Why “Main Character Energy” Is The Beauty Trend Of The Summer At Revolve
Rhode’s relationship with Revolve demonstrates the e-commerce company’s entanglement with the cultural zeitgeist—and beauty is increasingly part of its recipe to be the apex trendsetter. Revolve launched beauty 15 years after it started in 2003 with around 35 brands, a number that’s increased to 380. This year alone, it’s brought in 32 new beauty brands so far.
Although beauty remains a small percentage of Revolve’s sales, this year it’s registered double-digit sales growth as beauty industry growth in general has slumped to single digits. Overall, Revolve’s net sales jumped 10% to $296.7 million in the first quarter this year, the latest quarter for which it’s released results, gross profits rose 10% to $296.7 million, and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) skyrocketed 45% to $19.3 million.
Beauty Independent chatted with Trudy Arnold, who became buying director for beauty at Revolve and its upscale sister website FWRD in 2022 following stints at J.C. Penney, Estée Lauder, Ralph Lauren, Zimmermann and David Jones, about beauty trends, standout new brands in Revolve’s assortment, its advent calendar business and what to expect from beauty at Revolve’s forthcoming store in Los Angeles shopping center The Grove.
What do you think is the “it” trend of the summer?
Guava girl is one. Summer Fridays helped to lead that with their launch of their guava lip butter balm, but also other brands are Kopari and Ceremonia. It’s a super fun trend. We focused on tomato skin, which is a fun one as well.
One trend I love that is almost in contrast to that is the trend of hyper personalized beauty, which doesn’t sound as catchy for TikTok, but it’s about celebrating your unique self this summer. It’s main character energy every day directed by you. It’s about matching and mixing styles, products and rituals that feel true to you, not based on trends, but inspired by all of them that resonate with the individual.
So, it could be mixing shades to create your own custom tone or eyeshadow. Wardrobing or layering of fragrances is a huge trend right now, particularly with the body spray category, to create something that’s unique to you. We see so much on TikTok about morning and nighttime rituals, but it’s about creating the one that feels right to you. It’s beauty your way that makes you feel most like yourself and that’s truly personal.
How do you plan to try to build business in the summer months?
Summer is quite a key quarter for us. For beauty, we plan around key categories like SPF, body, tanning and wellness. Although SPF is obviously a focus all year round, we time a lot of new brand and product expansion launches in the summer. We just launched the brand Dune and Tanning Club.
An SPF brand from Australia, Standard Procedure, has been performing really well. We launched that at Festival, and they had really cute SPF bag charms, which went viral. Kopari is having a huge moment this summer.
Then, we have our beauty bag program where essentially every quarter we have a beauty bag. Our summer beauty bag is one that historically has always gone viral for us. This year, our summer beauty bag was $99 with a value of over $644. It was 16 full-size products, and we sold out of that within two weeks.
Because of that, we did a second summer beauty bag, which is live on site right now, which is $75 with a value over $249. We do cross category, so 16 full-size beauty products, but it was within a Business & Pleasure tote bag. That’s one of our key home brands.
When do you start planning for summer?
We’re already thinking about next year because we are seeing what’s working, any new brands and thinking, can we launch this year, or do we need to carve that into next year for things like our beauty bags? We’re in talks with a lot of brands for next year to secure that. Then, there’s some things we have to pivot on and move quite quickly based on trends maybe three months out that we are working on.
What are trends you believe will last a lot longer than summer?
Our wellness category has been performing well for us for a number of years, but over the last year and a half in particular, we’re seeing such strong growth there. I think the expansion of the wellness category will continue. We recently launched Par Olive, which is a dermatologist-developed collagen.
Within wellness, we’re seeing subcategories expanding. An interesting one that we’ve seen a lot of growth in is in teeth whitening and oral care. Teeth serums are doing well from brands like Snow. I liken it to the deodorant category where a few years ago brands like Salt & Stone started to expand. Customers are really educating themselves in beauty and wellness categories, and they’re not afraid to invest in things like filtered showerheads and humidifiers.
We recently launched the viral brand Sacheu, which is having such a huge moment with their lip stains. That stay-in-place tinted makeup is going to continue.
Revolve launched its first advent calendar for holiday 2020. Talk to us about that business.
Our advent calendar last year went totally viral. We sold out in two and a half weeks. This year, we have our main advent calendar, and we have a new mini advent calendar as well. The main advent calendar will be $150 with a retail value of over $875. The mini advent calendar is $89 with a value of almost $350.
We’ve seen that the advent calendars draw in both an existing and a new customer. We’ve expanded the program significantly in terms of volume, but also harnessing cross-category opportunities. This year, we are introducing home brands into our advent calendars.
We also listened to our customers very closely, and we were very much in the comments on every single TikTok that we saw last year. Historically, our advent calendar was 24 days, and we saw a customer’s comment of, why is it not 25 days? We’re like, that’s a very good point. Why is it not 25 days? This year, our main advent calendar is 25 days. The mini calendar is 12 days.
When do you plan for holiday?
We are already starting to think of next year and starting to have conversations with brands and the vendor we work with on the box itself. In October, things will start to get finalized. Once we launch the advent, we take learnings quickly and pivot. Come January, it’s done and dusted in terms of our advent calendars because of the volume.
Obviously, we work closely with brands on any exclusive sets, and we are looking to expand that holiday offering this year. The look and feel of beauty on Revolve will be very, very different come the end of the year. We are currently working on a number of site experience projects, so the landing page will be completely different with new design. The look and feel of our product pages will also be different.
What have been standouts among the new brands you’ve brought in?
Standard Procedure and Sacheu I mentioned. We exclusively launched Lili Reinhart’s skincare brand Personal Day, which is very relevant to our customers and has been performing in incredibly well. We’ve also launched a number of emerging brands. We recently launched Mienne, which is body meets sexual wellness. Their muse is Julia Fox.
We also launched Smooch Body in the body spray category, very much relevant for summer. We also exclusively launched the haircare brand Nous. We have been expanding haircare around leave-in conditioners and glosses. We launched the brand House of Braid, which is one single product that has been performing well for us, and we launched Furtuna Skin. My team is absolutely obsessed with the moisturizer oil from the brand.
They’re all quite unique and have certain hero products that are standouts.
Are there trends or products popping that are surprising to you?
We launched The Skinny Confidential last year. When they first launched their mouth tape, I was like, are people really going to want to wear mouth tape? We saw it on TikTok, we knew that there was a lot of early adopters and beauty advocates behind it, but we weren’t sure how it would do across our customer base, and it just blew up in terms of the volume that it has been driving. Obviously, many other brands have now launched in that space.
You mentioned there are more new brands coming for the second half of the year. What are you looking to add to the selection? Are there any particular gaps?
We have a business where virality is key. Our brands tell us that we over-penetrate when products go viral versus other retailers. A single comment on social media can sell out a product for us within hours. We’re always aware of what’s happening in the social space and what a customer’s gravitating to there. Virality that speaks to the Revolve customer is something we look at around having emerging brands.
Revolve has been known within our ready-to-wear for having emerging brands that perhaps the customer may not be able to find anywhere else. Within beauty space, we’re looking for new brands across the globe that customers can discover with us. Then, we love to have representation of diverse brands. We recently launched Curl of Art, and we’re about to launch a brand called Blue Water Girls.
How are you thinking about AI?
AI is not my forte, but we are building a lot on site. One key project for beauty that we’re looking at right now is chat functionality and how it can be stronger in terms of beauty. We have a team of engineers that are building things specifically for beauty. That education component is so important when it comes to the beauty.
What’s the content strategy for beauty?
The team that runs social reviews what is working and what our customers are gravitating to. It needs to feel very real and organic. What’s trending for us at the moment is our swatch videos and, obviously, get ready with me videos. We don’t necessarily have criteria of, we need to post this many, it’s more about what’s working and what our customers want to see from us.
Are you seeing the Revolve Beauty shopper be price sensitive?
Customers are more discerning, but I don’t think that that’s a recent thing. We recently launched the Lyma Pro. That retails for $5,995, and we’ve sold out twice of it.
The brand sold out twice in Europe when it launched there. We were obviously not sure how it would do with everything going on in the economy, but our customers aren’t afraid to spend at that price point. They are also buying Summer Fridays lip butter balm for $24. Our customer has quite variety when it comes to price point, but there’s also not necessarily sensitivity when it comes to a key credible brand and product.
Are you doing more discounting or sales this year?
We have not changed. Many other retailers have. A lot of retailers are being a bit more aggressive. Our focus continues to be having the right brands, the right product mix, having that newness focusing on things like beauty bags where we give incredible value to our customers. We obviously do have sales at key times like Black Friday/Cyber Monday, but Revolve has never been a promotional retailer.
How are you building FWRD’s beauty assortment?
We have just over 150 beauty brands on FWRD. We have more prestige designer brands. I like to think of it as the big sister and the little sister. The big sister is a bit more modern. She has a Birkin bag, and the little sister doesn’t necessarily have that. We have brands like Victoria Beckham Beauty on FWRD, and we just launched Dr. Diamond’s Metacine on FWRD.
You’ve talked a lot about virality, but there can be a down side to it as we’ve seen with Drunk Elephant. How do brands prolong their success after a viral moment?
Brands we see navigate that the best are the ones that are open and listen to their customers. They always are planning ahead. What else is coming, what do our customers want from us next? Not having newness coming or attaching ego to anything is where brands will definitely suffer.
What’s a brand or product in your assortment that’s underappreciated?
Jouer Cosmetics. I love their hydrating lip oil. Last year, we exclusively launched the haircare brand Anablue. I’m obsessed with their scalp massager as well as their hair serum. We exclusively launched the brand Eye of Horus in the U.S., which is a beautiful brand from Byron Bay. There’s a fragrance brand from Sweden called Unifrom, which has a fragrance oil. When I wear it, people always ask me what fragrance I’m wearing.
What do you think is the next step in the fragrance trend?
We’ve launched a lot of emerging fragrance brands, and we have a lot more we’ll launch ahead of the holidays. We are seeing body mists and fragrance oils, and we have a new launch coming up there. We are also about to launch a brand out of Sonoma with limited-edition fragrances. They have a winery, and they do limited-edition wines and limited-edition fragrances.
Customers are open to trying and testing new fragrances. When we open the Grove store, we will have a lot of our fragrances there and emerging brands to discover.
How else is the assortment going to show up in real life?
There will be a beauty edit, our “best of” in the space. It will be a very customer-first approach. Unlike walking into a department store or traditional beauty retailer where it’s by brand, it will be how customers shop. It’ll be more focused on category and curated edits. A customer walks in, and they may want a new mascara or a moisturizer that’s right for them. They are shopping by category and by need, so that’s our focus and our “best of” edit.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
The players
5 mentionedKosas
AS Beauty
One/Size
Salt & Stone
Rhode
