Kristin Cavallari’s Uncommon Beauty Enters Phase Two
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Kristin Cavallari has mastered the art of reinvention.
The multihyphenate, who catapulted to pioneering reality TV fame with shows like “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills” in the mid-aughts and her own show the following decade, has spun that fame into a slew of businesses, ranging from shoes to jewelry and, most recently, beauty.
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Though it’s beauty she’s doubling on with her freshly revamped skin care brand, Uncommon Beauty, it wasn’t initially at the top of her list.
“It wasn’t on my radar, and my marketing guy two years ago brought beauty to my attention — he noticed that the number one question people would ask me about was my skin care routine,” she said. “I knew there must be something there.”
Cavallari introduced Uncommon Beauty in 2021 as a complement to her jewelry brand, Uncommon James, which debuted in 2017 and now has four stores. That assortment included a powder cleanser, a peptide serum with vitamin C, a moisturizer and an eye cream — all of which have been reformulated and relaunch today in Uncommon James’ boutiques and on its website. Prices range from $36 to $62. Cavallari didn’t quantify her expectations, but industry sources expect her entire enterprise to reach $35 million in sales this year.
“We wanted to make sure our products were even better than they were,” she said, adding she’s also given the packaging a refresh. “Our five products are enhanced, meaning we’ve put even better ingredients in there. We also wanted to make everything vegan, which before, our lip balm had beeswax. We’ve removed that and we’ve removed the goat milk powder from our face wash. We’re checking all the boxes for people, because we realize how important that is.”
The assortment also meets retailers’ expectations for them to be billed as “clean”; that third-party validation was also the impetus for the reformulations. “The ‘clean’ world was alarming to me. My biggest takeaway is that you can, in fact, say you’re clean makeup or skin care, and you’re not. You can get away with a lot in that world,” Cavallari said. The relaunched lineup fits within both Sephora and Credo Beauty’s guidelines to earn the claim.
Even though she meets outside retailer’s standards, wholesale distribution isn’t on her immediate calendar. Uncommon James ended its third-party retail partnerships in the pandemic. She’s since taken the jewelry to Anthropologie. “We’re on there, and we’re open to more — it just has to be the right partner,” she said. For beauty, “a Sephora or a Credo would be incredible, but d-to-c is the most important channel to me as a business owner.”
Uncommon James has four stand-alone stores in Chicago, Dallas and Nashville, Tennessee — where Cavallari resides — with plans for more. “We’re going to open Charleston [South Carolina], hopefully this summer, and we’re also looking at Scottsdale [Arizona] and Austin [Texas]. We have a whole list of cities we’re keeping our eyes on,” she said.
The urban meccas aren’t where she’s seen the most resonance. “It’s all about these destination cities for bachelorette parties, girl’s trips, whatever it may be. Those cities do very well for us, up-and-coming ones, and some that are established. Dallas is a big market for us, but that’s our weakest link when it comes to stores,” she said. “We’ve ruled out being in our top markets, we want to drive these emotional buys — you want to go to Uncommon James and pick up these fun things because it’s a part of your experience that weekend.”
Right now, beauty has its own carved-out real estate within each store, and Cavallari has big ambitions for it. “Beauty has the legs to beat the jewelry one day, so in five years, it could be our number-one business,” she said. “At one point, I said I would have three or four stores and call it a day, and now I have plans to open a lot more. One day, Uncommon Beauty might have its own stand-alone stores. In five years, I’d love to have 20 stores under my belt, possibly have a makeup line, and continue to scale.”
Cavallari is hands-on with the business. She did a deep dive on ingredients during the reformulation process, for example. “I sent off all the products I was using at the time to a lab, to start questioning things and see what was going in them,” Cavallari said. “I found that the high-end, relatively clean products were loaded with chemicals and things that do the opposite of what I wanted them to be doing,” she continued. “I realized there was a need for a clean skin care line that was also effective.”
She was also intentional about launching with a pared-back routine. “The modern woman just wants quick and easy, whether it’s a skin care routine or cooking a meal,” she said. “I wanted to take everything and strip it down, so we launched with five core products….I use all of these products, everything that I’ve put out, whether it’s jewelry, skin care or candles. Selfishly, I’m making what I want.”
The reception has been strong — ”we’ve gotten incredible testimonials, people will also send me before-and-after photos. I get a lot of DMs saying the skin care has changed people’s skin, and that means I’ve done my job,” Cavallari said — adding that as she sold out of existing inventory on the brand’s first incarnation, she’s seen her consumers clamor for more.
“It’s been well received, which is incredible, and I’ve noticed that with us, we’ve been sold out for a few weeks, and people keep saying they need it back in stock. People are saying they’re trying to save every last drop,” she said.
Cavallari is also going beyond beauty’s bread and butter for an equally thought-out innovation pipeline. Also launching today is a bakuchiol-based natural alternative to retinol, that includes niacinamide, tocopherol, argan oil, bisabolol and a ginger extract blend.
Next month, she’s introducing bronzing drops — dipping the brand’s toes into color, which also incorporate glycerin and apple extract. “You can mix them in your moisturizer for a nice tinted glow,” Cavallari said. “Or on vacation, I’ll just use that as the base for my face. I don’t even bring face makeup.”
Her timing is spot-on, as shoppers trade up in makeup and trade down in skin care. According to sales data from Circana, prestige beauty sales hit $6.6 billion in the first quarter — a 16 percent swell — roughly a third of that coming from makeup alone.
She expects the brand’s lineup to net out around 20 products. “For the next year, it will be a wave of new products, and from there, I’ll continue to grow and scale the brand,” she said.
Cavallari acknowledged that she’s joined a crowded segment of skin care. In the past years, celebrities from Jennifer Lopez and Alicia Keys to Hailey Bieber and Rihanna have all introduced beauty brands.
“I try not to get hung up on the fact that it’s so saturated,” she said. “That’s not to say I don’t pay attention to the competitors, but I try to just be me and do what I’m good at. Over the years, I’ve always stayed true to who I am and people see that. I’m 100 percent owner of Uncommon James, I’ve never taken outside funding, whereas most celebrity brands partner with a big company and it’s not their money that they’re putting up. Uncommon James is what I’m most proud of professionally, and people can see that I live and breathe this brand.”
Uncommon Beauty’s core customers span 25 to 40, and have a certain brand affinity thanks to Cavallari’s longevity in the spotlight. “A lot of them are people who’ve grown up with me,” she said. “I have this loyal, built-in fan base. As we get older, life starts to make sense and you realize it’s all building blocks to get where you’re going. And because of my time on reality TV, people feel they know me and they trust me when it comes to selling products.”
To that end, she’s not afraid to tap into mid-2000s nostalgia. Last month, she unveiled a campaign for an Uncommon James collection called Back to Laguna, shot with Laguna Beach costars Stephen Colletti, Talan Torriero, Jason Wahler, Alex Murrel, Jessica Smith and Alex Hooser at Pacific Palisades High School and reviving sartorial trademarks of the era, like platform sandals and a black choker necklace.
The collection’s name itself is a nod to her podcast, “Back to the Beach,” a Dear Media-produced series she cohosts with Colletti as the duo rewatch old episodes of “Laguna Beach.”
“I have a whole team just for planning our big campaign shoots, but I’ve had some good ideas that have generated a lot of press for the brand,” Cavallari said, nodding to the campaign. “It’s supposed to be the last day of school before summer break, and the collection is very reminiscent of the early 2000s. The podcast actually inspired that collection.”
The podcast is still just one piece of her business pie. The jewelry brand started after Cavallari’s shoe line with Chinese Laundry. “Jewelry for me was the next natural step — accessories can make or break your outfit,” she said. “I had already done shoes, so I decided to do jewelry. From there, we launched some home products like candles, kitchen and bar accessories, and then skin care happened.”
Skin care, though, wasn’t always in the cards. “There hasn’t really been a ton of thought into anything I’ve done, and there’s beauty in that. I’m someone who runs off of gut instinct,” she said. “I have an idea, then boom, let’s do it. I work backwards, then I come up with a plan, and I hire good people.”
And though that offering runs the gamut, Cavallari does think she’ll focus on growing each business before expanding further. “I don’t want to do too much more. I don’t have plans of doing clothes and purses and all those things. I want to take what we’re doing and do them to the best of our abilities,” she said.
It all ladders up to Cavallari’s broader purpose. “Beauty is different for everybody, but my definition of beauty is inner peace and confidence, and in order to have that, a lot of external factors come into play,” she said. “Good skin is important to me because I always had zits, and if you’re prone to breakouts, it can ruin your day, and I want to help people feel the best they can feel. Jewelry, skin care, makeup — they all go hand-in-hand. If we can be the final touches that give someone an extra pep in their step, that’s what it’s all about.”
“I have people I would never expect come up to me and say my skin care changed their life. I never thought in a million years they would know who I am,” Cavallari continued. “That’s also my point with Uncommon James — I didn’t use my name because I wanted the brand to stand on its own.”
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