These New Brands Want Body Care To Shed Its Commodity Reputation For Good
According to Daash Intelligence, prestige body care in the United States saw an 11.6% increase in average price in 2025, compared with 14% overall in prestige, and made up 5.7% of prestige beauty sales, bringing in an estimated $940 million. The consumer insights firm identifies lotions and butters as the most popular products in the category, comprising 21% of its sales. Bath and body sets and body sunscreens round out the top-three product types, claiming 11.38% and 11.06% of sales, respectively.
Major retailers and brands are in an arms—and legs, neck, stomach, hands and feet—race as they contend for body care market share. Naterra, the company behind Tree Hut, is rolling out gen alpha body wash brand Splash at Walmart after launching the sophisticated and self-care focused Bdy. range at Ulta Beauty last summer. CMO Luis Garcia told the publication Women’s Wear Daily that it’s projected to reach $10 million in sales in 18 months.
Not to be outdone, incubator Maesa’s new body care brand Ontu, which describes its products as facial-grade skincare for the body, has hit Target and could double Splash’s projection.
Meanwhile, Cyklar, the influencer-linked body care brand in The Center’s portfolio, is launching online at Sephora this month and heading to 450 doors in March. Industry sources cited by WWD expect its sales to hit $50 million this year, and it’s expected to be an M&A target following The Center’s sale of Phlur and Naturium. Ulta Beauty is riding the body care wagon, too, picking up brands like Nakery Beauty, Neom and Stripes Beauty. Brands historically outside of the category like Tower 28, Jones Road and Rationale are crashing the body care party as well.
Leah Kirpalani, founder of clean beauty retailer Shop Good and new body care line Beiin, sees customers at her two San Diego-area stores yearning for elevated products to make their daily baths and showers feel special. “Now more than ever, people are realizing that it’s all these little things you do that actually add up to how you feel about your day. It’s not these big, momentous things,” she says. “[If] I have this small little moment to enjoy my shower, that trickles into other things along your day that make you just feel a little bit better.”
That appetite for elevated, intentional body care is fueling a new wave of indie brands looking to stand out through formulation, positioning and purpose. Including Beiin, here are six up-and-coming body care brands we’ve got our eye on.
Joonbyrd
Dermatologist Alexis Granite combined her clinical training and Persian heritage to create Joonbyrd, a luxury body care line positioned as both solution-driven and sensorial, with washes, treatments, a scrub and other products priced from about $50 to $100. Granite set out to apply the same 360-degree approach to skin health she uses in her clinic to the body, developing products around a proprietary ALXmd04 ingredient complex. The brand describes the complex as a blend of skincare actives, botanicals and functional enhancers designed to strengthen skin resilience, improve hydration and texture, and boost radiance with moisture-retaining amino acids and peptides, barrier-supporting prebiotics and botanical extracts, and antioxidant-rich ingredients such as vitamin E and green coffee oil.
“Our ALXmd04 complex incorporates the types of actives typically reserved for facial formulas and is centered around barrier repair and skin stress reduction,” says Granite. “I also wanted to create products that work for real bodies and real lives, with just the right textures, scents you look forward to, and visible results that keep you coming back.”
Joonbyrd’s latest launch is its Daydreamer Firming Body Serum. It’s formulated to address crepey skin, fine lines and wrinkles below the chin, areas Granite says require more than drugstore lotion. The product is designed to work on its own for loss of elasticity on the body and to complement in-clinic aesthetic treatments. “I am a huge believer in the power of peptides due to their efficacy and excellent tolerability, so an innovative peptide-sapphire complex became the anchor for Daydreamer, which ultimately took more than 100 samples to develop and perfect,” says Granite.
“Functional Songyi mushroom, green coffee oil and paracress extract are just a few of the supporting ingredients we sourced, and the texture is like nothing else I had ever seen before. [It’s a] gel that warms to an oil and instantly floods the skin with hydration. Plus, a scent designed to evoke a smoky hint of perfume on your favorite cashmere sweater,” says Granite. “It was definitely not an easy product to formulate, but it has since become our bestseller.”
Across the pond, Joonbyrd is carried at several retailers including Space NK, Harrods, Selfridges, Sephora and Cult Beauty, and it’s now making a push into the U.S. market.
Amoué
Fashion and beauty marketing veteran Chloë de Graaf was inspired to found Amoué after self-care practices like yoga, meditation and mindfulness helped her manage obsessive-compulsive disorder in her teens. Her vision for the brand, which launched two months ago, is to focus on body care that supports the mind as much as the skin. Its products pair high-performance actives with refined fragrance for a sensory, ritual-centered experience. Amoué positions itself at the intersection of skin, scent and spirit, blending sophisticated perfume notes with mood-boosting neurocosmetic science.
If consumers only bought Amoué’s products for their aesthetics, that would be understandable. The range, available in warm amber and soft woody scent families called Amber Affirmation and Santal Skin, is presented with minimalist, elegant packaging that evokes calm and quiet-luxury self-care.
The brand is starting with six products priced from about $25 to $116, including body cleansers, soufflés and hand care, formulated with neurocosmetic actives such as Happybelle-PE and Neurophroline together with ceramides, niacinamide and hyaluronic acid for multi-layered benefits. According to Amoué, the ingredients can influence the skin’s sensory system, helping reduce stress signals, enhance mood and promote emotional balance while hydrating, smoothing and strengthening the skin.
Amoué is currently available online on its own website and ships worldwide. Alongside its digital launch, the brand has been spreading the word through experiential events and pop-ups. Last week, for example, it hosted an activation during a reformer pilates event in de Graaf’s hometown of Rotterdam. “It was a beautiful way to introduce Amoué in a very experiential, community-driven setting,” she says.
Misaj
New multifunctional body care brand Misaj hails from Paris, but its name means “wellness” in Arabic, a nod to pharmacist-turned-founder Amele Moussaoui’s Berber heritage. “Beauty and health are deeply tied to one another,” she says. “I believe that we should put more focus on protection and preventing health hazards in order to preserve our bodies and minds while feeling our best selves, always.”
Misaj launched in December with Glow Protect, a lightweight hydrating cream designed to protect skin during daily outdoor life, especially from mosquitoes. The product is priced at 35 euros or roughly $41. Beauty Independent first clocked the beautification of the bug repellent category in 2024. Misaj’s Glow Protect is a refined and illuminating body moisturizer that happens to repel pests. In April, the brand will roll out its next product, Dual Essential, an SPF 50 sunscreen with natural mosquito repellent.
Beiin
When Kirpalani opened Shop Good in 2017, body care was often an afterthought for her customers, purchased at mass retail, and more considered body care options that didn’t break the bank were rare. If customers splurged on body care, she says, “They’d save it for a special occasion, put it in the guest bathroom. I felt like there was a space in the market to create products at the intersection of quality, beauty and accessibility.”
Beiin resides at that intersection. Kirpalani crafted it to offer essential body care products that look and feel beautiful, contain clean, high-quality ingredients and remain everyday-priced. It’s kicking off with three products: $28 The Everything Wash, $34 The Everywhere Lotion and $42 The All-Over Oil.
A nonnegotiable for Kirpalani was an accessible price matched with a generous size. Beiin’s products are priced at about $1 to $4 per ounce, coming in under its competitors, according to Kirpalani. Infused with squalane, aloe vera, colloidal oat protein and green tea, the creamy gel cleanser has emerged as an early favorite. Beyond Shop Good’s two locations, Beiin is carried at chic Manhattan skin treatment destination Ställe Studios. Kirpalani sees hospitality as a key future channel for the brand.
Adipeau
Adipeau is a skincare brand rather than a dedicated body care line, but it’s earned its place on our list with patented, science-driven formulas designed for use from face to foot. Its flagship product, the 5-year-old Volume Cream, has gained buzz as the rise of GLP-1 weight loss drugs has left many consumers with smaller waistlines, but looser skin.
As its name suggests, the $74 Volume Cream was developed to support dermal fat cell regeneration on areas like the face and hands. Adipeau’s second product launch, Strength Gel, takes the opposite approach, targeting fat cells to tone and shrink them for improved skin firmness and texture, priming the skin for regeneration when followed by Volume Cream. Strength Gel is clinically proven to improve the appearance of cellulite.
Adipeau’s striking before-and-afters are rooted in scientific bona fides. Founder Ivan Galanin is a pharmaceutical industry veteran and former director of commercial development at Mount Sinai who co-founded biotech startup Plexcera Therapeutics before launching Adipeau.
The brand is carried at a who’s who of skin studios, including The LA Facialist in Los Angeles, Nilam Holmes and Salon C Stellar in London, Onda Beauty in New York and Joanna Vargas locations nationwide. Janine Knizia, founder of the Paris skin atelier and regenerative skincare line Muse & Heroine, says she can hardly keep the brand in stock.
“We carry Adipeau because the brand takes a fundamentally different approach to skin health, focusing on strengthening and regenerating the skin’s underlying structure rather than masking concerns,” says Knizia. “What distinguishes it is its science-driven philosophy, including its targeted approach to supporting fat cell function, an often overlooked component of skin firmness and resilience. It’s a brand that aligns with our very high standards for efficacy, innovation and meaningful skin outcomes.”
39BC
One beauty category rivaling body care’s buzz is fragrance, and British bathing brand 39BC sits at the convergence of the two. The creation of Sharmadean Reid, founder of the cult WAH Nails salon and media platform launched in London in 2009, 39BC is a fragrance-forward bath brand that draws on the sensory language of fine perfumery, using natural materials such as resins, roots, oils and woods to heighten everyday cleansing into a considered, design-led experience.
The brand’s debut collection, Vol I Alexandria, features four $55 cleansing shower oils built around a palette of patchouli, frankincense, jasmine and fig. Each scent is inspired by defining moments in the decades-long relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony, grounding the range in a narrative of ancient trade routes, romance and power rather than traditional spa conventions.
Visually, 39BC leans into a moody, museum-like aesthetic, with weighty glass bottles, restrained typography and earthy tones that feel closer to objects of design than bathroom basics, appealing to consumers who approach scent as an expression of personal identity. The brand is stocked at Selfridges and Dover Street Market, reflecting its ambitions at the premium, concept-driven end of the beauty and fragrance market.
