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Rare Beauty's inclusive gourmand turns design into differentiation

Plus: Lush Fires Up Pumpkin Spice Collection

Author

Zihan Lyu
August 20, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Fragrance Focus

Here's what's happening this week in the world of fragrance marketing:
- Rare Beauty launches accessible gourmand with layering balms
- Selfridges backs K-perfumery with Free Coco exclusive
- Lush pulls forward fall with pumpkin spice lineup

💸 The $200B Miscalculation Marketers Can’t Afford

On stage at eTail Boston, Fospha’s Chief Product Officer, Dom Devlin, warned that retail’s reliance on last-click metrics is outdated, and it’s costing brands $200 billion in under-credited sales.

The missed connection is clear: shoppers often discover on TikTok, Meta, or Snap, but complete their purchase on Amazon, Walmart, or Target. Traditional attribution frameworks rarely connect those dots. As a result, channels that spark demand are stripped of credit, while budgets overweight the “closers” - whether or not they truly created the sale.

Dom called this the bottom-of-funnel trap: over-investing in channels that finish the purchase while underfunding those that generate demand. The fallout is higher acquisition costs and shrinking pipelines of future customers.

Fospha’s Halo platform was built to break that cycle. By integrating marketplace and DTC sales into one unified ROAS, it captures the full impact of discovery spend across the funnel. For brands like Nécessaire and Give Me Cosmetics, that visibility has unlocked the confidence to double down on demand generation while protecting profitability.

📥Download Fospha’s Halo Report to see how leaders are funding growth where it really starts.

📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

Bath & Body Works is launching a 39-SKU Disney Villains collection worldwide on September 3, spanning body, home and accessories with Evil Queen and Maleficent scent profiles. Building on the strong Disney Princess results, the brand is doubling down on IP-led storytelling timed to fall and early Halloween demand. The move positions licensing as a growth lever across categories, impacting retailers, licensors and seasonal assortment planning.

Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty introduced Rare Eau de Parfum, a vanilla-caramel gourmand priced at $75, plus four $19 layering balms and mini formats at Sephora. The bottle’s oversized pump and grip, validated by a study among users with upper extremity impairments, elevate accessibility as a design advantage. The launch taps mass-accessible pricing and layering rituals to lift AOV and gifting, with implications for celebrity brands, retailers and packaging teams.

Circana reports U.S. beauty sales reached $50.6 billion in H1 2025, with prestige up 2 percent and mass up 4 percent. Fragrance led prestige growth at 6 percent and surged 17 percent in mass; Amazon now captures the largest share across total beauty while brick-and-mortar remains dominant. The data underscores omnichannel urgency and validates bifurcated fragrance demand from ultra-luxe to value formats, guiding portfolio and channel allocation.

🧐 What Does Brand Building Really Mean in eCommerce?

I had an engaging conversation with Alex Brownsell for the latest episode of the WARC Podcast. | Sam Carter, CEO at Fospha

We discussed where most brands get it wrong when it comes to brand building, with bad measurement and poor organizational structure amongst the biggest contributing factors - and how Fospha is aiming to solve the biggest questions around brand measurement with Glow.

Thanks Alex and team again for having me (and for offering a brief airconditioned respite from the intense heat and chaos of Cannes!)

⚡QUICK READS

BORNTOSTANDOUT and Selfridges Launch Free Coco: Korean niche house BORNTOSTANDOUT debuts a Selfridges-exclusive gourmand, signaling retailer-led discovery for K-perfumery and renewed appetite for coconut profiles. (More)

Lush Fires Up Pumpkin Spice Collection: LUSH drops limited-edition pumpkin spice body, spray and candle SKUs ahead of fall, suggesting early seasonal resets can pull forward demand and gifting. (More)

Australian Niche Fragrance Labels Gain Momentum: Profiles of Australian houses highlight native botanicals and transparent sourcing, pointing to growing demand for provenance-led storytelling and artisanal luxury. (More)

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