PopSugar Launches Self-Branded Beauty Line In Partnership With Ulta

Digital lifestyle publisher PopSugar is set to make a sweeping retail foray with its first-ever line of beauty products — a category that is covered extensively on the company’s web properties.

Beauty By PopSugar bowed online yesterday as well as within 250 Ulta stores — representing roughly a quarter of the chain’s total locations, according to Digiday. The line comprises 80 products — from lip glosses to highlighters to eyeshadow palettes — ranging in price from $18 to $42. Packaging is stark-white and minimalist, and items contain antioxidant-rich ingredients like Hawaiian kukui oil and hibiscus extracts. Product concepts and colors were developed with input from PopSugar’s audience — which it says numbers 400 million globally — and were produced by Bona Fide Beauty Lab.

Ulta partnered with PopSugar on the launch after forging an advertising relationship with the company in 2015. While many publishers are hesitant to launch their own product ranges for fear of competing with advertisers, PopSugar co-founder and president Lisa Sugar

told Digiday that “there’s so much space for it. There’s new beauty brands being launched every day, and people interested in makeup and product will buy all of them.”

PopSugar will market the line via its own branded content division, which currently comprises 60% of overall revenues.

In addition to the beauty range, PopSugar already vends PopSugar Must Have — a quarterly subscription box service that offers accessories, home decor items, and (third party) luxury beauty products. The service is priced at $75 per box, or $270 annually. And beyond its various commerce ventures, PopSugar announced the launch of a movie production company last May, Popsugar Films. Its first project will be female high school drama The Honor List, produced partnership with Lionsgate and starring the YouTuber Meghan Rienks.