For the Wellness Briefing, Glossy interviews Stacey Politi, chief marketing officer at Ipsy, about the company’s foray into wellness subscription boxes. Additionally, Coty-owned Boss Parfums partners with fast-growing fitness competition company Hyrox, multi-platinum recording artist Ciara signs as co-owner of QALO wearables, and Selena Gomez shares health warning with fans.
Ipsy launches wellness subscription box to ease consumer confusion over the category
Last year, 15-year-old subscription beauty box company Ipsy surveyed its consumers about their interest in the wellness category.
“[Our members] were saying that they were really interested in learning more about wellness, but that it was an overwhelming nut to crack and they weren’t quite sure how to get started,” Stacey Politi, chief marketing officer at Ipsy, told Glossy.
The company found that 66% of members are interested in wellness but overwhelmed by the options, while 69% said they will not commit to a wellness routine without first sampling the products. Additionally, 65% said they’d be likely to explore a new wellness brand or product if Ipsy introduced it to them.
“[We learned that] if we can hold their hand along the way, they’ll be more likely to take the leap [into the wellness category],” Politi said. “That’s a little bit of our superpower, and so it seemed like a good place for us to start.”
Ipsy was co-founded by YouTube creator Michelle Phan and launched in 2011 with its first beauty subscription box, a new category created by Birchbox the year before. As of 2025, Ipsy had 20 million subscribers. The company is privately held by BFA Industries, the parent company formed after Ipsy merged with competitor BoxyCharm in 2020.
Ipsy’s customer base is made up of older Gen Z, millennial and Gen X women in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, Politi told Glossy.
Ipsy offers a range of monthly and quarterly beauty boxes, ranging from $15 per month for its smallest offering, which includes four deluxe samples, to $65 per quarter for its largest, which comes with eight full-size products. The company also sells discounted full-size products to its members.
On Thursday, the company added to its selection with its first wellness box. The subscription box is delivered quarterly for $65 and allows consumers to select between three themes: hair, skin or overall well-being.
The company is launching its first boxes with a focus on beauty-adjacent categories like supplements and scalp health, with plans to expand into sleep and sexual wellness soon. Its first boxes include products from Cymbiotika, Goli, Sakara, Apothékary, Elemis, and Fable & Mane. Lemme, Beam and Good Bacteria are set to be featured in future boxes.
Politi told Glossy that Ipsy is targeting a mix of established brands with name recognition and up-and-coming brands that offer exposure to burgeoning categories and trends across wellness.
Politi and her team are growing subscriptions through cross-selling to current beauty subscribers, paid media and mobilization of Ipsy’s 2,000-person-strong creator network. The company is approaching the new offering as a beta test; the categories, pricing and frequency could be amended next year to better serve the consumer.
Politi told Glossy that Ipsy does not disclose the terms of its brand partnerships.
Set against the highly competitive world of beauty subscription boxes, the wellness subscription box model remains relatively underdeveloped. Ipsy’s largest direct competitor is TheraBox, a monthly self-care and wellness box curated by practicing therapists for $45. It was launched in 2017 by former Los Angeles-based therapist Ting Jiang. Then there are beauty and lifestyle boxes that sprinkle in wellness and fitness offerings, like FabFitFun, which launched in 2013, as well as Retention Brands-owned Birchbox.
But perhaps its biggest competition is single-purchase wellness discovery sets offered by retailers. For example, Revolve currently sells a Wellness Rituals Bundle for $39 that includes brands like Lemme gummy vitamins, Summer Fridays eye patches and Barriere wellness stickers. DermStore also sells one, called the Wellness Edit, for $60. Its curation includes Skin Gym mouth tape, Naturopathica bath salts and Agent Nateur supplement sachets.
“Wellness hasn’t been as mass as it’s becoming now,” Politi said. “But now it’s becoming so widespread that it’s something you can’t not pay attention to anymore. … People who might not have considered themselves as someone concerned with wellness or longevity 15 years ago are now thinking about those things.”
News to know:
- On Thursday, QALO, the health wearable company owned by NYC-based Win Brands Group, will announce two famous new co-owners. Grammy-winning artist Ciara and husband Russell Wilson, a former NFL quarterback turned CBS Sports analyst, have joined the company as co-owners and investors. QALO sells both a wearable ring and watch version of its tracker, which is differentiated in the marketplace for its competitive pricing and subscription-free app. QALO launched in 2013.
- Coty-owned Boss Parfums has partnered with fitness competition darling Hyrox to bring brand sampling and experiential activations to participants and fans. Hyrox is an indoor fitness competition that stacks eight kilometers of running with eight intermittent strength challenges. The Boss and Hyrox partnership will kick off in six regions across Europe as part of a multi-year sponsorship deal. Hyrox started in Germany in 2017 and has quickly become a standout in the burgeoning fitness competition space once dominated by CrossFit Games and Tough Mudder outdoor race. Hyrox is owned by its co-founders and L Catterton.
- Vaping is under new scrutiny after Selena Gomez told social media followers that vaping nicotine changed her voice. In an Instagram post Sunday, she said, “I vaped nicotine a lot. Nicotine is so hard to quit, and I think I just wanted to say: If you’re going through it, or if you’re even trying to vape, it’s just not worth it. … It’s so stupid, and it’s changed my voice.” According to Grand View Research, the U.S. e-cigarette and vaping market is worth nearly $9 billion and projected to reach $69 billion by 2030.
- On Monday, President Donald Trump signed a new executive order that directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish a new Women’s Health Division within the National Institutes of Health to “strengthen scientific research, accelerate medical breakthroughs, and improve health outcomes for American women and girls,” according to the White House. The move comes after growing consumer awareness about the research gap in women’s health. “For generations, women have faced unanswered questions about conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect them. This new NIH division will confront those questions with gold-standard science, accelerate research into prevention and treatment, and turn medical discoveries into better care for women and girls across America,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in a statement.
Stat of the week:
Galderma — parent company of skin-care brands like Cetaphil and Differin, plus injectables like Dysport and Restylane — has agreed to acquire ZO Skin for $1.5 billion. ZO Skin makes clinically backed professional skin care sold across 16,500 physician, medical spa and online accounts across more than 40 countries. Its annual net sales are $330 million, according to Coty. The acquisition is part of a growing consumer demand for clinical skin care.
In the headlines:
Target bets on buzzy TikTok brands like Mellow Sleep to revamp its home category [Modern Retail]. Retatrutide: What to know about the newest, strongest weight-loss drug [Women’s Health]. The best time to take magnesium this fall, according to experts [Vogue]. For wellness fans, gummies are out. The new craze is supplement strips. [WSJ] The Picklr files for bankruptcy as pickleball growth slows in the US [ATN]. Christina Aguilera goes live for Playground’s TikTok Shop debut in sexual wellness milestone [Beauty Independent]. Ownership, control, margins: the brand playbook for microseries is still taking shape [Digiday]. Pulse Fitness eyes $134M in revenue, targets US market with inclusive equipment [ATN].
Listen in:
Ritual founder and CEO Kat Schneider knows that winning the female supplement consumer requires taking big bets and big swings. In the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack sits down with Schneider for an insider’s guide into Ritual’s first launch in six years.
Need a Glossy recap?
Victoria’s Secret leverages fashion show to promote beauty expansion and first-ever skin-care partnership. ‘Love Actually’ reunions, delivered by DoorDash: Inside Anthropologie’s holiday sales pitch. Why brands are turning your favorite beauty products into fashion accessories. Amid an executive shakeup, Gap Beauty expands with its first gourmand fragrance. Bath & Body Works is testing smaller-batch fragrances through Hype Lab. Discounting is ‘a hard drug to come off,’ but retraining customers to shop full price is a must, brand leaders say. Morgenthal Frederics taps Dita founders to reach new luxury shoppers. Luxury Briefing: Dior drove Paris Fashion Week’s record buzz. The holiday playbook: How brands are navigating launches, stock and promotions. 10 years in, Good American brings its full vision to NYC with landmark pop-up.
