At the end of 2024, the San Francisco-based NextWorld Evergreen-owned retailer launched a home vertical by adding candle and diffuser brands Caftari, Siblings and Vitruvi to its assortment while continuing to invest in evergreen categories skincare and body care with new entrants Exponent Beauty and Evolvetogether along with its namesake in-house skincare and body care brand.

Jessica Trieber, VP of brands at Credo, suggests the retailer’s lifestyle curation strategy is a response to its customers’ demands. “We are seeing our customers inject their clean living/holistic lifestyle into all aspects of their life, and the lines are blurring between beauty products and the rest of their routine,” she says, “We are embracing that and joining their journey…The home fragrance market is experiencing significant growth, driven by an increasing consumer focus on home and personal wellness. We are continuing to expand within this category.”

Trieber adds, “We also see a huge opportunity in body, but in new ways—new formats, hero ingredients and delivery systems. When we look to choosing new brands, we look to differentiate ourselves with growing brands with a strong POV and founder story and an interesting story to tell.”

Credo is looking forward this year to opening a store in Portland, Ore., its 16th, and improving sales after a tough 2024, when it fell behind on vendor payments and sales were flat. As the retailer proceeds with optimism under the direction of CEO and co-founder Annie Jackson, we dig into eight new brands making waves at it.

Sans Savon has premiered at Credo with two soap-free micellar cleansers for hand and body in the scent Charlevoix Boreal Forest, a solid cleansing body bar and body brush. Prices of Sans Savon products at the retailer range from $15 to $156. The brand’s oil-based, non-foaming body and hand washes are sold in bottles made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic and utilize an antimicrobial system to cleanse the skin without stripping it.

Reimagining everyday products comes naturally to Sans Savon co-founders Eli and Erica Halliwell. In 2015, the duo launched Hairstory, an eco-friendly haircare line known for New Wash, a cleansing cream marketed as a shampoo alternative. Michael Gordon, former CEO of Bumble and bumble, also co-founded Hairstory.

Launched in 2023 by Margaret Trainor, an angel investor who formerly managed global programs at the publication TechCrunch, luxury candle brand Atmo aims to connect customers and the physical spaces they inhabit through sustainable daily routines. It was onboarded by Credo as part of the retailer’s expansion into the home category. Atmo’s collection at Credo features refillable candles in the scents Santal, Vetiver and Atmosphäre priced at $60 each. Refills are priced at $28.

Handmade in small batches by founder Ali Denton, Intentional Goods’ scented candles evoke cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Plano, Tex. Its candles are made with a blend of clean fragrance and essential oils as well as sustainable soy wax and lead-free cotton wicks.

Stocked in spas and apothecaries around the country, Intentional Goods’ Credo entry marks its first large-scale retail partnership. Its assortment at the retailer includes seven candles priced at $55 each.

New Zealand-based skincare brand Emma Lewisham has landed at Credo as it expands its distribution in the U.S. A sustainable brand targeting luxury shoppers, it reports it is the first skincare brand certified as carbon-positive. Its circular business model encourages customers to buy refills and send them back for recycling or refilling.

Emma Lewisham was Mecca’s top-selling luxury skincare brand as of 2023 and its $92 Skin Reset Serum was the top-selling serum at the Australian prestige beauty specialty retailer the same year. In the United Kingdom, where it’s stocked at Space NK, Liberty and Harrods, its 2024 sales were forecast to increase 190% year-over-year.

Credo’s selection of Emma Lewisham products exclusively includes $55 Illuminating Face Exfoliant, $79 Skin Reset Eye Creme and $95 Supernatural Face Oil. The brand received a minority investment in 2021 from Rob Fyfe, former CEO of New Zealand airline Air New Zealand, and his wife Sara.

Launched in 2016 by married couple Deborah Levy, former communications manager at Shiseido, and Charles Levy, former industrial designer at L’Oréal, Biotyspa fuses French sophistication with Australian botanicals in products created to provide high-performance at-home spa experiences.

The Australian brand’s bestseller, $280 Body Sculpt Kit, contains shower gel, exfoliating gel, body oil, a gua sha and exfoliating mitt to assist in lymphatic drainage. The kit sold out for two months in 2023 after Kourtney Kardashian Barker’s e-commerce website Poosh mentioned it in a holiday gift guide.

A $135 version of the kit containing a body oil, shower gel and body sculpt cup has launched exclusively at Credo. In addition to the kit, Biotyspa sells six products at Credo—Firming Body Oil, Body Gua Sha, Exfoliating Glove, Hydrating Shower Gel, Exfoliating Shower Gel and Body Sculpt Cup—priced from $25 to $129.

Founded by Ed Currie and Andy Coxon, two former West End performers who created natural sweat-proof deodorant to stand up to the bright lights of the theater, British brand AKT has hit Credo’s shelves with six deodorants priced at $29, four body washes priced at $37 and three tools priced from $14 to $34.

Formulated as creamy balms and housed in aluminum tubes, AKT’s deodorants represent a new format in Credo’s deodorant category, which has seen increased momentum of late with brands Necessaire, Ursa Major and Corpus.

AKT has raised $10 million in funding, including a $7 million last year from Felix Capital, a venture capital firm that’s also invested in Anine Bing, Farfetch, Goop, Mejuri, Oatly and Our Place. The brand launched in the U.S. last year, and the country now accounts for a third of its business. In 2024, AKT was forecast to net $10 million in annual revenue.

Founded by Thérèse M’Boungoubaya in 2022, prestige body care brand Koba Skincare has arrived at Credo with seven products, notably its hero products $35 Touch Me Hand Cream and $45 Bottom Up Foot Cream. Bottom Up is Credo’s first foot cream. Pricier products from the brand’s assortment, $95 Get Whipped Body Balm and $70 Gold Drip Nourishing Body & Hair Oil, are also in Koba’s range at Credo.

Koba’s hero ingredient is safou oil, a vegetable oil rich in fatty acids and vitamins C and E. According to M’Boungoubaya, it’s the only brand to incorporate the ingredient in a cosmetic formulas outside of Africa. A celebration of M’Boungoubaya’s Congolese and French heritages, Koba’s products are designed with dry skin and hydration in mind. Koba means “turtle” in Lingala, a language spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is a symbol of protection that reflects the brand’s mission to shield skin against daily stressors.

Koba is M’Boungoubaya’s second beauty venture. She started the British beauty subscription box Boudoir Privé almost 15 years ago before it was acquired by JolieBox in 2011. JolieBox subsequently sold to Birchbox a year later. The brand was a 2023 recipient of a Glossier grant.

Fragrance was the fastest-growing beauty category last year, and retailers are furiously picking up fragrance brands to capitalize on interest in the category. Credo has launched Bastille, a French-born fragrance brand touting that it combines tradition and innovation, with eight gender-natural scents formulated with 95% natural ingredients. The scents are available in 15-ml. and 50-ml. sizes priced from $45 to $110.

Launched in 2020, Bastille was acquired two years later by former Chanel colleagues Sophie Maisant and Pascal Hyafil. Credo is its first retail partner in the U.S., but the brand is available in a broad network of boutiques in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.