Jupiter, the 6-year-old dandruff category disruptor, is entering 500 Ulta Beauty stores this week as the retailer pushes deeper into clinical- and solution-based hair care.
“Fifty percent of the world gets dandruff at some point in their lives,” Robbie Salter, co-CEO and founder of Jupiter, told Glossy. “By not having a standout dandruff brand [in beauty retail], you’re totally missing out on an enormous opportunity.”
The brand will launch its bestsellers into Ulta’s stores and e-commerce. They include a medicated shampoo, a hydrating conditioner, a better-for-your-scalp dry shampoo and more products priced under $26 each. Jupiter launched in 2020 and is backed by True Beauty Ventures, Willow Growth Partners and Springdale Ventures. The line is also sold DTC and through Amazon and Target.
“It was always a shared thesis between Ulta and Jupiter that dandruff products had a stigma and were sold in the wrong aisle,” Salter told Glossy. “Historically, dandruff products had been sold in the medicated category in drugstores. What Ulta really recognized is that we should be bringing these types of products into [beauty retail] because it naturally is part of the [hair-care] conversation and where the demand already is for their customer.”
The brand’s expansion is part of Ulta’s slow and steady growth into beauty-adjacent categories like wellness, clinical skin- and hair-care, and solution-based products.
According to Shianna Davey, vp of merchandising at Ulta Beauty, “Scalp care has been steadily gaining momentum for several years” within the retailer. “Today’s guests are looking for more than one-size-fits-all hair care,” Davey said in a statement to Glossy. “[Consumers are] building personalized routines that address their unique hair goals and specific concerns.”
Jupiter will join other scalp- and dandruff-focused brands in the retailer’s selection like CeraVe, Biolage and Nioxin. The retailer’s broader problem-solution focus in the hair-care category includes hydration, strengthening, maintenance, dandruff and scalp health, Davey said. “What’s exciting now is seeing the category continue to evolve through new formats, targeted solutions and ingredient-led innovation that make scalp care easier to personalize and incorporate into everyday routines,” she said. “Jupiter is a great example of that evolution.”
To support the launch, Jupiter plans to lean into top-of-funnel marketing campaigns. “Our job is to become as omnipresent as we possibly can,” Salter told Glossy. “[We want] the thing that everybody wants: to reach virality.”
To do so, the brand recently executed an aerial campaign over the Hamptons and Nantucket to launch its new dry shampoo, as well as NYC subway ads and a branded truck for guerilla sampling in Manhattan. “We’re starting to do more top-of-funnel campaigns, which we admittedly haven’t hadn’t been doing prior to Target,” Salter said.
Jupiter’s messaging throughline for all marketing activities is simple: “We are destigmatizing a space that has, for so many years, been stigmatized,” Salter said.
