CVS is revamping its beauty departments

CVS Pharmacy is giving its beauty aisles a makeover.

Having tested its interactive beauty concept ‘BeautyIRL' on four pilot stores last year, the retailer is expanding the initiative and plans to establish it in almost 50 stores by the end of 2019 -- including locations in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston.

BeautyIRL redesigns CVS beauty departments to help shoppers discover new brands and trends. It offers a mini ‘must-have' shop, rotational pop-ups and beauty services such as express blowouts, dry styling/braids and makeup applications, via an exclusive partnership with Glamsquad. Shoppers will even be able to get pro-level piercings in-store, in partnership with Studex.

"In today's rapidly evolving beauty retail landscape, customers want three things: brands, experience and service," said Maly Bernstein, Vice President, Beauty and Personal Care for CVS Health, in a statement. "We are incredibly excited at how customers responded to our BeautyIRL format, which drew Millennials and Gen-Z customers at impressive rates and showed customer growth across several age groups. As one of the nation's largest health and beauty retailers, we recognized an opportunity to deliver a more inspiring, interactive in-store shopping experience for our customers and we're excited to expand this format into additional markets."

CVS is also exclusively launching a new line of haircare and beauty tools by Glamsquad, designed with Millennial and Gen Z shoppers in mind. Dubbed ‘GSQ by Glamsquad,' the series is described by Glamsquad CEO Amy Shecter as a "holistic line of complementary products across multiple categories."

The move is the latest big change for CVS beauty departments, following on from the company's ‘Beauty Mark' initiative, which was first announced last year, and which aims to alert consumers to non-digitally altered imagery in a bid to make beauty marketing more transparent.