Alison Hahn, Sephora’s senior vice president, merchandising, makeup and fragrance, came to beauty after stints in home, fashion and accessories. To her, though, the through line is empowering consumers.
“One of the things I always enjoyed was being able to bring products to market that inspire confidence and make people feel better about themselves. It drives me still today, whether it’s a pair of jeans, a pillow, a beautiful pair of shoes,” she said. “I’ve been in retail for 37 years and beauty came to me later in life.”
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With that, though, Hahn said her approach transcends categories. “Any good merchant, and any good business, has to think of the client first. You must have a client-first mindset, it’s not ego-driven,” she said.
It’s thinking of customers first that’s allowed her to oversee the assortments for makeup and fragrance at Sephora. According to 2022 data from Circana (formerly known as the NPD Group and IRI), makeup was the largest category in prestige beauty; fragrance was the second fastest-growing.
“Our fragrance business was always very strong pre-pandemic, and there’s no question that the whole category has grown significantly post-pandemic,” Hahn said. “We know that clients turn to fine fragrance for confidence, comfort and control over their lives in uncertain times, and they began to view fragrance as an everyday tool and ritual to feel good and lift spirits rather than something just for a special occasion.”
Aesthetically, she’s also seen makeup preferences shapeshift. “There is such innovation and product formulations, there are so many choices a shopper can make when it comes to their makeup formulas,” Hahn said. “We’re seeing a ton of innovation in liquid and cream, unique powder textures and skin tones across many categories that have democratized how consumers can engage with makeup products.”
Currently, Hahn has her eye on products billed as “clean,” as well as expanded shade ranges and no-makeup makeup. “There is a continued increase from our clients — and from us — in offering clean makeup formulas, which eliminate unwanted ingredients and still deliver high performance in terms of trends,” she said, which she described as “natural, skin-like finishes and soft sculpting.”
Makeup has spurred another one of Hahn’s innovations — Sephora’s mobile Color IQ, a shade matching, AI-powered tool that helps associates find correct complexion colors for shoppers. “It is a confident, objective way to measure people’s skin tone and, in an unbiased way, share a multibranded experience across anybody’s skin tone,” Hahn said. “We keep continuing to hone the technology because that has also been evolving over time, so we’re able to serve our client even better and better over time.”