Dive Brief:
- Wellness and beauty brand The Skinny Confidential Friday launched its first nationwide retail partnership in store with 93 Nordstrom full-line locations, per a release sent to Retail Dive.
- The brand debuted its ice roller and facial oil in-store at Nordstrom. Three additional products are offered at the retailer’s online store: a shave cream, shave razor, and sleeping bag, which serves as a mobile pouch used to store the ice roller.
- The Skinny Confidential’s beauty brand launched in 2021 with over $1 million in seed funding.
Dive Insight:
The Skinny Confidential’s tie-up with Nordstrom helps the brand expand its distribution and reach new customers.
As this is its first rollout with a national retailer, the company had to significantly ramp up its manufacturing, CEO and founder Lauryn Bosstick said in an email to Retail Dive.
Launching The Skinny Confidential at Nordstrom felt like the ideal fit, Bosstick said. While Nordstrom’s net sales were down 8.3% for Q2, beauty was up by low-single digits.
“Nordstrom hits all the spots,” Bosstick said. “It's nostalgic, warm and fuzzy, but at the same time fresh, youthful and on the pulse. Personally, it’s one of my favorite department stores, but more than that it's also been our community's go-to. The retail partnership is incredibly synergistic — the tools are meant to be in the beauty department. I mean, there's nothing better than a Nordstrom silver box during the holidays.”
Prior to its launch with Nordstrom, the brand has been selling on Amazon, its own website and a handful of independent retailers. The Skinny Confidential, which is privately held, projects its sales to “exceed eight figures” by year’s end, according to Bosstick.
The entrepreneurial Bosstick left a job as a bartender in San Diego to launch The Skinny Confidential beauty and lifestyle blog in 2010. The company in 2016 launched a podcast of the same name.
The idea to launch her own line of beauty and wellness products came about after Bosstick was recovering from jaw surgery and experiencing a lot of pain. “After experimenting with some different practices to reduce my swelling, I found that ice helped the most. The problem was I couldn’t find an ice roller that stayed cold for a long time and didn’t break after a few weeks. So I set out to create one from scratch,” Bosstick said, adding that the brand’s community of consumers, readers and listeners “helped every step of the way. From textures, to colors, to feedback, they’ve been imperative to the evolution of The Skinny Confidential product line.”
In addition to The Skinny Confidential’s products available at Nordstrom, the brand this year launched two more products as part of a category expansion — driving gloves and a body sculptor — that are currently offered exclusively on the company’s website.
