This week, I checked in with Denise De Baun, the CEO of Helight, a sleep device launched at Ulta Beauty last week, as well as experts in the sleep space, to better understand this growing wellness category. Additionally, The Body Shop reenters the U.S. market, Estée Lauder gets a new spokesperson, and Helen of Troy reports a sales tumble.
The wellness industry’s sleep category is having its moment
Denise De Baun, the CEO of Helight, a red light-powered sleep device launched at Ulta Beauty last week, attributes consumers’ newfound obsession with sleep on the growing popularity of wearable health trackers.
“Is it the chicken or the egg? Did sleep trackers stimulate the interest in better sleep? Or were we not sleeping well because of blue light [from our devices]?” she said. “It doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, because the sleep economy is worth about $450 billion today and growing to $950 billion, just under $1 trillion, by 2032.”
This statistic, from market research company Emergen Research, is as stunning as the latest stat around health trackers. According to Circana, more than 1.3 million fitness tracker devices were purchased during the first seven months of 2025, a 35% increase over last year. Oura ring, the leader in the space, expects to reach $1 billion in sales this year, up from more than $500 million in 2024.
Wearables, like those from Oura, Whoop and Apple, record and rate a user’s sleep patterns, then deliver a “sleep score” each morning. This gamified sleep experience, which has given consumers their first real personal data around sleep, is often shared and discussed on social media. For many users, waking up to find you’ve received a perfect sleep score is the ultimate wellness goal — and they’ll try lots of new accessories to help get there.
In this case, the health tracker marketplace’s rising tide is rapidly lifting the wellness industry’s sleep marketplace, which includes all things to help users fall asleep and stay asleep. Some categories include supplements and drink mixes, techy devices that provide sound and light, mouth tape, eye masks, bonnets, meditation programs, weighted blankets, pillow cases, oil diffusers, and more.
According to Mintel market research, 71% of U.S. consumers are actively seeking ways to improve their sleep, with 42% of U.S. adults using some form of OTC sleep solution. According to a 2025 survey from the firm, 66% of U.S. consumers struggle with sleep.
Retailers are lining up to appeal to these shoppers, including Ulta Beauty, which launched its UB Marketplace earlier this month in an effort to make room for more wellness offerings. This includes Helight’s red light-powered device that runs a 28-minute dose of red light that slowly fades to relax the user into deeper, more restful sleep, according to De Baun.
The device, which retails for $139, also sells DTC and at Goop. The company was founded in France in 2017 with professional red light devices and released its first at-home device in 2023. De Baun’s team is further targeting U.S. retail and believes there is white space for more sleep solutions within hotels.
Ulta Beauty’s other recent sleep launches include a relaxation tincture from Apothékary, a sleep mask with gentle vibration from Therabody, mouthtape from SkinGym, a starlight projector from Zadro, pillow spray from Drowsy and a lavender-scented weighted pillow from Quiet Mind.
“Sleep has become known as a status symbol for foundational wellness,” said De Baun. “And consumers are taking more agency over their sleep.”
Executive moves:
- Unilever, parent company to brands like Dove, Axe and Liquid IV, has appointed Belén Garijo López, CEO of German pharmaceutical giant Merck KGaA, as an independent, non-executive director, effective May 2026. López is set to step down from her role at Merck KGaA in April of the same year.
- Marc-André Heller is set to take on the role of CEO for luxury fragrance brand Memo Paris in January. He will succeed John Molloy, co-founder and current chairman of the brand. Heller joined the company in 2024 as global chief commercial officer.
News to know:
- The Body Shop has returned to selling in the U.S. market after closing its U.S. stores and website in 2024. The heritage beauty retailer launched a fresh new DTC site and entered Amazon last week. The brand, which launched in 1976, is currently owned by private equity firm Auréa Group. The P.E. firm’s co-founder Mike Jatania is the latest CEO of The Body Shop.
- Helen of Troy, parent company to Drybar, Revlon and Olive & June, reported an 8.9% consolidated net sales tumble during its Q2 of 2026 earnings call on Thursday. Organic sales in its beauty and wellness category dropped 18.2% year-over-year. Higher tariffs and lower sales in Asia impacted these numbers.
- Vasiliki Petrou, the CEO of Unilever Prestige from 2014-2024, has launched a beauty investment fund called Veralis Group. The group plans to scale beauty, wellness, longevity, diagnostic and consumer health ventures. Petrou’s CV also includes 18 years at P&G.
- Actress Nia Long is the newest face of Estée Lauder. She will appear in advertising materials across the brand’s skin-care and makeup franchises within the North American market.
Stat of the week:
Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $966 million in its latest talc cancer case, as reported by Reuters. A Los Angeles jury sided with the family of a deceased woman who had a rare cancer called mesothelioma. The disease can be caused by asbestos, a material that is known to contaminate talc during its mining process.
In the headlines:
Gymshark says its first 2 permanent US stores are ‘only the beginning’ of its footprint in the country. In the age of AI, the CMO role gets a corporate makeover. ChatGPT is now 20% of Walmart’s referral traffic — while Amazon wards off AI shopping agents.
Listen in:
On this week’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-hosts Sara Spruch-Feiner and Lexy Lebsack dive into one of beauty’s buzziest topics: Gen Alpha’s rapid emergence as consumers in their own right.
Need a Glossy recap?
What the industry can learn from Sephora’s $775,000 California waste settlement. During Fashion Month, luxury doubled down on the 1 percent. Derma-E casts star-studded TikTok campaign to reach a younger demo. 5 ways Rhode’s instant success at Sephora is changing the wider beauty industry.
