Supplements and wellness grow as Christmas gifts

Santa may be bringing you some supplements this year.

Along with typical holiday wish list items like clothing, perfume and gadgets, the wellness category is poised to gain popularity this shopping season and beyond — particularly as retailers like Ulta Beauty and Target give it more shelf space long before the start of New Year’s resolutions.

Beauty is always a top-performing holiday category. November and December combined account for about 25% of annual spending on prestige beauty items, which includes brands usually sold by specialty beauty retailers and department stores, according to Circana, a market research group. Holiday shoppers said they plan to spend an average of $247 on beauty while buying gifts this year, the fourth-highest holiday category for spending, according to Circana’s annual survey.

Yet the beauty category’s assortment has become wider ranging with the addition of more health and wellness-focused items, such as products that promise to improve nutrition, hydration and sleep.

Larissa Jensen, global beauty industry advisor at Circana, said wellness has gained attention since the Covid pandemic as consumers prioritize self-care and feeling good from the “inside out.”

She said health-related products typically relegated to drugstore shelves, such as teeth whitening kits, vitamins, full-body deodorants and eye drops, have gotten a glow-up. Some now come in more attractive packaging, have gotten backing from influencers and celebrities or have moved to the beauty section as retailers seize a chance to blend beauty and wellness and become a one-stop shop.

Ulta Beauty, in particular, has carved out more space in its stores for wellness. The specialty retailer, which has more than 1,450 stores across the country, has always carried some individual items related to wellness and “beauty from within,” said Laura Beres, the retailer’s vice president of wellness.

Yet as demand grew after the pandemic, Ulta started to open wellness shops inside of its stores in 2021 and devoted about four to eight feet of shelf space to items including probiotic gummies, sleep masks and aromatherapy oils. In August, the company said it would expand the size of those wellness shops to up to 45 feet in about a third of its stores. It’s added nearly 30 new wellness brands to its stores, bringing its total to about 100, Beres said.

She said customers who shop wellness cut across ages, but Ulta has seen growth especially with millennial shoppers and consumers with household incomes of more than $100,000. She said innovation has sparked more interest, especially as customers seek solutions for key life stages that brands overlooked in the past, such as needs for pre- and post-pregnancy and menopause.

This year, she said Ulta is carrying some gift sets of wellness items, including an Advent calendar of Saje Natural Wellness’ essential oils and a beauty sleep gift set from Kourtney Kardashian’s vitamins brand, Lemme. Yet she said she expects wellness to become a bigger part of the holidays in the future as the category grows.

“It’s the perfect combination of being able to give someone else the gift of relaxation during the holiday season in a really elevated way that just frankly, hasn’t existed in the market before,” she said.

One of the brands in Ulta’s wellness shop is Neom Wellbeing, a United Kingdom-based company that sells home fragrances and body-care items. Neom sells online through Amazon and its website, with many top-sellers focused on improving sleep.

Amanda Kahn, general manager for the U.S. at Neom, said the company’s early sellers this holiday season were stocking stuffers that cost less than $20. As shoppers seek value because of inflation, wellness items are attractive because they’re also practical, she said.

“It feels very giftable while also delivering a benefit that everyone can use,” she said.

Bath & Body Works, best known for its fragranced soaps, candles and lotions, has launched more wellness-focused items, too. Early this month, for instance, it began selling a new wellness fragrance collection called “Water Winter Mint” with peppermint and alpine waters scents and ingredients including hyaluronic acid and shea butter.

Kristie Lewis, senior vice president of merchandising for the company, said more customers have turned to the mall staple for body-care products or gifts that boost mood and solve health-related challenges, such as dry skin or trouble falling asleep.

Bath & Body Works plans to keep expanding its aromatherapy line and its ingredient-led products, she said. It has aromatherapy body products with natural essential oils and launched a holiday collection with the scents eucalyptus pine and vanilla nutmeg.

“We’re seeing consumers really buy them for themselves, but also for gifts for holiday because who does not want stress relief or sleep, especially around November and December?” she said.

Nutrition and health has been a trending category at Target, too, Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez said on a store tour in the Minneapolis area in October. He said wellness has cut across many of the categories Target sells, such as Joylab, a private brand that’s offering bright colors and floral prints of workout gear, Khloe Kardashian’s Khloud protein popcorn, and beauty kits and skin masks.

He said some of those items are giftable, too. Gomez said he bought his nephew protein powder as a gift.

Wellness could gain more square footage at Target next year, he added. It’s one of the ideas Target is considering as its deal with Ulta Beauty ends in August and the branded beauty shops inside of hundreds of its stores close, Gomez said.

Grüns is one of the wellness items on Target’s shelves. The superfood greens gummies are a healthier spin on a fruit snack for adults, but with a nutritional punch similar to a greens powder, said founder and CEO Chad Janis. Its name is inspired by “grün,” the word for green in German.

Retailers including Walmart, Sprouts Farmers Market and Sam’s Club sell the gummies, which have expanded to other lines for kids and for immune support since the company was founded in 2023.

While vitamin and supplement sales tend to spike around the new year, Janis said the company hopes its gummies will be a gift or a stocking stuffer. It’s selling some holiday-inspired items, including a Grinch-inspired sour punch flavor and a Target pack that’s holiday themed.

Walmart is carrying some wellness items for the holidays, too, as it sees millennial and Gen Z shoppers seek out self-care and wellness items year-round, such as gift sets of body washes from vitamin maker Olly and vitamin patches from Barrière that look like stickers or temporary tattoos. 

Even outside of the beauty aisles, retailers have leaned into wellness as a gift-giving category, such as Best Buy, which sells Oura rings and has demos for the health-tracking wearables, and Kohl’s, which carries items including massage guns and portable ice baths.

During this holiday season, wellness may also get more attention from shoppers who buy items for themselves while shopping for gifts for friends and family, Circana’s Jensen said.

“Here’s a little ornament with a lip gloss for you and teeth whitening products for me,” she said.

Yet, in the coming years, Jensen said she expects wellness to gain prominence on holiday wish lists because of their high price tags and their wider acceptance. She compared it to anti-aging skin-care products and gift sets.

She said they once seemed taboo and now, they’re an item that people request.