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This week Target is making headlines yet again. The big beauty news is that as of next month, you can drop hundreds of dollars on a Dyson Supersonic Travel or add the latest Boy Smells fragrance to your cart as part of its new Target Beauty Studio. It’s a 1,600-product strong initiative ranging 90 different brands, which will roll out to over 600 stores. But in the midst of reporting on this Allure-worthy update, another controversy started to pick up steam, perhaps overshadowing its big beauty revival.
Target is dealing with some fierce backlash over a Halloween costume it sold, and its resemblance to racist imagery and stereotypes. Unfortunately, Target isn’t a stranger to this type of mire. This drama comes on the heels of two years’ worth of vocal boycotts over their DE&I and Pride rollbacks—after the company made diversity-related pledges following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. The retailer swiftly issued an apology and pulled that costume from its website. And in talking to the beauty team, Target still seems bullish on bringing higher-priced items to its aisles.
“This really is our platform for prestige beauty,” says Amanda Nusz, senior vice president of merchandising, essentials and beauty at Target when speaking of the new beauty studio. “A lot of time and energy has been spent with the consumer working on what we believe is going to make us compelling in our next chapter of beauty.” She’s thinking of the initiative as a way to tap into shoppers’ desires for products they hadn’t seen, touched, or tried before. “This allows us to curate an assortment and an experience that allows people to explore beauty in more inspiring spaces.”
This isn’t the first time that Target has dabbled in premium beauty. In 2021, the retailer landed a shop-in-shop partnership with Ulta Beauty that brought brands like The Ordinary, MAC Cosmetics and Urban Decay to hundreds of stores across America. However, that partnership ended earlier this year and the Target Beauty Studio is the next step, with a greater emphasis on skin care and hair care.
More than two-thirds of the brands included are new to Target. In hair care, you’ll see Paul Mitchell alongside Dyson, Joico and IGK. Skin alone comprises over 30 of the brands, and those brands range from Doré and Mario Badescu to Shark’s skin tools and Tula. Fragrance is getting Billie Eilish, Coach, and Ariana Grande, and you’ll be able to find body and nail brands like Maude, Voesh, and Buff Beauty.
The studio will span 600-plus stores and will be used for eventing. “There will be a minis destination, a fragrance mini bar, what’s trending, our hero items, all of that through the lens of curation and thinking through what we can bring our guests,” Nusz explains.
With that in mind, the retailer is training its employees sharply in the new wave of inventory, and plans to host events in the stores as well. “We’ve been adding more and more events on weekends at Target. We hear all the time that Target is the place where you go to get things done, but it’s also your happy place,” Nusz says. Her goal is to make it more fun to browse, wander, and learn about the existing assortment in a more playful and imaginative way, so it feels more candy store than grocery store.
For Target, it’s also an opportunity to bring more founder-led brands into the fold.
For example, it marks the first time Glamazon Beauty will be in stores with a Target-exclusive lineup alongside bestsellers, and founder Kim Baker is confident her shopper is there. “She’s like me. She’s a busy mom, or a businesswoman, or a wife. She’s of a certain age. I look at my base now, and she’s skin-conscious, but she’s wise with her money,” she says. “I talk to other women because I get a lot of them in my makeup chair. They say the same thing. Even when the boycott that happened, so many women were like, ‘Oh my God, I miss going into Target.’”
Reaching more people seemed to be a big part of the appeal for the brands, despite all that Target has been through of late. “We are premium, but we also want to democratize it,” says Dawn Hilarczyk, COO of Borghese Roma. “For Borghese, the brand is 70 years old and yet still new to so many people. I felt Target is the perfect intersection to democratize beauty and premium beauty.”
It’s also an opportunity for brands to capitalize on Target’s relationship with its beauty shopper. “They have trust with their beauty consumer. They also have an elevated environment for discovery in what they’re planning to do,” says Courtney Somer, founder of Lake & Skye, which debuted a new set of products in its new scent, 222, for the partnership. “There’s just a strong alignment between Target and Lake & Skye, in terms of accessibility, descoverability, and the experience that we’re looking to provide. It feels like the right place for us to expand.”
It’s true that 600 more points of sale is, by definition, making prestige beauty more accessible. After the retailer’s continued blunders, whether or not this premium beauty experience will entice customers who turned away from Target is another question.
