Beauty gets into the home category - Glossy

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As the lines blur between beauty and a wide range of industries including personal care, wellness and nutrition, home decor is next on the list for a beauty industry makeover.

With supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whitely as the face of the brand, Resorè launched in October with a line of face and bath towels it says are better for anti-aging and acne than a regular towel. The towels are made with Silverbac antimicrobial technology. The brand launched at department stores including Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as at beauty retailer Mecca Cosmetics. Its bath towels sell for $99.

“When we talk about repositioning and reimagining this product as a skin-care item, there’s a huge education piece around that, and obviously that also means positioning it in a way that towels generally have not been sold,” said Nathan Jackson, the co-founder and CEO of Resorè. “Our retail strategy, from a retail channel partners standpoint, is a blend of beauty retailers or departments, and still bringing in that home side, as well.” The towels are featured in the beauty section of department stores, rather than the home department.

Mecca joins a growing range of beauty retailers expanding their home offerings — beauty-focused silk pillowcase brand Slip just launched at Ulta this month, after entering Sephora and Violet Grey in 2015. Ulta also sells pillowcases from Kitsch and several other brands, as well as beauty-focused towels from brands including Aquis. There are also a growing range of DTC options, with brands like lifestyle brand More Sunday, which sells silk products including face masks, eye masks and loungewear. Beauty influencer Jackie Aina’s Forvr Mood launched silk pillowcases and eye masks in August 2020.

“We have always thought of Slip as a beauty product, and it was our goal to be in the beauty department — not the bedding,” said Slip’s founder Fiona Stewart via email. She said when she founded Slip in 2004, “people thought we were crazy,” but “now, it is a commonly accepted idea that if you are spending money on creams, serums and blowouts, you need to be sleeping on a Slip Pillowcase.”

Kitsch’s sales of its pillowcases have grown by 240% in the past year, said the brand’s founder and CEO, Cassandra Thurswell. “Sales have not turned down in any way. It’s only been cranked up, and it really grew when Covid hit,” she said. “It’s much easier right now to talk with the customer about self-care.”

These home-beauty brands incorporate skin and hair benefits into their messaging about the products. More Sunday, for example, states in its silk pillowcase product description that you can “get more value out of your expensive face creams from your nightly beauty routine” by using the pillowcase. Meanwhile, Kitsch’s vegan satin pillowcase description states it is “hydrating, anti-aging” and will keep hair from getting frizzy.

The merging of beauty and home is also tied into the growing connections between beauty and wellness. This is especially the case for More Sunday, which founder Danielle Wu launched a year and a half ago after her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

“I looked at, ‘What are my surroundings? What am I putting on my skin? What kind of bedding am I using?” she said. “The next trend is: We really should be taking care of anything that touches our skin, and that [involves] a whole beauty and health care regimen.”

Brands are especially focusing on the holiday gifting season. Kitsch, for example, is launching special sleep gift sets.

“My biggest times of the year are our now and then Mother’s Day,” said Wu. “Lots of people are gifting it for their moms. It wasn’t my initial target, but moms really appreciate and understand why silk can be better.”