Bloomingdale’s Is Now Selling 800 New Beauty Products Aimed at Millennials

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Department stores, which aren’t doing that great in the current retail environment, have been increasingly looking to beauty to help bring customers back in. Nordstrom has embraced naturals and Korean beauty, Macy’s bought Bluemercury and put shops within its stores, and in-store Sephora outlets are arguably helping to keep J.C. Penney afloat. Now, Bloomingdale’s is the latest department store to move away from typical department store beauty offerings with its new beauty boutique, Glowhaus.

Targeted at millennial shoppers, Glowhaus introduces 30 new beauty brands and 800 total new products — all of which are under $100 — into select Bloomingdale’s stores and online. The boutiques will be permanent rather than pop-up shops, and you can find them at the New York City Soho store, Roosevelt Field in New York, and South Coast Plaza and Sherman Oaks in California.

Most of the shops will be on the women’s ready-to-wear floors, though there will also be outposts on the cosmetics floor, too. They’ll feature an open sell plan like you’d find at Sephora, which isn’t the typical department store beauty counter set-up. There will be sales associates knowledgeable in all the brands offered — not just one — which is usually how department store beauty works.

The assortment Bloomingdale’s curated puts brands and concepts like natural beauty and Instagram brands all in one place; it clearly shows that it did its millennial research. A few of the brands that will be included are Lime Crime, GlamGlow, Beauty Blender, RMS Beauty, Mario Badescu, and Drybar. There will also be a rotating trend-driven section called “Grab and Glow” for things like the Vamp Stamp and the Winky Lux flower lipsticks. Instagram-famous products will be featured prominently here.

With stores like Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, and Ulta already tackling these categories and doing it well, Bloomingdale’s has some catching up to do. But it’s a fun concept with some brands that have proven to be popular with the demographic that Bloomie’s is shooting to get back into its stores.

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