CVS Pharmacy Expands BeautyIRL Experience to Nearly 50 Locations

CVS Pharmacy and Glamsquad have announced plans to expand the CVS interactive beauty department BeautyIRL into nearly 50 additional stores by the end of the year.

The store concept, which is designed to encourage the discovery of new brands and trends, will launch in key markets including New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston. It will include a redesigned beauty department featuring new social and indie brands, rotational pop-ups and new beauty services from Glamsquad.

Glamsquad’s services will roll out through the end of the year. The lineup of offerings includes express blowouts, dry styling/braids, single-feature or full makeup applications and piercings in partnership with Studex.

The expansion to additional markets stems from CVS’ success from four pilot locations, which launched in August 2018.

“In today’s rapidly evolving beauty retail landscape, customers want three things: brands, experience and service,” says Maly Bernstein, vice president, beauty and personal care, CVS Health. “We are incredibly excited at how customers responded to our BeautyIRL format, which drew Millennials and Gen-Z customers at impressive rates and showed customer growth across several age groups. As one of the nation’s largest health and beauty retailers, we recognized an opportunity to deliver a more inspiring, interactive in-store shopping experience for our customers, and we’re excited to expand this format into additional markets.”

In addition to offering Glamsquad services within the new beauty store concepts, CVS is exclusively launching GSQ by GLAMSQUAD, a line of essential hair care, beauty tools and daily routine items.

“GSQ by GLAMSQUAD was created to bring the ethos of Glamsquad to a national market at an accessible price point,” says Amy Shecter, chief executive officer, Glamsquad. “This holistic line of complementary products across multiple categories includes hair care, beauty tools and accessories. We are excited to debut this brand at CVS as we share a similar mission: democratizing beauty and helping women look and feel their best.”