Sephora is making a strong statement that mass-market chains and beauty supply stores shouldn’t have a stranglehold on the textured haircare category with new displays spotlighting textured haircare brands in 75 locations.
“Sephora is investing in haircare in a big way this year in hopes of becoming synonymous as a haircare destination,” says Maeva Heim, founder of Bread Beauty Supply, one of the brands with bestsellers featured in the displays. “We are thrilled to be a part of Sephora’s haircare offering and to be able to provide our most loved products for textured, curly and wavy hair.”
Along with Bread, the displays erected in stores last month contain products from the brands Adwoa, Curlsmith and Mizani. “It’s valuable to have a curated space for this assortment in places like Sephora,” says Julian Addo, founder of Adwoa. “This also helps drive awareness and education not only for the client, but for store employees as well. I am excited to see how this will advance the category.”
Germaine Bolds-Leftridge, a retail broker and founder of the skincare brand I KNOW, explains Sephora has been slow to embrace textured haircare consumers. As a result, she says it’s “not the first ‘go-to’ retailer for most Black beauty enthusiasts.” Soft Rows founder Quani Burnett, a participant in Sephora’s 2024 Accelerate program for emerging brands, agrees with Bolds-Leftridge that Black beauty shoppers have traditionally looked elsewhere to address their haircare needs.
Burnett, who’s developing Soft Rows, a brand aimed at people with textured hair slated to launch later this year, says, “When a Black woman walks into Sephora, she’s going to buy all of the Black-owned skincare and body brands and then, when she gets to the hair aisle, she’s probably going to go to the beauty supply store because she knows that those products are going to work on her hair.”
Across retail chains in the United States, Romina Brown, CEO and president of category management firm Strategic Solutions International, estimates the textured haircare category generates $1.3 billion in sales. She figures beauty specialty stores like Ulta Beauty and Sephora account for roughly 6% of those sales. Mass and drugstore were among early segments to cater to textured haircare consumers.
“Sephora’s decision to add new brand entrants in their display is reminiscent of Target’s strategy in 2015,” says Brown. “That shift in the retail landscape has allowed for a wider embrace of textured haircare brands.” Regarding Sephora’s dedicated textured haircare displays space, Brown continues, “As consumers continue to seek solutions, this could be a good proposition for Sephora.”
Margarita Arriagada, former chief merchant at Sephora and founder of luxury makeup brand Valdé, says she views the displays as the retailer’s way of “putting stake in the ground to further level up their impact to reinforce their customer and assist them with navigation.” She elaborates, “Personally, I applaud this effort as I know from a more macro perspective, this has been an opportunity in retail overall.”
Sephora’s textured haircare displays are coming at a time when high-end haircare is thriving. Per market research firm Circana, U.S. prestige beauty sales increased 14% to reach $31.7 billion in 2023. Comparatively, mass-market beauty rose 6% last year. Prestige haircare sales grew around 14% in 2023, and ticked up 6% in mass. Styling products were the fastest-growing product category in prestige haircare, with dollar sales up 24%.
“As consumers continue to seek solutions, this could be a good proposition for Sephora.”
On top of the brands in the textured haircare displays, other prestige textured haircare brands in Sephora’s brand roster are Briogeo, Pattern Beauty, Melanin Haircare, Sunday II Sunday and Ceremonia. Vernon Francois Haircare and Madam CJ Walker premiered at the retailer in 2017 and 2016 respectively, but have since exited.
If Sephora expands its textured haircare assortment in the future, other possible entrants could include OurX, Uzima, SKIMDO and Beyoncé’s newly launched Cécred. In addition, the retailer’s Accelerate program has given the beauty specialty retailer a pipeline packed with textured haircare brands it could place on its shelves. On top of Soft Rows, Sienna Naturals, Wondercurls, Miss Rizos and Imania Beauty have participated in the Accelerate program.
Augmenting its textured haircare assortment could be lucrative for Sephora in the long run. Data from consumer intelligence company NielsenIQ shows beauty spending by Black consumers in the U.S. rose by $1.3 billion in 2023 to $9.4 billion. Sales data tracked by Circana reveals that Black-founded brands often outperform their non-Black-founded counterparts.
In a blog post, Natallia Bambiza, director and beauty category analyst for makeup and hair, writes, “Overall, this brand segment increased at nearly twice the rate of the total prestige beauty market in February 2023, with dollar sales growing 19% versus January. Year-over-year growth is impressive, too: Black-founded brands outperformed their counterparts in February 2022 and 2023, increasing between one and a half and three times the rate, year over year.”
