Online retailer Amazon is reportedly wooing Brazil-based beauty and wellness brands Grupo Boticario and Natura Cosmeticos as part of its efforts to expand its online beauty business in the country. Brazil’s market for cosmetics, hair treatments, and other wellness products is worth about $30 billion as of 2018. Amazon has already been operating its online bookselling and video streaming business in the region. [Image Credit: © Simona Simonova from Pixabay.com]

Following the recent relaunch of the COVERGIRL brand, beauty company Coty is scheduled to open the brand's first ever physical outlet, a flagship store in New York City. Coty signed a 10-year leasing deal for the 10,000-square foot multi-level space at 30 Times Square. Scheduled to open its doors later this year, the store will be launched as part of COVERGIRL's "I Am What I Make Up" brand message, which replaces its "Easy, breezy, beautiful" tagline. To keep up with the tech-savvy consumers, the store will have experiential beauty playrooms equipped with interactive digital technologies and full-service makeup application. Coty also hinted of an "exclusive innovation" that will be available in the store.[Image Credit: © Coty, Inc.]

Chinese cosmetic conglomerate Jala Group is touring Australian cities, in partnership with Alibaba’s e-commerce arm Tmall, to promote its products, including a smart mirror. The augmented reality (AR) tool allows users to take a selfie using an in-built webcam and then shows them how they look with different make-up choices. Users can scan and buy their preferred choices through QR codes that appear onscreen. Jala has built four key brands (Maysu, Chando, Botanical Wisdom and Insea ) over the last 17 years to develop its presence in technology, innovation and design, in partnership with firms in Japan, France and the US.[Image Credit: © JALA Corporation]

After going viral, an app developed by Chinese software firm Meitu that altered the user’s selfie image hit up against privacy concerns. The company is now trying to commercialize its software by employing its various selfie apps and virtual reality to offer real-world benefits.  Meitu is partnering with a hospital to develop MeituBeauty, an app that assesses skin condition through a selfie to recommend products. It also allows users to try virtual makeup and then buy it.[Image Credit: © Meitu]

Luxury perfume brand Miller Harris has partnered with sampling solutions provider Odore to provide consumers in London with fragrance samples through vending machines. Consumers will be able to get a free sample of their preferred scent from Miller Harris's range of perfumes by answering a short survey. The data collected will be used by Miller Harris to gain consumer insights which will help the brand improve its sales and marketing strategies. Odore's smart vending machines will be installed in several fine dining venues owned by M Restaurants group. The solutions provider plans to expand beyond the United Kingdom and to partner with other brands and venues. [Image Credit: © Miller Harris]

Subscription-based fragrance firm SCENTBIRD successfully concluded a financing round which raised $18.6 million, the biggest Series A funding received by a direct-to-consumer brand led by a female CEO. Consumer technology firm Goodwater Capital and other venture companies including Y Combinator, Rainfall Ventures, FundersClub, Soma Capital, Scrum Ventures, ERA led SCENTBIRD's latest funding round. The company will use the proceeds for market expansion, product development, and talent acquisition. The firm currently has over 250,000 subscriptions across the United States. They contribute 95% of its total revenue. In the past year, SCENTBIRD established its own personal care and home fragrance products, expanding the range of its sampling service, which already offers over 500 male, female and unisex fragrances.[Image Credit: © SCENTBIRD ]

US direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand Glossier is set to expand internationally, with shipments to Ireland under way and plans for Sweden in June, and Denmark and France later in the year. The brand launched in the US four years ago and reached both Canada and the UK in 2017. It has been using social media, including Instagram, to create a community of followers, with some becoming brand ambassadors, some paid and some not. The brand seeks people in the new markets that are highly engaged, meets them, and treats them as influencers. The approach worked for the UK launch, and helped attract 10,000 people to its London pop-up in October last year. Estimates put the brand’s sales at around $50 million in 2017, and it has so far raised $86 million in financing. Although the brand expects expansion to bring unique challenges in the different markets, it has chosen not to adapt its products and strategy for each.[Image Credit: © Glossier]

Jamie Johns, the Director of Merchandising at Birchbox, the direct-to-consumer subscription beauty platform, believes many brands are missing opportunities to engage with the more casual beauty consumer, and are focusing too much on what she calls the beauty “junkies”. Johns, who will be speaking at the Innocos beauty networking event in Florence Italy in June, said most women are casual consumers who tend to focus on the purpose and effectiveness of the products they are buying. For these consumers, Johns believes existing strategies of massive launches and big influencer campaigns aren’t effective. Birchbox has been able to reach them through sampling. Johns admires certain direct-to-consumer brands, such as Glossier and Kylie, that are forcing the rest of the industry to rethink how it engages with consumers.

Hyundai Department Store launched an upgrade to its online mall in the form of a virtual make up try-on service powered by augmented reality (AR). The virtual service, offered via Meitu's Makeup Plus app, allows customers to try on more than 20 products across eight beauty brands without visiting a physical store, with plans to extend it to 20 brands. Hyundai said the AR approach is their way of differentiating themselves from other online retailers, which they said still focus on prices and delivery speed. Meitu's app has been downloaded more than 200-million times since its 2015 launch. 

In celebration of its 190th anniversary, French perfume house Guerlain has set up a pop-up shop in one of Paris’s prized department stores, Le Bon Marché. The pop-up serves to honour Guerlain's legacy as the oldest French perfume house and is showcasing 110 fragrances, categorized according to Guerlain's 14 favourite natural ingredients. Store visitors will be able to identify the scent best suited to them by using the digital “perfume organ”, a program that uses an algorithm to match users' personal olfactory profile with the perfect fragrance. Guerlain also allows customers to personalize the perfume bottle, including its shape, color and engraving.[Image Credit: © Guerlain SAS] 

Finnish beauty tech firm Revieve is introducing a tool for brands and retailers to allow their customers to try on the full range of their products. Revieve AR Virtual Try-on is part of the company’s Digital Beauty Advisor integrated suite of white-label tools. It uses selfies to analyze faces to provide personalized product recommendations and advice. It will be available in e-commerce, in-store and social media channels. [Image Credit: © Revieve Inc.]

Clairol is using Snapchat’s shoppable augmented reality platform, Lens, to allow users to “try-on” the brand’s Color Crave hair color products. The lenses will run through June 30, and users can also share and buy the products from the app. Clairol, a Coty brand, said the initiative is part of its effort to merge beauty and technology by creating a seamless shopping experience that bridges the gap between content and commerce.[Image Credit: © Coty, Inc.]