LolaVie has found its first retail partner.
The brand, founded in 2021 by Jennifer Aniston, president Amy Sachs and chief executive officer Joel Ronkin, will enter Ulta Beauty’s full distribution. It debuts on Ulta’s website April 30, with the full door rollout ensuing on May 14. The brand currently has five products across cleansing, treatment and styling, all priced between $26 and $32.
Eighteen months post-launch, LolaVie has been measured in its expansion. It debuted with a detangler and has since introduced a hair oil and a leave-in. Its latest additions, a shampoo and conditioner — the bread and butter of many a hair care business — debuted late last year. At that time, executives didn’t comment on sales, but industry sources said sales hit between $15 million and $20 million during the brand’s first year and would surpass the $50 million mark in its second.
Related Articles
They did acknowledge, though, that reception has been overwhelmingly positive, hence the retail play.
“We celebrated our one-year anniversary with our shampoo and conditioner, which is a very highly in-demand product by a lot of our consumers. That was beautiful timing to celebrate our one year,” Aniston said. “Now that we’re going into Ulta, it’s just going to increase our audience to our product, which couldn’t be better.”
Added Sachs, “Everyone wants to have Jen’s hair, but if our products didn’t live up to that, it wouldn’t have mattered. Our products have been the star, and the feedback on the product has been amazing. We have over 3,500 five-star reviews and won 12 beauty awards.”
Aniston acknowledged that beauty has seen a slew of celebrity founders and creating products with efficacy, and a business with longevity, was her top goal. “You see actors coming out with beauty products here and there, and we just wanted [LolaVie] to be effective and mean what it said,” she said. “That was our biggest concern and our biggest goal. Just by the feedback, we hit the goal.”
As for retail expansion, the brand has received a lot of inquiries about if, when and where it would launch, Ronkin said. “We wanted to make sure our brand was ready, we were ready and we understood our customers. We felt that Ulta Beauty matched our ethos and that their consumer wants what our consumer wants, which are high-quality products that work and it’s not about whose name is on the bottle. It’s what’s in the bottle, and we make products that work.”
At Ulta, the hair business is “thriving,” according to Jessica Phillips, the retailer’s vice president of merchandising. “This is a space we know well, and we continue to see growth and innovation as guests engage with products formulated with specific hair goals in mind,” she said in an email. “Through our exclusive retail partnership, we’re demonstrating one of many ways we’re growing our assortment to meet the diverse interests and needs of our guests while also introducing newness they crave and importantly, helping the brand reach new heights.”
The business at Ulta overall is strong, having passed $10 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ended Jan. 28, a first for the retail giant.
“Our priority is to execute retail with excellence,” Sachs said. “We’ve done it with d-to-c, but we haven’t given our consumers the experience of our product first hand to go touch and feel.”
The brand has further products on the horizon, and hasn’t ruled out additional expansion. “More than half of our site traffic has been from outside of the U.S., and it’s a testament to how strong the beginning of the brand [has been],” Ronkin said. “We do ship to the U.K. and Canada right now, but you’ll see us go international to a much greater degree.”