Sephora lands exclusive with rising beauty brand Skin Laundry

Dive Brief:

Sephora has lined up an exclusive sales partnership with Skin Laundry, a company that specializes in a laser and light skin therapy services, as well as related beauty products for use at home.
Products available immediately online through Sephora.com and later this week in Sephora stores include Skin Laundry’s Gentle Foaming Face Wash, named one of the Best Beauty Products of 2016 by British Vogue; Essential Daily Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF35, for acne-prone skin; the SleepCycle Pillowcase; and the Good Housekeeping-approved Hydrating Radiance Facial Treatment Mask.
Skin Laundry, synonymous with its branded “15-Minute Laser + Light Facial” service, opened its flagship beauty clinic in Santa Monica, CA, in 2013, and now has 16 locations in Southern California, Scottsdale, AZ, New York City, London and Hong Kong.

Dive Insight:

This partnership appears to be a case of Sephora giving an emerging, much-lauded beauty brand some help expanding its market footprint, and getting in front of more consumers.

But Sephora isn’t just being nice to a brand that can use its locations and notoriety as a springboard. The retailer gets to be the exclusive retail channel for one of the hottest emerging brands in the beauty sector: On top of its other laurels, Skin Laundry was named a startup to watch in 2017 by Fast Company.

Skin Laundry also has been called “Drybar for facials.” Drybar is another recent hot startup that only offers one service — blowouts (which we assume has nothing to do with flat tires in this context), along with its own brand of hair dryers and related products. This is also worth noting because one of the retailers at which Drybar sells its blow dryers and other products is Sephora (though not exclusively, as it also last year aligned with Ulta Beauty.)

So, we’re seeing Sephora actively lining up with some high-ceiling startups to help its own cause. This is important as beauty continues to be a dependable growth segment within retail, and especially significant as other retailers like Nordstrom are trying to compete with Sephora's success.