Ritual launches at Ulta as retailer invests deeper into wellness

It’s also not the only wellness brand launching at Ulta this week. U.K.-based Revive Collagen and Saje, the latter of which makes essential oils-based diffusers and skin care, are also launching at Ulta. As Ulta makes wellness a bigger part of its retail strategy, it also means that more digitally-native startups like Ritual are turning to the chain to reach new audiences. Startups like Ritual say they are increasingly interested in launching in Ulta because the retailer has shown interest in merchandising wellness products together, which helps educate mass consumers on the category while placing a spotlight on popular subcategories like clean beauty.

Ulta’s Wellness Shop started as a pandemic-era initiative back in 2021, launching with 35 products curated across five categories. This year, Ulta will go deeper into other areas like oral care, nutrition, sleep and hormonal health, among others. This month’s wave of new supplements brands, geared at women, is part of the expansion.

Ritual is debuting at Ulta with four of its most popular and clinically studied SKUs. These are the Ritual Essential for Women 18+ multivitamin, the Essential Prenatal multivitamin, the wrinkle-targeting HyaCera supplement and the Sleep BioSeries Melatonin. 

Ritual founder and CEO Katerina Schneider told Modern Retail the Ulta Beauty launch marks a major milestone for Ritual, which began as a DTC subscription brand offering clean-label supplements. 

Over the years, Schneider said, Ritual “hasn’t gone full blast, when it comes to retail.” Ritual launched as a DTC subscription brand in 2016 and made its wholesale retail debut with a Target partnership in 2023. “I think we always knew we wanted to be in retail, but we wanted to cross a certain threshold on our DTC business. We became profitable [in 2021] and a scaled business, and then we felt ready,” Schneider told Modern Retail back in 2023.

“We’ve been methodical and thoughtful as we’ve gone into these channels,” Schneider told Modern Retail earlier this month, “whether it’s Target, Amazon or Whole Foods.”

For Ritual, Schneider said, being part of the Ulta Wellness Shop was a “natural progression” as it establishes its physical footprint. “I’m personally excited about it because I’ve always had a theory that there is a convergence between beauty and ingestibles for consumers,” Schneider said. “But for retailers, it was two separate aisles and buyers.”

As a major beauty retailer focused on merchandising more wellness products, Schneider said, Ulta adds credibility to the supplement category. “They [Ulta] were definitely at the top of our list, especially when it comes to beauty,” Schneider said. 

Schneider pointed to the increasing interest in clinically backed supplements, an already growing trend in skin care for the past decade. “As a stance, we’re only putting products in Ulta that have clinical studies behind them,” she said. Ritual’s products are now Clean Label Project certified, which tests for over 200 environmental toxins and contaminants. Schneider said Ritual is also investing $5 million in university-led human clinical studies on all its finished formulations by 2030.

Schneider said Ulta has become the leader in wellness-as-beauty, especially as the retailer has invested in a number of programs to bring sought-after brands to its customers. Ritual, for example, is part of Ulta’s Conscious Beauty program, an initiative to bring on brands that use clean ingredients, or are cruelty-free, vegan or sustainably-packaged.

Schneider said this also allows Ritual to be featured as part of a dedicated wellness display in every Ulta location. “Showcasing an assortment of wellness products together was really exciting for us,” she added.

Ulta’s growing wellness assortment

Ritual’s partnership with Ulta reflects the retailer’s growing investment in the wellness category and the rising consumer demand for rigorously tested, clinically proven products.

This week also marks the national Ulta launch of Armra, which was founded in 2020 and specializes in colostrum supplements, which are currently trending within wellness. It refers to the powdered version of the first milk cows release after giving birth. 

Armra will be launching at Ulta Beauty in stores nationwide and online, and bills itself as “the first colostrum-based ingestible within the retailer’s wellness assortment.”

Dr. Sarah Rahal, the founder of Armra, said, “This partnership with Ulta allows us to meet the community where they’re already searching for solutions.” The brand also launched in Target nationwide earlier this year.

Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at GlobalData, said Ulta’s push into health and wellness is is driven by the fact that its “rapid growth and success in beauty means they need to explore other avenues for growth.” Ulta also recently acquired British beauty retailer SpaceNK, allowing it to officially enter the U.K. for the first time.

But in the wellness space, Ulta “has lot of headroom to grab share, not least because there is a strong overlap between supplements and beauty,” Saunders said.

Ritual’s Schneider said Ulta Beauty’s strategy of creating dedicated wellness sections lends the category legitimacy in mass retail. It also brings many digitally-native and indie brands to beauty enthusiasts who may have otherwise overlooked these brands.

“When I think about Ulta, I think about accessibility,” Schneider said. “And the channels where we’ve performed the best are ones that are the most accessible to consumers.”