How to Win Friends and Influence Ulta

Welcome back to Haul of Fame, your must-read beauty roundup for new products, new ideas and my future ex-husband Pete Davidson.

Included in today’s issue: Amouage, Blake Brown, Burberry, Chantecaille, Dior Beauty, Dune Suncare, Fazit, Fenty Beauty, Flamingo Estate, Gap, Hourglass Cosmetics, Japonesque, K18, Knemo, Laneige, L’Oréal, Noteworthy Scents, Oak Essentials, Ogee, Pattern Beauty, Peach & Lily, Pattern Beauty, Phlur, Pipette, Quince, R&Co, Sara Happ, Sheglam Cosmetics, Sofia Richie Grainge, Solawave, The Lip Bar, Thrive Causemetics, True Botanicals, Tula, Urban Decay and lip balm that red-pills you.

But first…

On Instagram Reels, Courtney Shields is explaining how to land a husband.

“You need to ask better questions,” the influencer instructed in a video filmed from the front seat of her car, her chunky bracelets jangling against her hot pink tube top. “Am I more at peace when I’m with him or stressed? Does his presence add to the life I already love?” As Shields doles out dating advice, she applies bronzer to her shoulders with a fluffy blush brush. “Comment ‘align’ on this post,” she said, “and I will personally DM you my list of other relationship questions.” Hundreds of people did. Scores more asked Shields, “Wait, what is that highlighter?” She answered each inquiry with a discount code.

Here’s the tl;dr on Courtney Shields: She’s a Lebanese-American from Texas who went to the prestigious Berklee College of Music to write songs, then started posting lifestyle content in 2014. Soon she had the kind of conversion numbers usually pegged to “high-key Love Island fan favourite” not “chill brunette who can jam on piano.” Shields’s steady and engaged following of 2 million followers across Instagram and TikTok comes thanks to her easy banter and charming, bemused acceptance of internet fame. But her watershed moment came in 2020, when a partnership with the cheerfully basic skincare brand Tula resulted in the label’s largest single-day revenue spike ever.

In 2021, Shields partnered with Jeff Lee, a professional with a truly wild resumé: Former Alex Rodriguez COO, award-winning bodybuilder, global pageant consultant, former Yale professor and ex-Wachtell lawyer. In 2021, the duo debuted DIBS, which stands for Desert Island Beauty Status. (Lee is co-founder and chief executive.) From the jump, the direct-to-consumer brand had $2.6 million in funding from L Catterton, plus investments from Tula founders Dan Reich and Ken Landis. In 2024, it launched into Ulta Beauty.

DIBS has found a sweet spot with its blush and highlighter — its $38 Status Stick is a shimmery shading balm with constant “sold out” energy — but on August 1, the brand released its first mascara, called Double Standard. The $31 tube has a dual-end applicator with brown-hued primer on one side and black volumising mascara on the other. “I didn’t want you to have to choose between big, fluffy lashes and long, defined ones,” said Shields, who spent nearly two years developing the product. “And when you apply mascara primer, it’s usually white, which looks terrifying and doesn’t give you the option of wearing it solo. This is a really flexible formula that’s also excellent. It lets you do everything.” DIBS claims it has “a waitlist of over 15,000 people” for the product.

The mascara is also key to the prestige brand’s grandest ambition. “We’re going to use this mascara to help us become the number one beauty brand at Ulta,” added Lee. “Number. One.” That means DIBS is looking to knock competitor brands like Fenty and Lancôme off the charts, and has set the modest goal of scaling up to $100 million in annual sales at the superstore.

On the surface, this seems like both wild conjecture and fodder for Shields’s remarkably committed coven of Reddit haters. But there is data to buoy it as a long-term goal, if not an immediate one. DIBS claims it already sells Ulta Beauty’s most popular blush in its category, and is the third most-popular makeup brush brand. The retailer has launched the mascara in all of its 1,400-plus stores, which will be stocked nearly everywhere in the retail space, including Conscious Beauty end caps, along the checkout line and in cash register skirts. “They believe this is a big hit,” Lee said.

To hurry that “big hit” along, Lee has been visiting Ulta Beauty stores around the country — and not just big cities like New York in Los Angeles. “I’m currently on my way to West Virginia,” he said. “I’m hitting my 45th state in one week.” He brought along Elizabeth Thornell and Savanah Morris, members of the DIBS sales team, to help connect with shoppers; one was so excited about her blush, she wrote Thornell a thank-you note and dropped it off at the store. “We want to find out how to replicate that energy wherever we are,” said Lee. Shields adds that DIBS has an in-house champion in Ulta Beauty’s divisional merchandise manager for prestige cosmetics, Sasha Srain. “She jumped on Zoom after she tested the mascara and said, ‘This is the best mascara I’ve ever used in my life.’”

The brand aims to hit $30 million in revenue at Ulta Beauty alone, and claims a 50/50 split between its Ulta Beauty and DTC businesses, with the former gaining ground. They are also optimistic that, although Ulta Beauty hasn’t typically been a great place to incubate newer beauty brands, the company’s current C-suite shakeup will work in their favour. “There are no politics that we can see when it comes to brand favouritism right now,” said Shields. “They’re just very motivated, and they want the stores to be very intuitive instead of pushing the shopper from trend to trend. They ask the right questions about where we want the brand to go, and what our shoppers want next. It’s like how you want any relationship to be.”

What else is new…

Skincare

Pete Davidson is dreamy, but is he a skincare icon? I’m not sure, but Solawave insists on it. The gizmo brand gave his groomer, Christine Nelli, its Light Activating Serum and 4-in-1 Radiant Renewal Wand for a July 27 red carpet, then sent out a press release championing his “healthy, glowing skin” and “clean cut style.”

Using pimple patches for bug bites is a standard TikTok hack. This week, K-beauty brand Knemo began recommending the practice officially on social media with its Thincognito Invisible Patches. Let’s give it two weeks before a zit brand repackages some of their stickers as bug bite treatments.

Espresso-related launches are still going strong. Witness Tula’s ‘Spresso Energizing Eye Balms, which dropped on July 28 with four caffeine-infused shades to de-puff and brighten the orbital area.

Related: Is it too late for a green moisturiser called Defying Gravity? Asking for Bigger Than Beauty, the personal care label owned by do-good beauty brand Thrive Causemetics that launched a $34 version of it on July 30. FWIW, I’ve always found the brand’s products to be quite effective.

Japonesque put tiny little cherries on their dermaplane tool and tweezers for summer; they’ve also got an “Italian Holiday” nail file with yellow stripes meant to mimic a beach umbrella. They dropped on July 30.

Me: Brand merch is stupid! Also me: Okay, the Laneige tie-dye sweatshirt that dropped on July 29 is extremely cute, though I don’t know who needs a silicon “ice cream scoop” that sits on top of your lip gloss like an accessory. Surely someone on TikTok does, though.

On August 1, Peach & Lily debuted its Mini Protein Exosome Bioactive Ampoule, which sounds like those little Elizabeth Arden capsules you snap off every night. Mais non! This stuff is in a pump bottle and promises to “visibly improve the look of collagen loss and deliver an instant glow.”

Oak Essentials introduced its Refining Mask on Aug. 1. The “pillowy” formula includes blue tansy flowers, vitamin B and “mineral rich deep-sea water,” and retails for $68.

Would you like to take a selfie with some giant wooden elephants? Head to the famous Beverly Hills sign by sunset tonight. Chantecaille will be camped out with samples of its Lip Crème and the chance to get up-close with the Great Elephant Migration installation before the massive sculptures by the Coexistence Collective hit their next watering hole.

Makeup

Whoa, here she comes. On July 28, The Lip Bar brought back its Man Eater liquid matte lipstick ($15) for Leo Season. It’s a mocha taupe shade that works great alone, or with a touch of gloss in the middle.

Put Mélanie Inglessis on your brand campaign wish list now. On July 30, the Paris-based makeup artist paired with Dior Beauty on Jenna Ortega’s “Wednesday” premiere look, including bleached-out brows, ash-rimmed eyes, blood-stained lips and visible freckles. Dior Beauty hasn’t put the look on their Insta-grid yet; a miss, considering both Ortega’s global fan base and the masterful use of their products here. Hopefully the next company to sign Inglessis won’t keep her on mute.

Give a girl makeup, she’ll plug your product for a day. Give a girl a makeup contract, and she’ll plug your product for life. Enter Hourglass Cosmetics, which cannily paired with Sofia Richie Grainge in 2023 on a wide-ranging campaign. Two years later, the influencer and “quiet luxury” icon still name-drops the brand frequently, including her July 30 video with Vogue.

Big fan of the “Matrix” collaboration from Sheglam Cosmetics, which debuted on July 30 with a wonderful question: What if “getting red-pilled” just meant “buying a red-tinted lip balm that looks like a giant pill capsule and having a lovely time?”

On August 1, Fenty Beauty released an eight-piece Diamond Bomb collection inspired by its (pretty spectacular) best-selling highlighter. Now shoppers can get the signature shimmer in limited-edition tinted compacts, lip gloss, body lotion and eye shadow.

Last week, Oishii strawberries made their way into Cocoshine toothpaste. This week, Sumo Citrus mandarins got an official collab with Chillhouse on orange-painted acrylic nails. I find this especially funny, because can you peel an orange with press-ons? Me neither!

I can’t really ask “have we reached peak lip gloss” because: No. Same with “have we reached peak ‘blur-effect’ makeup because also: No.” Now Sara Happ’s Lip Airbrush formula combines the two trends with a $24 formula out Aug. 1. The tube is a little shorter and chubbier than your typical lip gloss, which makes it a bit easier to grab in a jammed purse.

If Urban Decay’s All Nighter setting spray represents your longest-ever relationship, brace yourself: The brand just turned the classic into three separate formulas, including a matte finish version, an “extra glow” version and a classic waterproof version. (The switcheroo accompanied a minor cosmetic drama about UD ending its contract with longtime manufacturer Skindinavia.) “Change is good,” I whisper to myself while clutching my bottle of All Nighter like a Jellycat.

Hair Care

Blake Brown introduced its Classic Hairspray on July 24 with a blackcurrant and vanilla scent, and a fine mist formula that promises to feel firm but not crunchy. It’s $20 and available at 1,800 Target stores.

When it comes to combining products, curly girls are often forced to be mixologists — which gets complicated when you’re traveling and can’t haul your full routine around. Pattern Beauty is attempting to help them with its $19 Hair Cocktail kits, which launched July 29 with mini-bottles of its Deep Scalp Detox, Moisture Milk and Detangling Nectar.

Speaking of travel products, Gap may not be any closer to revealing its incoming fragrance line, but a new Béis collab that dropped on July 31 features a $124 denim weekender bag with a separate compartment for toiletries — a key feature for actress and Béis founder Shay Mitchell, whose various press trips required camera-ready looks pulled fast from her carry-ons. The hoodie with a built-in inflatable neck pillow is a nice touch, too, but it might make your hair frizzy. (Shay, have you tested? Please advise.)

L’Oréal introduced its Elvive Glycolic + Gloss line on August 1 with shampoo, conditioner and serum meant to amp up shine and smoothness. It’s available at Walmart exclusively, and caps at $8.

Fragrance

Sol de Janeiro has a new weekend scent. It’s called Sundays in Rio and it’s a perfume mist with vanilla and amber that’s limited-edition and $26. The scent will be a total blind buy, because it’s only available at Sephora.com and the brand’s own website.

Burberry is the type of über-Brit brand that mists every image in a bit of British rain. Starting July 27, the Daniel Lee-led label is departing from that kind of drenched glamour with its Burberry Goddess fragrance campaign. Shot by Mario Sorrenti, the ads feature actress Emma Mackey in a sleeveless bodysuit, sprawled across some sunstruck rocks. The perfume itself smells like raspberries, lavender and “a warm suede-leather base,” and was developed by Amandine Clerc-Marie, the nose behind Chloe’s smash-hit eau de parfum. Translation: Burberry is going big with this one.

On July 31, Phlur dropped its first new fragrance since being acquired: Mrs. Smith, a green apple hair and body mist with pear, watermelon and praline. It’s $38 per bottle and counts Jérôme Epinette, the nose behind some Byredo and LoveShackFancy’s scents, as the nose.

On August 1, Noteworthy Scents introduced six body sprays, including three new scents — n,493 Hyper Violet, n,635 Coco Sol, and n,686 Coco Brûlée — plus misty versions of three perfume bestsellers.

Retail News

Dune Suncare hit Happier Grocery on July 24. The New York grocery store is known as “the East Coast Erewhon” because of its inflation-taunting prices and deeply addictive smoothies; Dune is both cool and eco-aware enough to be a nice fit.

Welcome to Nordstrom, Raspberry Ripple. The $90 scent from Jo Malone comes with a striped pink bow and notes of red currant and musk. It hit the department store’s shelves on July 28. Meanwhile, Vermont-based skincare brand Ogee entered Nordstrom’s Manhattan flagship on July 31, with plans to hit 14 more store shelves by September.

It’s time to start paying attention to Quince’s beauty aspirations. The cheap cashmere hub added True Botanicals to its skincare lineup on July 30, with four core products — Ginger Turmeric Cleansing Balm, Chebula Active Serum, Renew Pure Radiance Oil and Phyto-Retinol Advanced Clinical Cream — now available alongside Augustinus Bader and Irene Forte.

Pipette is a US baby brand made to sound French, but on July 31, it’s making the most American move of all: Landing in Walmart. Look for the lotion, shampoo and SPF 50; all are under $15.

Also at Walmart: The temporary makeup-tattoo brand Fazit, which hit the superstore on August 1 with glitter freckles and the promise of an upcoming “co-branded” collection that will roll into 3,000 stores nationwide.

And finally…

Shoutout to Mia Hall, the teenager dragged into the lukewarm HBO reality show “Back to the Frontier,” which makes a bunch of clueless families pretend they’re playing “Oregon Trail” in real life. Lacking her usual beauty products, Mia swiped some cooking lard from her log cabin’s pantry and used it as eyebrow gel. Looks like she survived!

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