While significant progress has been made in recycling materials like food, plastic and aluminum, reusing textiles and preventing clothing from piling up in landfills remains another story.

Some fashion brands have embraced sustainability as a core tenet, or at least pushed to include more environmentally friendly practices, but few have been able to successfully make an impact when it comes to recycling apparel. Brands like Madewell have integrated practices like trading in old denim for a discount on in-store purchases, and H&M and Zara have erected donation bins in select stores. However, it can be difficult to divorce these efforts from prevailing issues in the way these companies produce, including the excessive amount of water it takes to manufacture denim and the billions of dollars of unsold clothing that results.

Still, some fashion companies are slowly moving the needle. Eileen Fisher has implemented recycling as a significant component of its business, and it now operates two Renew stores that sell lightly worn or redesigned clothing from its '€œtake-back'€ recycling program, similar to Patagonia'€™s popular recycled jacket effort. Yet, as a recent report from the thrift company Savers points out, negative perception around thrift and recycling is hindering progress in preventing waste in retail.

Savers cited several reasons for the lack of clothing reuse among consumers, largely related to disparities in education regarding sustainable practices and differing perspectives on recycling. For example, when asked what respondents think they should be doing now to save the environment, 28 percent of people said donating used clothing, while just 7 percent said buying secondhand clothing. Further, 60 percent said they shop at secondhand clothing stores, but not more than once a year.

Ultimately, the report argues that meaningful change in retail will come only after better consumer education on sustainability and thrift. Here'€™s a breakdown from the report of recycling in retail as it stands, by the numbers:

Number of new clothing items purchased around the world in a given year: 80 billion

Pounds of clothing sent to landfill each year: 26 billion

Amount of clothing thrown away each year, with the potential to be recycled into new products: 95 percent

Percentage of people who report feeling they have '€œway too much stuff'€: 46 percent

Gallons of water it takes to produce one shirt: 700

Gallons of water it takes to produce one pair of jeans: 1,800

Percentage of people who thrift more than once a year: 40 percent

Percentage increase in clothing purchases by a single person per year, compared to 15 years ago: 60 percent (and clothing is now kept for half as long)

Percentage of people throwing away clothing, rather than donating or recycling: 20 percent

Percentage of people who falsely think their clothing is sorted out of trash for donation: 31 percent

Pounds of clothing thrown away in North America by an average individual: 81 pounds

Aliza Licht, evp of brand marketing and communications at Alice + Olivia, joined Glossy+ members for a Slack Chat on June 21 to discuss how brands can embrace authenticity, whether they should take political stances and what she learned building the @DKNYPRGirl Twitter handle to 1.5 million followers while working as svp of communications at Donna Karan.

The full conversation is available exclusively to Glossy+ members, but lightly edited excerpts appear below. Click here to join Glossy+.

On what made @DKNYPRGirl feel authentic:
'€œWhen I started, I had no clue what I was doing, so I would pay attention to what resonated. The more ‘real’ I was, the more engagement I got. I learned as I went. The platform was a way to humanize the DKNY brand beyond the clothes, giving readers a fly-on-the-wall experience of what it might be like to have my job in PR. I think it worked because, while my job was very aspirational, I was very accessible, and I engaged with everyone. A lot of brands just push content, and I do not believe that is a good strategy.'€

On what she learned from DKNY:
'€œEngagement is the [No. 1] thing you should do and measure. Even back all those years, I did not care about the follower count; I cared about the interactions. That’s why I posted so many times a day and interacted. Taking [Instagram] as the most important platform now, comment ranking matters. You have to at least heart every comment, but writing back is even better because it shows your followers that you engage, and [that] will encourage them to engage.'€

On political stances from a brand:
'€œI think we are in a time when social causes are very important. Designers are people, too, and they are passionate. If you go political, though, you are going to lose customers. It’s the nature of the beast.'€

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Digiday Media is Glossy’s parent company.

The news from the United States'€™ southern border worsens with each passing day. As a media company dedicated to honesty and uncovering truths, Digiday Media applauds the journalists at MSNBC and other outlets for their tireless coverage of what is happening inside the immigrant detention centers in McAllen, Texas, and in other towns along the U.S.-Mexico border. Through their work, the truth will come out.

But applause will not help the infants, children and parents separated from one another under this administration'€™s '€œzero tolerance'€ policy. At Digiday Media, we believe we have a responsibility as American citizens to not only say '€œno more,'€ but to actively support the organizations that are working on the ground to aid immigrant families, in the face of a seemingly inhumane state apparatus.

To this end, we pledge that $100.00 from every single paid transaction we receive from subscriptions, advertising, paid content, events, and awards for now will go to RAICES Texas, the ACLU, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. We are proud to support their work, and we thank them. You can also donate to these organizations via a Digiday Media-created GoFundMe here.

Finally, we hope that other media companies in New York City and beyond will join us in publicly taking a stand and supporting the organizations doing this hard work.

Our hearts are broken, and we know the only way forward is based in action. No human being is illegal. Families belong together.

'€” Nick Friese, CEO, Digiday Media

Image credit: Associated Press

Macy'€™s is upgrading its pop-up shops, driven by the way millennial consumers discover beauty products — through technology.

Last week, the department store announced it acquired a minority stake in B8ta, a tech startup that provides a Shopify-like solution for brands moving into physical retail. Macy'€™s plans to use B8ta to expand The Market, a pop-up concept featured in select stores and featuring a curated selection of products not normally sold at Macy'€™s. Along with a selection of fashion and tech products, The Market shops feature beauty products from brands including PiperWai, Miracle Brow and Liquid Courage.

B8ta'€™s  '€œBuilt by B8ta'€ platform, which has already been rolled out to some computer companies, provides brands with logistics and management services, and relies heavily on digital tools and displays. The company recently announced that it will bring its services to more cosmetics companies, Macy'€™s being one of the first.

'€œThe Market already has a bunch of beauty brands,'€ said Marc Mastronardi, Macy'€™s evp of business development. '€œIt is a place in our stores [where] we know consumers are excited about beauty.'€

The new investment, Mastronardi said, is part of Macy'€™s larger quest to incorporate more technology into its retail concept. The 160-year-old department store, once seen as a prime destination for fashion and beauty products, has been struggling to bring in sales for the last three years. In 2016 alone, it closed 100 of its stores and cut over 10,000 jobs.

Macy'€™s shares saw some modest growth in 2018, but analysts say the changing retail environment is not on its side. As consumers increasingly shop online for beauty and fashion products, old-world department stores with traditional salespeople and floor displays are struggling to stay relevant.

As a result, Macy'€™s will tap into B8ta'€™s expertise to bring more tech features to its pop-up section and, potentially, its full stores. Mastronardi would not disclose which specific technologies The Market would incorporate, but he said Macy'€™s will increasingly feature everything from video to content platforms to tech-driven product testing in stores, in order to showcase beauty, fashion and tech brands.

'€œThere are a number of things that are on our radar — some of the things B8ta [already] has on their radar as it relates to the in-store experience around beauty products,'€ he said. Broadly, Mastronardi said, customers may be able to get customized beauty advice through technology or put beauty products they see in the shop to an online checkout on their phones.

Department stores are getting increasingly competitive when it comes to introducing new technologies in fashion and beauty departments. Nordstrom'€™s Pop-Ins, a similar series of rotating in-store pop-up shops curated by former Opening Ceremony vp Olivia Kim, have used virtual reality, music and 360-degree video to showcase products both virtually and physically. Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue have been expanding their beauty counters, so customers can walk around and try products more freely. Specialty stores such as Sephora and Ulta have introduced features such as augmented reality mirrors in their stores.

'€œWe'€™ve got a very great, very strong beauty customer,'€ Mastronardi said. '€œAnd we have a customer that is always asking for us to provide more technological advances in their shopping experience.'€

Jennifer Walsh, the founder of retail concept Beauty Bar — which spanned e-commerce, brick-and-mortar stores and a TV program — and a cosmetics industry consultant, said beauty merchandise alone is no longer enough to draw shoppers to a store. As a result, department stores are trying to lure customers in with interesting experiences, including everything from pop-ups tailored to local tastes to custom beauty advice dished out through high-tech features such as virtual voice assistants.

'€œPeople don'€™t want to shop in store because many stores aren'€™t keeping up with the more agile smaller brands that can really make the in-store shopping experience something unique to them,'€ she said. '€œBig-box retailers have tried to create something similar in developing shop-in-shop experiences.'€

Technology is one such way for a retailer to create a custom beauty shopping experience: AR and virtual voice assistants have allowed many cosmetics brands to offer suggestions on specific products and provide beauty advice based on individuals'€™ unique needs.

Walsh said such an approach is no longer cutting-edge; rather, it'€™s what beauty customers have come to expect from a shopping experience. Therefore, big-box retailers — particularly those based on the traditional department-store model — need to constantly focus on technology to stay in business.

'€œIn beauty, people will always want to see it, smell it, touch it and experience it before purchasing,'€ Walsh said. '€œIf the tech-driven experience is about customizing products that are made just for you, with what your skin needs right now, it could drive more traffic to the stores.'€

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Clique Brands is continuing to identify ways to use College Fashionista to poach new brands while luring Gen-Z readers to the rest of the Clique portfolio.

College Fashionista — which was acquired by Clique in 2016 — has gone from what was essentially a fashion blog to a full-fledged media site that covers fashion, beauty, lifestyle and career-related topics. For Clique, the acquisition was key to its quest to reach younger people, building upon recent investments like the social media'€“centric platform Obsessee.

Now, to appeal to advertisers seeking to reach Gen-Z, Clique has its sights set on events. College Fashionista just wrapped its second CF Clubhouse, a summer education and networking program for students getting into the fashion industry.

Clique CEO Katherine Power said events like CF Clubhouse have become important for brands that want to interact directly with audiences. This year, it expanded its sponsorship roster to include Bumble, Kendra Scott and Primark, in addition to returning sponsor American Eagle. American Eagle used the event to debut its new collaboration with Dormify on dorm-room products and accessories.

'€œOur customers are part of the College Fashionista community of college-aged global influencers that are looking for unique experiences, so the Clubhouse was a no-brainer when deciding where to launch our new AE x Dormify collection,'€ said Kyle Andrew, American Eagle’s CMO.

Likewise, for Dublin-based fast-fashion retailer Primark, College Fashionista is a way to expand its awareness with college students in a down-to-earth setting in the U.S., where it operates eight physical stores on the East Coast.

Amy Levin, founder of College Fashionista, said based on feedback from last year'€™s event, College Fashionista shortened the event from one month to two weeks to appeal to students just moving to the city or starting internships. It also included more programming about marketing and digital media, as opposed to design and styling.

Based on the success of CF Clubhouse, Levin is working on a fall conference series at college campuses that will focus on career building. College Fashionista will also continue to host its digital education program that began last fall to contributors (known as Style Gurus on the site, they’re college students who apply to write, unpaid, for the site). The effort includes career training and discussions intended to retain talent at Clique by exposing people to other fashion-adjacent editorial positions.

'€œIt'€™s important to have this product which allows our clients to connect with this influential demographic and allows us to tap into it for our own products,'€ Power said. '€œThese might be future customers of WhoWhatWear, or they might purchase some of our products and inform the product lines down the road.'€

This year, CF Clubhouse was open to all students with a valid university ID, as opposed to just Style Gurus as it was in the past. Power said events like this and the forthcoming campus conferences are important to growing Clique’s awareness.

'€œWe don'€™t even think of College Fashionista as a publishing product, but as an audience product — an IRL network of influential college students that are specifically interested in careers around fashion and beauty,'€ Power said. '€œWe'€™re able to meet a whole new audience of young women, who may or may not be enrolled in the curriculum, and introduce them to our various brands and the brands of our clients.”

K-beauty startup Memebox relaunched the U.S. e-commerce portion of its website on Wednesday, after putting it on hold last year to focus on building a community of sellers and launching partnerships with key retailers.

Memebox has undergone a tumultuous few years since it helped usher in the K-beauty consumer craze — along with other e-commerce sites like Soko Glam and Glow Recipe — when it launched in 2012. The website initially began in South Korea as a subscription box, before branching out into the U.S. in 2014 as a one-stop shop for K-beauty with hundreds of brands on its website. The startup scooped up $160 million in funding along the way and became the first Korean company accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator program, before closing its e-commerce shop and affiliated offerings in the U.S. in May 2017.

Now, the U.S. site — scrubbed free of outside brands for direct purchase — has shifted to become something akin to Sephora reviews on steroids: Customers in the “Insider Access” program can not only see what influencers like The Beauty Vanity (who has 32 thousand followers on Instagram) or KoreanLovesBeauty (who has over 50 thousand YouTube subscribers) are suggesting, but also read reviews, see ingredients and discover where to purchase the product on a third-party site.

The business model now largely centers on affiliate links directing people to third-party sites like Amazon, Urban Outfitters or iHerb.com. Influencers in the program are only getting a percentage on Memebox private label brands I Dew Care & Nooni at this time, not affiliated links, but can make five to 10 percent commission on the private label sales. Customers can also directly purchase Memebox’s own products, see trending products, view personalized content and share their own.

Here’s a breakdown of the company’s strategy, as it stands.

Streamlining for survival
'€œOne of the reasons we stopped selling [outside brands] was to pursue the community direction,'€ said Danielle Zhu, product manager for Memebox. '€œThat'€™s why we took the last year to transition away from e-commerce and drive education of [K-beauty] products, and we did a lot of experimenting.'€

But there were other reasons Memebox stopped selling third-party products. With only 400 employees globally, the company couldn’t keep up. The company was sourcing products, importing them, translating packaging and educating consumers on how to use products for small Korean brands that didn’t have the resources to do it themselves. It took a toll on the company.

Despite dropping those brands, the site’s users and time spent on the site has remained steady: It has approximately 5 million global users, the same as this time last year, and the average time users are spending on the site has grown to around 25 minutes, said Dino Ha, Memebox co-founder and CEO. He noted that bringing back third-party brands remains an option.

'€œWe still have all the [brand] connections, but we will let the community decide on that part,” he said. “It'€™s only been a day, so we are looking for community feedback.'€

Leaning on Ulta and Sephora
Without third-party partners, Memebox has started to branch out with its own products, both online and through retail partnerships.

In June 2017, a month after e-commerce sales halted, Memebox launched I Dew Care — a rebrand of its bon vivant label — exclusively at Ulta Beauty and brought its other private label, Nooni, to 300 Ulta locations. This fall, Memebox is releasing a new product line at Sephora, which it created with the retailer.

'€œThe one thing to emphasize here is that Sephora and the Memebox team got together and designed it from scratch. We wanted to take a different approach on more than just lip or eye makeup. We wanted to create an experiential makeup brand,'€ he said, declining to provide further details other than that the number of SKUs is still being determined.

K-beauty is a huge market in the U.S. and one that retailers like Ulta and Sephora have been eager to get into. In 2015, South Korea'€™s beauty exports to the U.S. grew 59 percent, reaching $207 million, according to a report from market research group Euromonitor International. Sephora even has a dedicated K-beauty section on its site and in stores.

In addition to Nooni and I Dew Care, Memebox has private labels I'€™m Meme, Pony Effect and Shine Easy Glam, which are currently available exclusively on its Asian websites but will be available in the U.S. beginning in July. Additionally, the company is considering products outside of K-beauty by looking at what influencers are tagging and what users are searching for.

A Memebox ambassador’s My Shop page

Arming ambassadors to sell
Finally, Memebox is arming ambassadors with the tools it needs to effectively sell product. Ambassador can create their own branded shop page reflective of their style and gives them full control over their personal branding as well as their favorite products from Memebox’s e-comm selection.

Additionally, they have access to a great deal of data — not only can they view how much money they are making and the engagement of posts on their individual “My Shop” pages, but they can also see what products they’re selling best, and to shoppers of what age range, what skin type and more.

There are 50 ambassadors on the platform, which are set to grow to 350 by the end of June and one thousand by the end of the year, Ha said.

'€œThe user data and information is something we will rely on more,'€ he said.

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Glad Lash, a 35-year-old eyelash extension business selling to professional artists, salons and spas, opened its first retail location at the end of June in Northridge, California. Last week came announcements of physical stores by Osea, a 22-year-old, family-owned natural skin-care brand that had historically been available in spas, and CoverGirl, which said it would launch a tech-focused 10,000-square-foot store in Times Square later this year.

'€œTruthfully, we really wanted to have the hands-on interaction with our customers,'€ said Melissa Palmer, CEO of Osea. '€œWe haven'€™t had this level of connection with our customers to see what they'€™re looking for, and we wanted to share more of who we are.'€

Osea, based in Venice Beach, Calif. (and opening its store near its headquarters), is a clean beauty brand that started to branch out three years ago from supplying only to spas by increasing its distribution to include stores. But now the company is opening what it’s calling a '€œskin-care studio'€ that expands beyond being a point of retail. It will have two treatment rooms offering three facials, breathing and meditation classes, clean beauty panels and influencer-hosted events for local customers.

Companies are opening physical spaces to gather data about consumers, said Maya Mikhailov, chief marketing officer and co-founder of mobile commerce platform GPShopper. Historically, beauty brands were wholesaling businesses that were distributed through pharmacies or department stores and they had little access to customers.

'€œIncreasingly, brands are realizing they can have this close relationship with customers shopping online … but they’re seeing they lose control of their brand in these other [retail] channels,'€ she said, adding that brands are looking at understanding who their customer is, what she wants, what she buys and how she interacts with the brand.

Additionally, the power dynamic has shifted between brands, consumers and traditional retailers, with the entry of direct-to-consumer and digital-first brands into beauty. Companies are now trying get closer to shoppers, increasingly by creating experiences within stores. Some brands like CoverGirl are using technology to help them: CoverGirl plans to have an '€œexperiential beauty playroom'€ with interactive elements, full-service makeup application and on-the-go services, according to a press release. Additionally, the store will sell all of its current products as well as store-only exclusives.

The store will sell products but is part of Coty Inc.'€™s — CoverGirl'€™s parent company — effort to overhaul how customers see the 57-year-old brand. CoverGirl has also gotten a modernized logo, minimalist black-and-white packaging, an inclusivity-themed marketing campaign and trend-driven product innovations, including a foundation available in 40 shades.

“Opening a flagship storefront was the obvious next step for the full rebranding of CoverGirl,” Ukonwa Ojo, senior vice president of CoverGirl, said, adding later that establishing the new brand vision was a “tough decision.”

Nielsen data shows, as of May 19, CoverGirl sales were down 7 percent year-over-year, a modest improvement versus a year ago when it was down 10 percent, according to WWD.

'€œCombining stores with experiences, and making them more brand-centered is now fundamental,'€ Mikhailov said. '€œThat customer is now expecting digital technology, like [magic] mirrors or connections to their mobile shopping list with in-store programming. It'€™s becoming par for the course.'€

The connected-store concept has received a lot of attention over the past few years, especially as Sephora and Ulta have introduced virtual makeup looks using augmented reality or artificial intelligence that matches customers with the right shade of foundation. Younger digital-first brands like NYX Cosmetics have also adopted this model '€” NYX includes features like algorithmic-based crowdsourcing of selfies on its e-commerce site and shoppable video platform.

It is unlikely that heritage brands will rival large beauty retailers like Ulta or Sephora, but longstanding brands are trying to strike a balance between connecting with the consumer directly and continuing their traditional distribution channel, Mikhailov said.

'€œI'€™m sure brands like CoverGirl have looked at the success of Glossier that created a physical storefront in New York, which has become a [destination] for their customers with a cult-like following — there, customers can not only try on the product, but they can also live the brand,'€ she said. “We see the experience-based trend in beauty as powerful as the health and wellness one.”

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In 2011, while running a boutique in San Francisco, Rati Levesque noticed her customers were becoming more interested in the items in store that were on consignment than the new products she carried, despite their higher price point. That'€™s when Julie Wainwright approached her with the idea of The RealReal, an online marketplace for authentic luxury consignment. Levesque was convinced to join on as chief merchant, and two weeks later, she shut down her store to work on the startup full-time, out of Wainwright’s house.

Shortly after she and Wainwright moved their workspace to a warehouse in Marin County, they received a call signaling they were onto something: '€œSomeone called us to ask us the resale value of a Chanel bag,'€ said Levesque, on the Glossy Podcast. '€œThey said that'€™s how they were going to make their decision on [whether to] purchase in the primary market.”

Since, she and Wainwright have been growing the business. Today, The RealReal has sold over 9 million pieces, and the team is working to expand its physical footprint. They recently opened the first brick-and-mortar location in NYC.

Over the years, it has been pitted as a competition to luxury brands, forcing a difficult relationship with them '€” but, Levesque said, she’s seeing a shift: “If [customers] want to buy the new Gucci fanny pack, they'€™re looking in their closets to see what they can sell to afford the new pack,” Levesque said, noting the company’s recently established partnership with Stella McCartney. “If you sell a Stella McCartney product to us, you get a $100 Stella McCartney gift card to go back there and make a purchase. So we drive traffic back into their stores.'€

On this week’s Glossy Podcast, Levesque explored how The RealReal is working with brands and how it differentiates from competitors. Edited highlights, below.

On differentiating from competitors:
“We stay focused on the consigner. It'€™s kept us different from other models. People worry about demand and selling the item, and revenue numbers. We'€™re always thinking about how to bring in more supply.'€¦ We pay the consigner up to two times more. We make sure the consigner experience is flawless. We have luxury managers who come into people'€™s homes and make sure it'€™s quick and simple for the consigner. We also give the consigner complete transparency over the transaction: what items are sold, how much they sold for, were there any discounts and why, the listing price of each item and such. We make more as a company if we price the item higher. The consigner understands that, as well. The more you sell, the more you earn. A Birkin bag can earn you up to 80 percent on your handbag.”

On the changing relationship with brands:
'€œAt the beginning, [relationships with brands] were harder, but we'€™re seeing a shift in that. We did a partnership with Neiman Marcus in the past, and we'€™re doing one with Stella McCartney. We do surveys with our users pretty regularly, and what we find is people are taking the money they'€™re earning with us and spending it back into the primary market. So they'€™re going back into Chanel and Louis Vuitton, and buying the next updated products.”

On heritage brands vs. DTC brands:
'€œPeople are responding to heritage brands again. There is so much noise that trends are starting to look the same. But the engagement is high with direct-to-consumer brands now, so the resale value for products from these brands is actually quite high, as well.'€

The box, which was announced at the Cannes Lions festival on Tuesday and will soon be sold on FabFitFun’s site, features items that represent top trends identified in The Pinterest 100 report. The report uses Pinterest user data to spotlight trends in categories including beauty, style, wellness and food.

'€œThis is one of the first times we’ve brought the Pinterest 100 and trends to life in a form [that allows] people to try the items,'€ Vikram Bhaskaran, head of market development at Pinterest, said. '€œThe Pinterest Box really feels like a board coming to life.”

The box includes a sage-colored ceramic vase, a nod to the 170 percent increase of home-decor pins featuring the hue; and a bedazzled clutch, representing the 423 percent rise in pinned items with mixed metals. The partnership with Pinterest is the latest high-profile collaboration by FabFitFun, which teamed with the MTA Video Music Awards in August. The MTV box was initially available only to certain influencers, who shared unboxing videos on social media before giving out boxes to fans as part of a contest, the Pinterest box will be available to any shoppers.

Founded in 2010, FabFitFun operates on a subscription basis and sends quarterly shipments of lifestyle products '€” similar to Birchbox, but with full-size items '€” for $49.99 per box. The Pinterest Box will be the same price.

While Bhaskaran said there are no plans for the Pinterest box to be a recurring feature, he saw the partnership with FabFitFun as an extension of their shared focus.

“The Pinterest 100 represents emerging trends people are interested in, and the Pinterest Box is a vehicle where people can try those trends,” Bhaskaran said.

One such app, Like to Know It, which claims to have driven $1 billion in sales for retailers and brands through over 12,000 influencers, partnered with Ulta in May. Another, Trove, now emerging out of a two-year beta, has started experimenting with beauty on its platform, linking featured makeup in influencers’ traditional fashion posts. ScreenShop, which counts Kim Kardashian as an early adopter and adviser, and Villoid, which Alex Chung co-founded, are also moving into beauty, according to company representatives.

There is a good reason for it: A report released last week by Instagram showed there are about 200 million beauty fans on the platform worldwide, and over 25 percent of users follow at least one makeup account. And while fashion and accessories are the biggest markets for influencers, they are immediately followed by the beauty and cosmetics industry, according to influencer marketing platform Klear. Additionally, the number of influencer posts on Instagram nearly doubled to more than 1.5 million posts worldwide between 2016 and 2017. There’s been an increase of influencer apps allowing people to easily shop looks, and the potential for beauty sales through the apps '€” a percentage of which goes to the app companies, in most cases '€” is significant.

'€œMany influencers and bloggers who start in one area like fitness or fashion expand into all other areas because the consumers get really attached,'€ said Mary Orton, co-founder of Trove. '€œThe consumer wants to see more facets of their life '€” not just a makeup look, but also: Where are they wearing it?”

Trove, which is releasing an Android version of its app this week, offers beauty products through “outfit of the day” –style images from influencers — but Orton is considering launching dedicated beauty content offered on the platform, including video content.

'€œPart of our excitement around beauty is that it'€™s at a lower price point; a product is not the same investment as, say, a pair of knee-high boots. We'€™re seeing really high conversation rates and average order rates that are much higher,'€Â she said. According to Orton, the average order value Trove drives through posts is 50 percent higher than that of Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter, but declined to elaborate on how the company evaluates this.

Trove is not the only app company that is experimenting. Villoid, which works with over 4,000 brand partners including beauty companies 100% Pure and Bleach London, has been incorporating beauty into its platform since December and plans to expand the range in the coming months, a company spokeswoman said.

Screenshop, which has over 1 million downloads, is in conversation with several technology providers who could help the app with facial recognition technology. Screenshop works by converting any screenshot on a phone into an online shoppable store by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to match the screenshot to similar products. It currently works only on clothing and furniture but is asking users what they want to see from the beauty space and is bringing on board former employees of Pinterest to find out what '€œinspirational moments'€ are most interesting to users, whether they are fashion or beauty, Molly Hurwitz, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Screenshop, said.

'€œIt'€™s interesting that, right now, most people are more interested in [fashion] looks than beauty,” she said, based on feedback from users of Screenshop. She added that she was unsure whether that was due to a lack of interest or a lack of awareness due to a dearth of shoppable beauty looks.

Hurwitz said she expected that Screenshop would be able to offer shoppable beauty looks on its platform sometime in 2019.