This week, I checked in on deodorant brand Curie’s new look and how it fits into Walmart’s demand for more premium beauty. Additionally, fragrance influencer Funmi Monet launches her own perfume line, and Macy’s plucks a former Kering exec to take over Bluemercury.
With an elevated brand refresh, Curie wants to speak to today’s performance-minded beauty shopper
When Sarah Moret launched her aluminum-free deodorant brand Curie in 2018, premium, natural deodorant was still a nascent category. But eight years on, offering an alternative to the standard drugstore antiperspirant is no longer enough to stand out.
On Wednesday, Curie will unveil a brand refresh with new, elevated packaging by design and strategy agency Gander, and partnerships that put Curie at the center of beauty’s growing interest in sports and performance culture.
“[The rebrand] was really a moment for us to invest in the brand and help the brand really catch up to what our customer has become,” said Moret, Curie’s founder and CEO. “Aluminum-free deodorant, clean deodorant, is no longer niche. People are actively looking for it. We’re having to do less education than we did in the early days of Curie.”
The new packaging attempts to communicate Curie as a more premium brand, with a more refined color palette, modernized typography and screen-printed packaging replacing a stick-on label. A new website design and fitness-oriented imagery will emphasize Curie as a “performance” brand. The brand also wiped out its Instagram grid in anticipation of the rebrand.
“I’ve seen this huge cultural shift around movement. And movement is about more than exercise for people, especially in this post-Covid world. It’s a means for building connection,” said Moret. “Run clubs are the new brunch. People are joining pickleball leagues and doing mom walks.”
Not everything about the brand is changing with the refresh, however. Moret said Curie is not raising its prices or changing its formulas as part of the rebrand, and will retain the same scents created by fragrance legend Ann Gottlieb, who has worked with brands ranging from Axe to Calvin Klein.
Those scents and formulas have helped Curie retain a loyal consumer base. According to the brand, Curie has close to 11,000 subscribers who receive its deodorants every two to four months. At Walmart, the brand is within the top five highest repeat rates in all of deodorant and has the largest year-over-year repeat purchase gain in the category.
Moret first launched Curie in 2018 and pitched the brand to investors on “Shark Tank” in 2022. In 2023, she launched the brand at Walmart, which she said has been a vocal partner in Curie’s rebrand direction.
“Our customer has changed dramatically over these last seven years. The Walmart shopper has also changed a lot,” said Moret.
Walmart has introduced more than 60 beauty brands in recent months and launched “Beauty Bars” to cater to a more dedicated beauty consumer. Moret said Curie is stocked in Walmart’s “natural” section rather than the main deodorant aisle.
“We’re not in mainline deodorant. We’re in a really interesting category where these types of premium products are living,” she said. “We are catering to the Walmart shopper that’s looking for those same premium products that they buy everywhere else. They just want value, too.”
Fitness-oriented initiatives have been a part of the Curie brand since its partnerships with the likes of Equinox, launched in 2022. Moret said the brand will be expanding its IRL initiatives as part of the rebrand, including a partnership with her local women’s soccer team, San Diego Wave FC. Moret and Curie’s San Diego-based team will appear at games to hand out deodorant samples and gather customer feedback.
Major brand makeovers can elicit polarizing reactions — fragrance brand Boy Smells drew negative criticism on TikTok after unveiling a new look, even while its founders said the brand had its best week of sales in four years after rolling out new packaging and formulas. But Moret and her design collaborators at Gander are confident they are making the right choice with the new look.
“A brand refresh is a six-figure investment. For us, it was one of the most important investments and one of the best investments that we could make, I believe, in terms of the long-term success of the brand in retail and just the power of our marketing dollars going forward,” said Moret.
Executive moves:
- Macy’s, Inc. names Alexandre Choueiri as CEO of Bluemercury, effective August 3. Choueiri was most recently CEO and president, Americas, at Kering Beauté and also held roles at L’Oréal. He succeeds Maly Bernstein, who left the role in September to join Bath & Body Works as chief commercial officer.
- Ulta Beauty welcomes Kelly Garcia as chief technology officer, effective August 31. Garcia served on the retailer’s board of directors for four years and will step down upon assuming the CTO role. He was previously evp and CTO of Domino’s Pizza.
- Ludivine Pont steps down as CEO of Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. Pont joined the Italian perfume brand in 2025 from Balenciaga, where she served as chief marketing officer.
- The Estée Lauder Companies appoints Madeleine Boyd as svp of global brand communications. Boyd joins the conglomerate from Together Group, where she served as global svp of beauty and wellness. In her new role, she will form a global brand communications team at the cosmetics giant.
News to know:
- Dr. Squatch launches body-care products targeted to children. The Unilever-owned brand launched Lil Squatch, a collection of mini bar soaps with scents like grape and watermelon. The line will be sold DTC and joins other beauty and personal care brands in targeting young consumers.
- Fragrance influencer Funmi Monet launches her own perfume line. The Dallas-based content creator developed the Influxious perfume line while participating in Sephora’s 2025 Accelerate Incubator Program. The line will debut at Sephora on July 27.
- Merit launches partnership with The Ritz-Carlton. The beauty brand will offer complimentary products and beauty consultations at select Ritz-Carlton locations, and sell a limited-edition co-branded makeup and skin-care set.
Stat of the week:
According to data from Front Row, sales of K-beauty brand Medicube on Amazon were up 200% year over year during the second quarter of 2026. Sales in the K-beauty category as a whole grew 38% during Amazon’s Prime Day sales. Beauty sales on the e-commerce giant grew 27% year over year to $9.8 billion in Q2.
In the headlines:
What it means to have “ferritin face.” Which brand won the World Cup? The niche retailers that matter in beauty.
Listen in:
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack sat down with Gregg Renfrew, the entrepreneur behind Beautycounter and Counter, to discuss her new brand Beecee, the future of clean beauty, how to best reach Gen Z and why the best days of specialty beauty retail are behind us.
Need a Glossy recap?
Inside Oura’s winning bet on the World Cup — and what it means for the brand’s 2027 roadmap. The Nue Co. expects fragrance to reach 85% of sales as Ulta fuels growth. Glossy Pop Newsletter: Why Rare Beauty is taking a “story-first” approach to celebrity ambassadors. Ingredient-led brands are dominating AI beauty citations. Wellness Briefing: Is hormone tracking the future of women’s wearables?
