This week, I checked in on beauty publication Byrdie’s revamped Byrdie Social Club event. Additionally, Nudestix and Byoma are beauty’s most recent acquisition targets, and Glossier welcomes a new CEO.
Byrdie banks on quality over quantity with a revamped, invite-only Byrdie Social Club event
In 2024, Byrdie welcomed hundreds of guests to the sixth edition of its Byrdie Beauty Lab. For $25, last year’s attendees could access beauty treatments, convene with industry experts and fellow beauty-lovers, and receive a gift bag of beauty samples. But for the 2025 edition, attendees will need more than a $25 ticket to attend the event: The People Inc.-owned publication has revamped its annual Byrdie Beauty Lab event into the invite-only Byrdie Social Club.
Scheduled to be held at the Manhattan nail salon Majesty’s Pleasure on September 18, the revamped Byrdie Social Lab will convene roughly 100 friends of the brand for a day of programming. Invitees will be able to attend panels with the likes of Danessa Myricks and Patrick Ta, receive treatments from providers such as face sculptor Joseph Carrillo, and listen in on a fireside chat with Giggly Squad’s Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, who are also featured on the digital cover of Byrdie’s Muse Issue unveiled on Tuesday.
In sacrificing numbers, Byrdie hopes to gain something more valuable: intimacy.
“When we were talking to people last year, there was a lot of this, ‘Well, it would be so much nicer if the treatments weren’t so rushed,’ or, ‘… if I didn’t have to wait in too long of a line,’” said Leah Wyar, People Inc. president of beauty, style and entertainment. “There are so many events now, and then, usually, when you go to those events, there are so many people. We’re trying to create something that is a bit more intentional and something that is more intimate.”
Byrdie is rethinking its annual beauty event at a time when publishers are seeing more value in in-person events for both establishing deeper ties with readers and creating new revenue streams. According to a 2025 survey from Digiday, 70% of publishing professionals said they got at least a very small portion of their revenue from events in Q1 2025, compared to 47% in Q1 2024. And 23% said they got a large or very large portion of their revenue from events in Q1 2025, compared to 8% in the same quarter of the previous year.
For 2025’s revamped Social Club, Byrdie tapped Ulta Beauty, Olay Body, Shark Beauty, DSW and Gemz to sponsor the event. Wyar said the physical aspect of a media-backed event is appealing to brands looking to get product in customers’ hands, particularly when those customers are high-caliber invitees. Expected attendees at Thursday’s event include “The Bachelor” star Bri Springs, Ami Colé-founder Diarrha Ndiaye, and fashion creative and consultant Nicolette Mason.
“[Events] are a different revenue stream, and you have to constantly evolve and be diverse in how you’re making money to support your brand and to support the business. That is certainly something that, in the world of beauty and style, partners want. This is something they’re still very hot for,” said Wyar. “They like the show-and-tell of it all.”
Byrdie’s revamped event will also come with a renewed focus on social-first content, where the publication will hope to position itself as a “co-creator,” rather than simply an observer of cultural content.
“We’re maintaining what we love about Byrdie, which is the credibility and our ability to cut through the clutter in a real way, but we’re transforming the way we interact with our community. We don’t want to just talk at our readers, but rather, we want to create with them,” said Byrdie editor-in-chief Hallie Gould. “I think that will be a lot of the change that you see in Byrdie, but also in the media industry and across publications at large.”
In nearly a decade at the publication, Gould said she has seen how magazines have had to evolve in a social media-driven landscape. Gould said readers who don’t attend in person will be able to follow this year’s event on Byrdie’s Instagram and TikTok, where the publication will post snippets from panels and showcase this year’s sponsors.
“Social-first coverage is the next frontier. And using social to inform our content instead of the other way around is really the way we’re changing how we present what we’re creating,” said Gould. “We’re not just covering trends, but contextualizing them.”
As part of its mission to be a partner to content creators and maintain relevancy with its largely Gen-Z audience, going into 2026, Byrdie will also launch a Gen-Z advisory board and a creator group called Byrdie Unfiltered, which Wyar said will allow it to participate more directly in the creator landscape.
“A lot of brands feature influencers. What we’re trying to do is elevate the creator economy, in a way, by co-creating with them,” she said. “We’re not just showcasing the outfit they’re wearing, but we’re also asking them to help us create various things on social and various things on site.”
Even while many of today’s social media stars don’t need magazines to extend their reach — Byrdie cover stars Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo have more than 3 million followers on Instagram combined — Wyar said there is still a legitimacy that glossy titles can lend to online creators.
“We are told so many times that when these influencers are featured in not just People, but also in Byrdie or InStyle, it gives them a different type of credibility and a different anointment,” said Wyar. InStyle and People are also owned by People Inc., which was known as Dotdash Meredith until July. “It’s like, they’re not just in this creator sphere. They’re in the world.”
Not all of the event’s elements are changing from the previous editions. Like in years past, attendees to the invite-only 2025 Byrdie Social Club will still receive a gift bag. But the gift bag at this year’s edition is valued at close to $1,000, roughly four times the value of previous editions.
“Everyone comes for the gift bag, obviously. We did the survey last year after the event, and it was like 81% of the attendees wanted the samples and the opportunity to try the product after, and that was a huge driver in why they came,” said Wyar.
Executive moves:
- Glossier named Procter & Gamble and Ouai veteran Colin Walsh as its next CEO. He succeeds outgoing CEO Kyle Leahy, who oversaw the brand’s transition to Sephora and continued expansion into fragrance. Walsh will assume the role in October.
- The Estée Lauder Companies appointed René Lammers as evp of research and innovation. Lammers will join the cosmetics giant in October under CEO Stéphane de La Faverie, who announced a “beauty reimagined” scheme to recover slumping sales. Lammers previously served as scientific director at Pepsi Co.
News to know:
- Nudestix was acquired by an unnamed U.S.-based private group. The makeup-brand known for its stick cheek color products did not disclose the terms of the deal or the company that has acquired it. Mother and daughter Jenny and Taylor Frankel, who founded Nudestix in 2014, will remain at the brand.
- Balenciaga unveiled a 10-piece fragrance collection. The Kering-owned fashion brand produced the fragrances in-house as part of its Kering Beauté division after Coty’s licensing deal with the brand expired. Similar to the launch of fragrances from fellow Kering property Bottega Veneta fragrances, Balenciaga’s scents will be available at only select Balenciaga boutiques.
- Bansk Group announced it will acquire a majority stake in skin-care brand Byoma. The consumer-focused private investment firm did not share terms of the deal. Byoma was founded in 2022 and has grown in popularity among tween beauty consumers.
Stat of the week:
U.S. consumer sentiment fell to 55.4 in September, its lowest point since May. According to the University of Michigan, the decline comes as American consumers face concerns about the labor market and rising prices.
In the headlines:
This designer approaches fragrance as he does couture. Claire’s was a millennial go-to. Does it have a future? Can Gap’s big comeback extend to beauty?
Listen in:
L’Oréal tech leader Guive Balooch joins the Glossy podcast to share what’s driving beauty innovation today, which includes further exploration of the skin’s microbiome, ingredient creation through biotechnology and beauty at the intersection of longevity.
Need a Glossy recap?
Suave is betting on the power of the Yuka app with first derm-inspired body-care range at Walmart. How Bubble is using YouTube to channel education and community. At NYFW, Noyz gives the stage to its fans — and a first look at its new hero scent.
