Urban Skin Rx is significantly expanding its mass retail presence.
The professional-inspired skin-care line formulated with darker skin tones in mind is set to roll out on Feb. 15 to 460 Ulta Beauty doors and ulta.com. This month the brand entered 1,750 CVS doors.
Until now, Urban Skin Rx was sold only via Target and its web site. The brand launched in Target stores around this time last year.
The expansion into greater distribution signifies mass retail's growing understanding of the specific needs of the multicultural consumer set — now that comprehensive product assortments for textured hair are the norm and mass makeup brands like Cover Girl and Maybelline are unveiling wider foundation ranges, skin care is likely the next category to diversify.
"I know that's why I was brought in ," said Rachel Roff, founder of Urban Skin Rx and its namesake Charlotte, N.C., a medical spa, which also caters to darker skin tones and is frequented by celebrities such as Fantasia Barrino, Teyana Taylor and Taraji P. Henson. "They're very interested in this category. In the last five to 10 years, the textured hair category just blew up, and I think were wanting to add to the multicultural offering beyond that, but nobody was really making the products."
Roff noted that people with darker skin tones experience different skin-care needs than those with lighter skin tones, which her products are formulated to target — most prominently, hyperpigmentation. Hero products in the line include the 3-in-1 Even Tone Cleansing Bar, $12.99 for 2 ounces, the Purifying Pumpkin Pore Detox Mask and Scrub, 16.99; and Dark Spot Rapid Retinol Repair, $22.99 for one ounce. Roff's products are iterations of those offered in her professional strength line sold through urbanskinrx.com, though they are offered in smaller sizes and with lower concentrations of active ingredients so as to be priced more affordably for mass retail. The professional strength items are also beginning to roll out to Costco doors.
Her latest product is the Super C Brightening serum formulated with ascorbic acid, hyaluronic acid and kojic acid. A 2-ounce size formulated with 20 percent ascorbic acid retails on urbanskinrx.com for $58 — a .5-ounce size formulated with 10 percent ascorbic acid, still high per mass retail standards, will be available at mass for under $25.
Urban Skin Rx's product assortment at Target is also expanding — the retailer in January launched two more of the brand's products, the Even Tone Super Glow Serum and the Clear and Even Tone Clarifying Pads.
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