After breaking up with Ulta Beauty last year, Target Corp. is going it alone on the beauty front, debuting Target Beauty Studio next month.
Launching Sept. 10 in more than 600 Target stores nationwide and on Target.com, the reimagined prestige beauty destination features an assortment of more than 1,600 products from 90 prestige, global and emerging brands — more than two-thirds of which are new to Target.
On brand selection, Amanda Nusz, the retailer’s senior vice president of merchandising, essentials and beauty, said: “It was really important that it was curated. That’s Target. We are not known for having everything. We are known for having a point of view, for having an edit, and so we anchored on discovery. [The brands] were selected because of the merchants’ excitement on their quality, their innovation, their accessibility, their ingredients,.”
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In skin care, she highlighted brands Clearstem, First Aid Beauty and Sunday Riley, while the hair care lineup includes Briogeo, Joico, Nioxin and Remilia Hair.
The retailer is also using the space to dive deeper into the K-Beauty craze, with brands Eqqualberry, Amuse, Kaja, Rom&nd, Dr.Melaxin, Purito Seoul and Sungboon Editor. Other global offerings include Mexican beauty brand Sarelly and French nail care brand Manucurist.
In fragrances, meanwhile, Lake & Skye, Boy Smells and Smooch will join the offering.
The space will be anchored by a center table, designed to bring brands to life through interactive storytelling and sampling, starting with Lake & Skye’s premium fragrances.
Elsewhere, there will also be a dedicated minis assortment, while Target Circle members will receive exclusive offers and experiences.
Ulta Beauty’s shop-in-shop in Target debuted in 2021 to much fanfare, but it struggled in later years with intense competition from Sephora’s partnership with Kohl’s and more recently Amazon’s push into prestige beauty.
The Ulta shop had expanded to 610 Target stores, each occupying about 1,000 square feet. Ulta and Target were planning on around 800 in total, but the two retailers officially called it quits in 2025 and Ulta exited Target this month.
Nevertheless, Nusz is confident it can be a success this time around. “We are definitely going to anchor on what we’ve learned from running a beauty business for decades, from what we learned from our different partnerships.”
That includes the role of beauty advisers. This time, each space will have trained advisers on site from open to close to assist customers.
“There was a lot of investment in a comprehensive training ahead of launch, and so that includes hands-on training, not just content directly from the brand partners,” she said. “They’re going to get training on the brand purpose, the hero products, the key ingredients, and how to translate that knowledge into guest recommendations.”
With its merchants now solely in charge of the space, Target also plans to invest in updating the offering more frequently so it doesn’t feel static.
“Having the direct relationships with the brands, being accountable to collaborating with them, to building out detailed plans with inventory flow, with contingency planning, all of that really does give us some confidence that we are pointed in a new direction, and we’re going to learn,” added Nusz.
On where she sees Target Beauty Studio sitting in the ultra-competitive beauty landscape, she believes it will bring together the inspiration and service of a specialty retailer, but “at the accessibility and convenience and value that only Target can deliver.”
“We know the prestige guest is evolving. We know they’re getting younger. They are cross-shopping with core beauty, and they are really comfortable shopping the same trip and splurging on a serum and buying a makeup brush from another brand,” she continued.
Asked if some products will be locked up, she said: “We are absolutely working on having products available. We’re still working through what that means at every location, but it will be a step change in terms of accessibility from where we have been.”
This comes after shares of Target spiked last Wednesday after the retailer reported second-quarter top- and bottom-line gains and raised its outlook for the year.
The gains, while coming off easy comparisons from last year’s declines, yielded Target’s second positive quarter in a row and were welcome signs that turnaround efforts led by chief executive officer Michael Fiddelke, who took the reins of the retailer last February, are beginning to bear fruit.
Beauty was a positive contributor to the quarter, reporting single-digit growth.
Nusz said: “Beauty has been a standout category….We definitely are excited for beauty to be a focus in our new strategy. We think it just allows for us to build on that positioning of joy and discovery and accessibility, and so I think it will be a wonderful example of our investment in our new strategy.”
