From creator-led communities to AI-powered discovery, beauty and wellness brands are rethinking what it takes to grow.
At the Glossy Beauty x Wellness Summit, leaders from Milani Cosmetics, Maybelline, Edgewell Personal Care, and more explored how brands can turn consumer attention into lasting demand as shopping behaviors and expectations evolve.
Here are six takeaways we’re adding to our marketing routine:
- A Following Can Launch a Brand, But It Can’t Sustain One
Creator-founded beauty brands have demonstrated the power of an established audience. But a successful launch doesn’t guarantee repeat purchases.
POV Beauty Founder Mikayla Nogueira and Co-Founder and CEO Ani Hadjinian discussed how they’re building community into the business itself. The brand’s My POV app creates a direct relationship with consumers, allowing customer feedback to inform product development.
Rather than chasing every skincare trend, POV Beauty focuses on products that address real consumer needs and fit naturally into their routines.
Rodan + Fields offered another perspective on community-driven growth. As the brand expands beyond direct selling, its network of approximately 70,000 affiliates remains central to product education and customer relationships, complemented by new creator and retail partnerships.
The lesson isn’t that creator influence matters less, but that it needs to serve a larger business strategy, with community playing a role in product development, education, and retention, not just awareness. - Discovery and Conversion Rarely Happen in the Same Place
The path from inspiration to purchase is becoming harder to track as consumers move between AI, creators, marketplaces, and physical retail.
PartnerCentric Founder and CEO Stephanie Harris summarized the emerging relationship between these touchpoints: AI recommends, creators prove, and commerce closes.
Amazon is seeing that shift firsthand. Kirsti White, Head of Business Development for Amazon Beauty and Consumables, discussed how the platform is evolving from a replenishment destination into a discovery channel. Creator videos, shade-matching tools, and AI-powered recommendations are helping consumers evaluate unfamiliar products.
Milani Cosmetics similarly views TikTok Shop, Amazon, and physical retail as complementary. A consumer may discover a product through a creator but ultimately purchase it in-store.
Rodan + Fields shared that its expansion into retail, Amazon, and creator marketing is also generating awareness that benefits its existing affiliate business.
For marketers, channel performance needs to account for how discovery, consideration, and conversion work together, not just where the final transaction happens. - Cultural Relevance Starts With Knowing What Your Brand Stands For
In a category driven by trends, staying relevant can feel like a constant race to keep up. But several speakers emphasized a more deliberate approach.
Yasmin Dastmalchi, President of Maybelline and Essie USA, discussed connecting with consumers through their interests and cultural identities rather than demographics alone. Maybelline’s involvement in the New York City Marathon and partnership with Miley Cyrus reflect that approach.
Edgewell Personal Care is taking a similar path with legacy brands like Hawaiian Tropic and Schick.
Veronique Mura, SVP and GM of Sun and Skin, described how Hawaiian Tropic is leaning into its longstanding associations with confidence and enjoyment in the sun, bringing that identity into contemporary culture through partnerships with creators like Alix Earle.
Milani Cosmetics is taking a similarly deliberate approach, prioritizing what its leadership calls “timeless trends” over short-lived successes. The brand is translating renewed interest in color theory into product education, creator content, and in-store merchandising, connecting a cultural conversation to a practical consumer need.
The opportunity isn’t to chase every cultural moment. It’s to identify the ones that naturally reinforce what makes your brand distinctive. - Know Your Consumer, Then Build Your Business Around Them
Understanding your audience isn’t just about improving targeting. It’s about making better decisions across the business.
Milani CEO Mary van Praag and CMO Jeremy Lowenstein discussed how the brand developed a detailed consumer persona, “Sophia Lexi,” to guide decisions across media, creative, merchandising, and product innovation.
She represents a working woman entering a new life stage who values quality and performance but doesn’t want to overspend or constantly chase trends. That understanding supports Milani’s positioning around elevating expectations for drugstore makeup.
The same consumer-first thinking is becoming increasingly important across wellness, where shoppers are often looking for solutions to specific needs rather than products within traditional categories.
Amazon is adapting to this shift through AI-powered shopping tools that allow consumers to begin with a goal, such as improving sleep, rather than searching for a specific product or ingredient.
As beauty, wellness, and health converge, understanding consumers’ evolving needs should shape not just who brands target, but what they sell, how they communicate, and where they invest. - Consumers Need Clarity, Not Just More Content
Consumers have access to more product information than ever, but that doesn’t necessarily make purchasing decisions easier.
Milani highlighted this challenge in mass beauty retail, where shoppers often select products without the help of a beauty advisor. Its color theory strategy connects creator content, education, and in-store merchandising to make shade selection more intuitive.
Rodan + Fields emphasized credible product storytelling, particularly as consumers become more skeptical of the claims and content they encounter online. Its affiliates and creators help communicate firsthand product experiences.
Amazon is addressing similar barriers through reviews, creator videos, product-matching tools, and AI-powered shopping assistance.
Education drives conversion by answering the questions that give consumers confidence to purchase, not simply producing more content. - Sustainable Growth Requires More Than the Next Big Launch
Newness drives attention in beauty, but constant innovation isn’t a strategy on its own.
With more than 20 consecutive quarters of growth since 2020, Milani is building on its momentum through four priorities: expanding its retail footprint and assortment, accelerating digital commerce, deepening its presence in key international markets, and increasing investment in brand awareness and community.
Rather than chasing short-lived product trends, the company is focused on strengthening established franchises while identifying opportunities for meaningful innovation.
Edgewell is similarly reinvesting in legacy brands, combining refreshed positioning with marketing support and product innovation.
Rodan + Fields is expanding distribution while preserving the product credibility and customer relationships that built its business. And for creator-founded brands like POV Beauty, the challenge is building something consumers will return to long after the initial excitement fades.
Sustainable growth depends on strengthening what makes a brand valuable, not just attracting new customers, but giving them a reason to return.
Beauty and wellness brands aren’t short on opportunities to capture attention. The challenge is knowing which ones will create lasting value.
Across the summit, the strongest strategies connected a clear understanding of the consumer with a differentiated brand identity and a seamless experience across discovery, education, purchase, and loyalty.
As the industry evolves, the brands best positioned for growth won’t necessarily be those chasing every trend. They’ll be the ones giving consumers a reason to keep coming back.
