Bluemercury Is Expanding Its Intimate Wellness Line—Here’s Why Lubricants Being in the Beauty Aisle Matters

As part of your next beauty haul, you might also be able to add personal lubricant to you IRL and digital cart alike—if you’re shopping at Bluemercury, at least. Today, the beauty brand and retailer is massively expanding its intimate wellness category, both online and in brick-and-mortar stores. On the digital front, Bluemercury is adding “intimate care” and “feminine care” sections to the wellness category of the site. It’s also adding more products from maternity brand Hatch, postpartum brand Ebi, sexual wellness brand Glissant, and intimate care line Dr. Janine Mahon to its slate of product offerings. But why now, why Bluemercury, and—most importantly—why should you care?

Notably, the development comes alongside a larger shift of the public moving to embrace sexual and intimate wellness as a component of general wellness. In the midst of the pandemic, it’s become clear that many folks are waking up to the reality that self pleasure is self care, and that growing understanding has given way to destigmatization and sexual openness. Now, sexual education isn’t just part of your high school curriculum, but an ongoing journey worthy of your attention as you grow and change throughout the seasons of life. That thirst for knowledge is often accompanied by a desire for products to maximize personal experience, and Bluemercury has taken note that, in the past year especially, folks are invested in their sexual wellness.

According to brand representatives, offerings focused on intimate care have seen double-digit sales growth in the past year (they wouldn’t give up the specifics, but did share the growth to be compelling). And that growth in demand is accompanied by supply. In the past year, Bluemercury has grown to stock 50 products from 14 brands that focus on the intimate and feminine care sector, up from 12 products and four brands the year before.

The four new brands are woman-founded and informed in mission by events vulva-owners deal with throughout life. “These are all brands that have strong founder stories, beautiful packaging, best-in-class ingredients, and we test everything,” says Tracy Kline, senior vice president of merchandising, marketing, and digital at Bluemercury. “The [products] need to work. It’s not just about what’s good for you—they need to deliver results.”

At different points in your life cycle, you might have radically different needs, and being able to cater to those needs with the help of easy-to-find products can help you feel great about whatever it is you’re navigating.

Kline also sees Bluemercury’s expansion into intimate care as a form of community care. By educating its beauty experts and then passing that education down to clients and customers, the brand hopes to not only offer positive solutions to common issues, but also continue to destigmatize sexual health issues with which vulva-owners contend. At different points in your life cycle, you might have radically different needs, and being able to cater to those needs with the help of easy-to-find products can help you feel great about whatever it is you’re navigating.

So consider this expansion a continuation of the growing dialogue around outspoken sexual health and wellness—and another way to embrace how we all think of beauty. Because an outward appearance only goes so far if you don’t have the ease and confidence about your body. “Beauty is about the overall feeling, inside and out—and if you’re not feeling good about yourself, that takes a toll on everything,” says Kline. “So the most important piece is just the normalization, the conversation, whether it’s sexual health, and challenges of your pregnancy journey, or menopause.”

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