After launching online at Sephora a year ago, Kulfi Beauty is heading to approximately 281 of the beauty specialty retailer’s doors in the United States and 59 in Canada starting Sept. 1.
“It’s going to be quite game-changing for us because we know a lot of people who’ve heard of the brand, they want to try it and their last barrier is, ‘We don’t want to buy it online, especially with the concealer, we want to see the shade in store,’” says Kulfi founder Priyanka Ganjoo. “I feel like removing that barrier and being available at your local Sephora is going to make a huge difference.”
The brand’s sales multiplied fourfold last year due to its Sephora deal and new releases. Ganjoo anticipates similar growth this year and forecasts that Sephora will soon be responsible for a majority of Kulfi’s revenue. She says, “Makeup is a category that always does better in store.”
Ganjoo plans on meeting Kulfi’s Sephora customers via in-store and out-of-store activations intended to build brand awareness. She’s zeroing in on New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Miami. She says, “We’ve built a really strong community online, and we’ve done a few events here and there, but what I’m looking forward to the most is having a broader community engagement in real life.”
Kulfi has experimented with paid social media campaigns on TikTok and Instagram for the first time this year. It previously relied on an organic social media presence and unpaid influencer seeding. Now, with in-store events, Ganjoo hopes to round out the brand’s marketing approach. “You have to do a little bit of everything nowadays,” she says. “It’s about reminding people that we exist, and when they see [the brand] multiple times, that’s when you see the final sale happen.”
Kulfi will have a shelf in the makeup section of Sephora’s The Next Big Thing assortment. The retailer covers visual merchandising costs for brands that receive this placement, according to Ganjoo. “I think the placement is really amazing because a lot of The Next Big Thing end caps are very front and center in Sephora stores, especially for makeup,” she says. “I think it’ll give us a lot of visibility as you walk into the store.”
She’s particularly proud of the shelf space Kulfi’s receiving for its concealers. Ganjoo says, “There’s always a little bit of hesitation because it takes up a lot of space, but with our online launch with how well it did, we were able to prove that we’re a formidable player in the complexion category with the concealer, and we were able to get that shelf space.”
Select shades of the full Kulfi lineup across categories will appear in store. Its concealers and kajal eyeliner have come out on top online. Eyeshadow and blush launched earlier this year.
The expansion into Sephora stores is also paired with an expansion of Kulfi’s offerings. The brand is launching a seven shade Satin Heirloom lipstick collection beginning August 14th on Sephora’s app. The collection will debut a day later on Sephora and Kulfi’s websites. The product names, similar to Kulfi’s other storekeeping units, are a nod to Ganjoo’s South Asian heritage. They include First Sari, Poli Dots and Bangle Box and retail for $30. The lipsticks will also be available in store.
Ganjoo wanted to create a timeless product that’s tried and true. “Lipstick is a staple in the makeup wardrobe, just like our kajals and our concealers. We wanted something that you reach for everyday,” she says. The shades are a range of neutrals, though Ganjoo is first to admit there’s no such thing as a universal neutral, despite what some brands might try to shill.
She says, “Not every shade is going to work for everyone’s skin tone and undertones, but I think with the luxury of having seven shades, we work really hard with the community, with our focus groups, to create a diverse shade range so that some of those shades become your everyday go-to shade. We’re especially keeping olive undertone brown skin women in mind, which we always do, because we really struggle with finding neutrals.”
Some feedback that Ganjoo received often from customers were requests for more concealer shades. They loved the formula, she notes, they just wanted the gaps to be filled in. “Sephora exposed us to a very wide audience very quickly beyond the community we had built online and we were getting messages every day,” she says. “We’d receive DMs from people swatching our concealer with other concealers they use telling us exactly what’s missing.”
Kulfi added nine new shades to its collection last month based on the feedback. The additions range from neutral undertones in the tan range, deeper shades with warm and cool undertones as well as, somewhat surprisingly, lighter shades. Ganjoo says, “When we had done our initial focus groups, we were very focused on brown women and we didn’t have a lot of the very light shades, and so those were also something we added in because the Sephora audience is obviously looking for it.”
Ganjoo hopes to continue growing the Kulfi community in the coming months. “People recognize that we are really focused on making makeup and beauty be approachable and inclusive and fun and not try to take itself too seriously,” she says. “And so that’s really what we want to continue building with all of the different ways we touch our customer.”
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