomenon. In fact, the growing popularity of shopping for prestige beauty at off-price behemoths TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Ross are dramatized by such videos, which I reviewed in rapid succession.

It’s no secret that Gen Z is positively besotted with fragrance, and by shopping off-price, they’re able to add to their ever-expanding scent collections at a fraction of what they’d pay at a traditional retailer.

According to research firm Circana, prestige beauty sales in off-price retailers are growing “modestly.” But considering the fact that the U.S. prestige beauty category is currently outstripping mass – experiencing an 8 percent leap in the first half of 2024 alone, climbing to $15.3B — even a modest increase means big, big bucks.

Field Trips to Off-Price Beauty Wonderlands

Led by my charming 28-year-old, Pennsylvania-based sherpa JuicyJas (1.1 million YouTube subscribers), who never met an early aughts fragrance she doesn’t like, I was taken on multiple virtual video field trips and gleaned considerable inside intel from this beauty influencer.

For starters, I learned that while there are beaucoup beauty bargains to be had, shoppers will have to work for them. In some stores, pretty much every single prestige SKU — right down to a single lipstick — is encased in sealed acrylic boxes. Interestingly, in a novel twist, this byproduct of our looting-spree modern lives is actually welcomed by some customers. Why? Because it keeps the products in pristine condition. No torn packaging means no grubby fingers sampling the merch. And who wants a mauled-over beauty self-reward?

Other stores opt for locked cabinets to prevent theft, forcing customers to signal a staffer for assistance. In a quaint form of customer service, once the customer has decided that, yes, she really does want to nab that bottle of Fantasy by Britney Spears, the staffer attaches a sticky note with her name on it and parks it behind the register. As long as the customer remembers to scoop it up at checkout – no mean feat for hardcore shoppers who can spend hours sifting through all those bargain goodies — she’s good to go.

Forget Replenishment, It’s All About the Treasure Hunt

The M.O. of all off-price shopping paradises is the thrill of discovery. So, there is an art to the chase. Something else I learned from JuicyJas? There are no guarantees in the off-price prestige beauty retail world, so you have to act fast. In other words, just because you spot a unicorn-rare two-pack of Kiehl’s Clearly Corrective Dark Spot Dark Solution doesn’t mean you’ll find it there again. “I’ve never seen Kiehl’s at Ross,” JuicyJas gasped in one of her videos. And she may never again, depending on which of the 1,775 U.S. Ross stores she frequents.

Although a particular prestige beauty item may be purchased in relative bulk by TJX, parent of TJMaxx and Marshalls, and sprinkled among a handful of close proximity stores, the likelihood of finding it on a repeat visit is low. That makes relying on off-price retailers for a steady stream of your favorite prestige beauty basics, particularly skincare, virtually impossible. But it does ensure that customers return repeatedly to snare that surprise must-have beauty necessity. As pragmatists, just rejoice in a one-off score of a three-piece Ole Henriksen Let’s Get Luminous Brightening Skincare Set and move on to the next.

From Paris Hilton to Elizabeth Taylor, “Nostalgia” Celeb Scents Thrive Here

It’s no secret that Gen Z is positively besotted with fragrance, and by shopping off-price, they’re able to add to their ever-expanding scent collections at a fraction of what they’d pay at a traditional retailer. Not that they’d probably even be able to find, say, nine-year-old Ari by Ariana Grande at their local Macy’s or Saks Fifth Avenue, where it’s all about inventory-churn and new, new, new.

Much like the in-person experience of shopping at off-price retailers, venturing online can yield very random, no-rhyme-or-reason offerings, particularly in scent. On Marshalls.com right now, for instance, there are just 26 options in the fragrance category. Still, alongside a few brands I’d never heard of, there are some gems, including Viktor & Rolf Flower Bomb, Coach Poppy, Jimmy Choo Rose Passion and Burberry Touch – all heavily discounted and destined for Impulse Purchase status.

Consumers Are Doing Their “Batch Code” Homework

On one of the many Reddit off-price retail beauty boards I routinely scan, it became clear that there’s more than a little concern among consumers regarding the efficacy – and even safety — of some of the dust-covered potential treasures that wind up on these stores’ shelves.

While some products are clearly marked with expiration dates, that is certainly not the case for all. Fortunately, shoppers have become pretty savvy at finding workarounds, including using apps that can verify batch codes and corresponding product expiration dates, on the spot. If they’ve purchased online, and have not actually opened the product, they can typically return it if a batch code reveals it’s past its prime.

And speaking of online…although Ross is a digital-free zone and sells zero merch DTC, I found the beauty offerings for TJMaxx and Marshalls to be pretty comprehensive. In particular, the “Designer Beauty” section of Marshalls.com is a goldmine, and even offers a handful of SKUs from ultra-prestige brands I was literally shocked to see, such as Augustinus Bader, 111Skin, Sisley and Byredo.

Maybe It’s Time for Intentional Marketing?

If the customer is there – and she clearly is – and traditional retail is struggling, it might be time for prestige beauty manufacturers to make a committed, cohesive plan for selling off-price. Maybe instead of just punting the discontinued or last-season merch, why not dig into the numbers, find out what’s really moving at off-price and funnel in more of the same? This discovery process may even lead to a decision to bring back a much-beloved product – in several of the JuicyJas videos, she was overjoyed to find a few discontinued products, including an Elf blush in the brand’s original minimalist black packaging. Just because it’s gone, it’s not forgotten.

On the retail side, well-trained and dedicated beauty personnel would not only help cut down on theft but would also, without question, boost sales. From my own personal experience shopping these stores and uncreepily spying and eavesdropping on consumers, along with all my YouTube recon, it’s clear there are wildly beauty-literate humans shopping these shelves. Why not serve them what they want? Time to come down from the Ivory Tower and reach a new shopper base eager to become a loyal customer.