The Nue Co. has a new home. On Sunday, the wellness brand will launch its mood-boosting fragrances at Ulta Beauty.
“We haven’t been playing into the fragrance playbook with discovery sets or 1-milliliter [samples] or travel sizes or any of that. Much of our growth has come organically,” said Jules Miller, founder of The Nue Co. “I would say, over the last 12 months, our community has been begging us to really play into that fragrance playbook, which [means offering] these different formats and SKU sizes — but also, having a retail partner.”
Following the Ulta debut in January, The Nue Co. fragrances will roll out to 1,100 Ulta stores across the U.S. by April, including placement within Ulta’s new wellness-oriented shop-in-shop concept. For the Ulta launch, The Nue Co. developed three discovery kits exclusive to the retailer, with prices ranging from $45-$110. It also created 10-milliliter, travel-sized formats of its eight scents, which will retail for $38 each. The brand’s 50-milliliter bottles will also be available at Ulta.
Ulta’s investment in wellness was crucial to making it an appealing partner for The Nue Co.’s scents, Miller said.
“They’ve really thought about creating a space that feels inspiring, but also really comfortable,” said Miller. “The staff within that section are actually trained to talk to the things that I’m passionate about. The thing that I’m so adamant about is that, if you put these products in just a normal fragrance aisle, you’re going to lose the point of them. These are tools for well-being.”
Miller launched The Nue Co. in 2017 as a supplements line before expanding it into fragrance in 2019 with the launch of Functional Fragrance, made by DSM-Firmenich perfumer Frank Voelkl. Though she intended the launch to be a one-off, its success led The Nue Co. to follow up with scents like Forest Lungs and the lactonic First Milk in the years that followed.
While supplements initially drove the majority of sales, since The Nue Co.’s rebranding in 2024, fragrance now comprises 65% of the company’s revenue, with the category achieving 303% year-over-year growth and driving 400% new customer acquisition.
But The Nue Co.’s fragrances have been largely available only through the brand’s online DTC shop. With the Ulta launch, consumers will be able to shop and, crucially, sample the brand’s fragrances in person. While Ulta’s wellness push will encompass categories like sexual wellness and nutrition, Miller said fragrance offers the “instant gratification” that is often so influential in beauty retail.
“Retailers have always been very excited about wellness, but wellness is really hard to crack in retail, particularly in beauty retail. And that’s because traditional beauty retailers are really dependent on sampling and obviously just education on the shop floor,” said Miller. “When you are leading with a supplement, it’s much harder to sample.”
In promotion of the launch, The Nue Co. will host events across six doors, with an emphasis on California, Texas and Florida as key markets, and seed products to 150,000 Ulta consumers. Online, the brand will also seed products to social media content creators to speak to Gen-Z audiences, as 18- to 24-year-olds make up The Nue Co.’s fastest-growing demographic.
To prepare for the expansion, The Nue Co. will grow a marketing team based in California. For its first year, Miller said the brand will focus on pushing volume through sales of 10-milliliter travel-sized bottles and sample kits before encouraging consumers to adopt full-sized bottles.
Looking ahead to new product launches, Miller has her eye on new formats as consumers embrace fragrance in all aspects of their routine.
“What other need states can we go into whereby fragrance has never been used before, but feels really innovative?” she said. “Does that solely have to stay within an [eau de parfum], or can we go into different formats? — while still always being led by fragrance, of course.”
