Soshe Is Going to Ulta. Can Refillable Beauty Finally Go Mainstream?
Soshe Beauty is moving into Ulta Beauty this month, giving the young makeup brand its biggest physical retail presence yet. The rollout is part of Ulta's Sparked program for emerging brands and comes alongside the launch of Soshe's first concealer, a 19-shade serum-infused formula.
For Soshe, this is an important retail milestone, but I think the more interesting story is what it could tell us about refillable beauty. Refillable packaging has been discussed in the industry for years, yet despite all the launches and sustainability commitments, it still hasn't become a completely natural part of how most consumers buy makeup.
The idea itself makes sense. Keep the outer component, replace only the product inside it, and reduce packaging waste over time. Luxury houses, indie brands, and some of the largest beauty companies in the world have all experimented with the model, but making a product refillable doesn't automatically mean consumers will actually refill it.
That is where Soshe becomes interesting. The brand has built refillability into products including mascara, eyeliner, lip products, and blush, but sustainability isn't the only reason it wants consumers to buy them. Founder Sahar Rohani has been clear that performance needs to come first, which I think is exactly the right approach. Consumers should want the makeup because it works, while refillability becomes an added benefit rather than the entire reason for purchasing it.
Beauty consumers have become very good at identifying when sustainability requires a compromise. They may like the idea of refillable packaging, but if the formula is mediocre, the refill is difficult to find, the price difference is negligible, or the process feels inconvenient, good intentions usually lose to habit.
That is why convenience may ultimately matter more than sustainability messaging. A consumer can care about reducing waste and still pick up whichever mascara is easiest to buy when it runs out. Moving Soshe into a retailer like Ulta changes that dynamic because the refill can now sit inside a shopping journey consumers already have rather than requiring an entirely separate purchasing behavior.
From a consumer behavior perspective, I think that matters more than it might appear. Most habits don't change because consumers are repeatedly told what they should do; they change when the better behavior becomes easier to fit into everyday life. If someone can buy shampoo, concealer, mascara, and a refill in the same place, refilling requires far less effort than when the consumer has to actively search for the sustainable option.
That may be where the next phase of sustainable beauty is headed. The industry has spent years trying to make consumers care more about packaging, but the opportunity may be designing systems where consumers don't have to think very hard about sustainability at all because the more responsible option is already built into the experience.
There is also a business advantage to refills that often gets overlooked. Once a consumer buys the original component, likes the formula, and understands how the system works, the brand has created a reason for that person to return. Refillability can therefore become part of a retention strategy, not just an environmental one, because replenishment reinforces the relationship between the consumer and the brand.
Soshe's approach also reflects a broader shift in beauty. Consumers expect brands to deliver across multiple dimensions at once: a product can be sustainable, but it still needs to perform; it can be beautifully designed, but it still needs to justify its price; and it can make strong environmental claims, but the experience still needs to be easy enough that people want to repeat it.
That is where many sustainability initiatives have struggled. They ask consumers to change their behavior before making the alternative sufficiently desirable or convenient. Soshe appears to be approaching the problem from the other direction by creating products consumers genuinely want, building refillability into the experience, and then expanding into a retailer that can make replenishment easier.
Its move into Ulta gives that model a much larger test. The beauty industry already knows how to manufacture refillable packaging; the harder challenge has always been getting consumers to refill consistently. Whether refillable beauty becomes mainstream may depend less on convincing consumers to care about sustainability and more on making the sustainable behavior feel as normal and convenient as buying the product in the first place.
Dania Khalife
