Madewell Is Going To Sell Beauty Products

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Starting at the end of this month, you’ll be able to buy beauty products at Madewell in 21 stores (October 23rd) across the country and online (October 24th). The range is a tightly edited collection of 40 products which is meant to reflect Madewell’s overall aesthetic: simple and low-maintenance. Head designer Joyce Lee elicited recommendations for products from Madewell staffers, some of whom will be featured in a campaign for the beauty range.

The end assortment features so-called “natural and non-toxic” brands. If you are familiar with the beauty offerings at Anthropologie and Free People, this theme will feel very familiar to you. You’ll find quite a few items from Herbivore, including its popular Blue Tansy mask. Then there’s French Girl Organics, a brand that unabashedly embraces our collective Francophile tendencies. Like Herbivore, it is sans-serif’ed and housed in glass packaging and is exceptionally pretty. The brand produced three Madewell-exclusive products for this launch — a bath soak, polish, and body oil.

Makeup includes RMS’s beloved luminizer, a bronzer and lip/cheek palette, and lip tints from French Girl. The selection is rounded out by Karuna sheet masks, Bon Parfumeur fragrances, and an assortment of oils from Moon River Naturals and Daughter of the Land, as well as an oil diffuser. There are also a few pragmatic products, like Ursa Major’s Hoppin Fresh natural deodorant, a perennial bestseller at several natural beauty retailers that we polled recently, and Jao’s popular natural hand sanitizer.

While retail continues to find its footing, more and more companies are going all-in on beauty (see: Forever 21, Revolve). Madewell’s struggling sister brand J.Crew has even dabbled in offering one-off beauty selections from time to time. Compared to clothing, it’s relatively cheap and can be an irresistible impulse purchase.