The Beauty Lab: Founders Redefining Innovation in Beauty

Independent beauty brands may have less shelf space than global conglomerates, but they are growing nearly four times faster. At ShopTalk Fall in Chicago, founders from K18, Karuna | Avatara, and Olive & June shared how creativity, speed, and community are helping them redefine what innovation looks like in one of retail’s most dynamic categories.

Moderated by Jacqueline Flam of NielsenIQ, the conversation revealed how new players are turning constraints into competitive advantage: blending biotech with salon artistry, embedding community feedback into every decision, and using pop culture as a shortcut to consumer relevance.

Innovation superpowers

For Suveen Sahib, Co-Founder and CEO of K18, biotechnology is the company’s edge. “Cosmetic chemistry gave us great outcomes, but it doesn’t understand biology,” he explained. By working with bioscientists, K18 developed technology that repairs hair at the molecular level, offering consumers resilience rather than temporary fixes.

For Linda Wang, Founder and CEO of Karuna and Avatara, the superpower is speed. Inspired by her own eczema struggles and early sheet mask innovations in Asia, Wang’s brands pride themselves on spotting cultural trends and compressing development timelines to just months. Packaging is part of the playbook, designed for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, it taps into pop culture aesthetics to make skincare products Instagram and TikTok-ready.

For Sarah Gibson Tuttle, Founder and CEO of Olive & June, innovation starts with the customer. What began as a nail salon has scaled into a consumer brand by listening relentlessly to its community through surveys, direct messages, and market feedback and then acting on it.

Balancing agility with scale

Unlike CPG giants that can take years to release new products, these founders emphasised agile models. Olive & June runs multiple innovations in parallel, ready to swap launch priorities when consumer demand shifts. K18 focuses on “upstream thinking” building science-first solutions from first principles, rather than chasing trends. Avatara builds white-space maps for each retailer, ensuring assortments reflect both speed and retailer-specific needs: innovation for Target, accessibility for Walmart.

Science, storytelling, and education

Complex science can be alienating, but Sahib stressed that “people don’t buy science, they buy what science does.” K18 has invested in demystifying biotech, from tactile 3D hair models to colour-driven storytelling that makes biology tangible.

Education also underpins Olive & June’s strategy. In a nail market long dominated by professional-only products, the brand built viral traction through tutorials and “always-on” community gifting, ensuring consumers could trust and learn from real results, not paid placements.

For Avatara, education extends to Gen Z and Gen Alpha skincare, where sheet masks often serve as a first entry point. Wang highlighted the importance of guiding younger consumers towards age-appropriate rituals reinforcing trust while building long-term loyalty.

Distribution strategies and exclusivity

Each brand has pursued a distinct retail path. Avatara entered through Target, adapting assortments to the demographic and white space of each retailer. Olive & June spent four years building deep roots at Target before expanding to Walmart, Walgreens, CVS and Amazon. K18, launched at the height of the pandemic, built credibility first with stylists and global niche markets, before scaling into prestige retailers like Sephora.

Exclusivity, the panel agreed, is less about scarcity than productivity, making each partnership deliver velocity and brand equity before expanding distribution.

Life after acquisition

Both K18 and Olive & June have been acquired by Unilever and Helen of Troy, respectively but the founders said little has changed in their day-to-day approach. Sahib noted access to richer data insights as a major benefit, while Tuttle emphasised that Olive & June continues to operate with independence and focus on becoming the number one nail brand globally.

Lessons for other industries

Asked what other sectors could learn from beauty, the panelists agreed on one theme: relentless consumer focus. Innovation is not about pushing what excites founders, but about filling unmet needs, capturing cultural shifts, and creating products that consumers will love, share, and buy again.

As Tuttle summed it up:

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