Target Just Opened Its Beauty Shelves to 60+ Brands That Have Never Sold There Before
Target's split from Ulta Beauty is now complete, and what's replacing it says something worth paying attention to if you sell beauty or personal care products anywhere online. Target Beauty Studio launches September 10 in more than 600 stores and on Target.com, featuring over 1,600 products from 90 brands, more than two-thirds of which have never been sold at Target before.
If you run a beauty or personal care brand and you've assumed Target's shelf space was locked up by the Ulta relationship, that assumption just became outdated.
Why the Ulta Partnership Actually Ended
Ulta Beauty at Target launched in 2021 with real fanfare, eventually expanding to 610 stores at roughly 1,000 square feet each. The two companies mutually agreed not to renew the partnership when it expired in August 2026, and reporting on the split points to a specific competitive pressure behind the decision: the shop-in-shop model struggled against Sephora's own partnership with Kohl's and, more recently, Amazon's growing push into prestige beauty.
That competitive context matters. Target isn't retreating from beauty as a category. It's betting it can build a more differentiated, better-controlled version of the same idea by curating its own brand relationships directly rather than importing Ulta's existing assortment wholesale.
What Target Is Actually Building
The new concept leans heavily into curation and discovery rather than simply stocking more inventory. Target's senior vice president of merchandising, Amanda Nusz, described the selection philosophy directly: “It was really important that it was curated. That's Target. We are not known for having everything. We are known for having a point of view, for having an edit, and so we anchored on discovery.” Brands were selected specifically for quality, innovation, accessibility, and ingredient transparency, not simply for existing brand recognition.
The featured lineup includes names like Dyson, Sunday Riley, St. Tropez, Boy Smells, Briogeo, First Aid Beauty, Bondi Boost, and Rom&nd, spanning skincare, makeup, haircare, fragrance, K-beauty, and suncare. Each space will staff trained beauty advisors on-site from open to close, backed by what Target described as comprehensive hands-on training beyond standard brand-provided content. The assortment is also designed to rotate several times a year, meaning this isn't a fixed shelf set locked in at launch, it's built to keep changing as new brands and collaborations get added.
Why This Matters Beyond Target's Own Stores
Beauty has genuinely mattered to Target's overall business, which is part of why this launch carries real weight rather than reading as a defensive scramble. Target reported beauty sales grew 5% in 2024, a bright spot against a 0.9% decline in overall merchandise sales that same year. A retailer treating beauty as a differentiating, traffic-driving category, rather than a category it's simply trying to keep afloat, has real incentive to keep actively recruiting brands rather than settling into a static assortment.
That's the part worth watching if you sell in this space regardless of what platform you currently use. Target explicitly built this launch around bringing in brands new to its shelves, and two-thirds of the assortment reflects exactly that. If Target's rotating model holds as described, this becomes a recurring opportunity rather than a one-time door that opens and closes in September.
What This Means If You Sell Beauty or Personal Care Products
If you run an emerging or prestige beauty brand currently selling primarily through your own DTC site, Amazon, or a smaller specialty retailer, Target Beauty Studio is worth tracking as a genuine new distribution channel, not just retail industry news to skim past. The brand selection criteria Nusz described, quality, innovation, ingredient transparency, accessibility, are the same qualities most DTC beauty brands already lead with in their own marketing, which suggests real alignment between what Target is looking for and what a well-positioned smaller brand can offer.
Watch how the assortment evolves after the September 26 in-store celebration and through the rest of the year, since Target has explicitly said the space will rotate multiple times annually to showcase new brands and collaborations. If you're a beauty brand weighing your next major retail expansion, this is a live, actively growing opportunity rather than a closed relationship the way Ulta's shop-in-shop model effectively was.
