Less than a year after opening its first London location, Smoov has been named the exclusive Wellbeing Beverage Partner of Healf, one of the UK’s fastest-growing wellbeing platforms.

Under the multi-year agreement, Smoov becomes Healf’s exclusive Wellbeing Beverage Partner across its experiential ecosystem, with the partnership extending across activations, events and future consumer wellbeing initiatives over the coming years.

The partnership will be publicly launched at Healf Experience 2026, Healf’s flagship event, taking place on 20 to 21 June at 180 Studios in London.

Since launching in Victoria, Smoov has expanded into Harvey Nichols Knightsbridge and begun rolling out hospitality partnerships across Europe.

From 1 June, Smoov launches within Healf’s new concession at Selfridges London, further expanding its presence across some of the UK’s most influential retail destinations.

The partnership brings together two brands built around the same belief: that wellbeing should be easier to access, easier to understand and easier to integrate into everyday life.

Healf has rapidly become one of the UK’s leading platforms for modern wellbeing, serving more than 500,000 customers. Its expertly curated offering spans The Four Pillars (EAT, MOVE, MIND and SLEEP), bringing together many of the world’s most respected wellness brands under one roof.

The announcement follows a period of rapid growth for Smoov. Alongside its UK expansion, the company is preparing its first international hospitality partnership at Hotel Pitrizza on the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia and is actively developing additional wellness and hospitality collaborations across Europe.

“From day one, our ambition was to make wellbeing easier to access, easier to understand and easier to integrate into everyday life,” said Munir Caixe, CEO of Smoov

“Healf has built one of the most trusted wellbeing communities in the UK. Our partnership places Smoov at the centre of an ecosystem shaping the future of consumer wellbeing. We’re incredibly excited about what we can build together over the coming years,” Caixe added.

Oscar Guy, Brand Director at Healf, added: “At Healf, we believe in a future where wellbeing is both accessible and aspirational. Our partnership with Smoov is designed to empower more people to integrate wellbeing into their daily lives.

“Smoov’s take on the wellbeing beverage category is exactly what consumers are looking for today, and we’re excited for the partnership to grow well into tomorrow.”

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The US beauty group and Puig ended negotiations late last month over a deal that would have created a major premium beauty business better placed to compete with L’Oréal.

Speaking at a Deutsche Bank consumer conference in Paris, de La Faverie said Estée Lauder remained open to acquisitions, but only where the financial case made sense.

“If we cannot reach the growth and the profitability at the right price point, then that is not an option,” he said.

“And this is why, obviously, this deal didn’t go through, because it was not at the right price.”

He added that Estée Lauder would continue to assess potential opportunities.

The talks reportedly broke down following a series of complications, including leaks, disagreements between the controlling families behind the two businesses and demands from stakeholders, including make-up entrepreneur Charlotte Tilbury.

A tie-up would have brought together Estée Lauder’s portfolio, which includes Clinique and M.A.C, with Puig’s luxury beauty and fashion brands, which include Jean Paul Gaultier, Rabanne and Carolina Herrera.

The comments come as Estée Lauder pushes ahead with its turnaround plan amid pressure on sales and profitability.

In May, the beauty giant said it would cut between 9,000 and 10,000 jobs globally as part of its “Beauty Reimagined” strategy.

The programme is designed to simplify the business and accelerate growth, with Estée Lauder targeting up to $1.2 billion in annual cost savings.

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Edmonds joined the business in 2023 as chief marketing and digital officer before becoming chief operating officer in July 2025.

Prior to joining Sealskinz, he co-founded running underwear brand Runderwear, where he served as chief executive and later as an adviser.

Sealskinz, which is owned by Ted Baker founder Ray Kelvin, has been led by Blackman for the past three and a half years. He had previously served as chairman of the business.

Announcing the move on LinkedIn, Blackman said the time had come to “make way for the brand’s next chapter” and hand over the reins.

“It has been the honour to lead this incredible brand and team through its transformation into the modern, agile business it is today,” he said.

“To say we’ve seen an immense amount of change would be an understatement, but I leave feeling incredibly proud of the platform we’ve built and the team that is now ready to fuel its future growth.”

Blackman said Edmonds had played a central role in driving Sealskinz’s recent digital and commercial strategy.

“I am so incredibly pleased to share that Richard Edmonds will be stepping up as our new CEO,” he said.

“Over the last 2.5 years, he has been the engine behind our digital growth and global sales strategy. He has a clear, ambitious mission for Sealskinz, and he has my and the board’s fullest support.”

Sealskinz is known for its waterproof outdoor accessories and apparel, including socks, gloves and hats, serving customers across cycling, running, hiking and other outdoor activities.

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The beauty concept store, which will launch on 28 May, will be based in the city’s Cabot Circus Shopping Centre.

The 11,000 square foot store will sell more than 200 beauty brands across categories including skincare, haircare, fragrance, cosmetics, premium beauty, wellness and electrical beauty.

Leading brands will include, Kylie Cosmetics, One/Size, ColourWow, Wonderskin and SheGlam. The shop will also introduce customers to new brands that have never been seen before at Boots. 

An official ribbon cutting will be held at 10am on 28 May to mark the store’s opening, while a number of experiences and giveaways will be available to customers who visit the store throughout the day. 

Shoppers will also be treated to exclusive savings on the launch day and will be able to play the Boots Beauty Fruit Machine with any £20 purchase.

The retailer’s “spin to win” attraction consists of each result unlocking a different prize, from a goody bag to product minis. 

Additionally, customers in the store’s queue will be offered complimentary matcha drinks and ice cream, accompanied by a live DJ.

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The yoga wear retailer said it had unsuccessfully attempted to settle the dispute with Wilson last week, delaying the filing of its definitive proxy statement in the hope of reaching an agreement.

Wilson, who founded Lululemon in 1998 and owns 8.6 per cent of the business, has been pushing to install three directors on the company’s board after publicly criticising the retailer’s leadership and warning that the brand has lost its “cool” factor.

In a regulatory filing made on Monday, Lululemon issued its most detailed public rebuttal since the dispute began late last year, claiming Wilson’s views on how the business should position itself are no longer fit for the brand’s future.

The retailer said Wilson’s actions had been “damaging to the brand” and were harming “the very stakeholders he claims to represent”.

“Electing any of Mr Wilson’s nominees would endorse his misguided perspectives,” the company said in a letter to shareholders.

Lululemon said Wilson had recently countered its proposed settlement terms with a plan that represented “a significant departure” from previous discussions. According to the filing, he sought the immediate appointment of two of his nominees, with a third director to be chosen from a pool he selected.

He also asked for quarterly meetings with Lululemon’s incoming chief executive and several directors.

Wilson pushed back hours later, insisting the dispute could be resolved quickly and that he remained willing to be constructive. He said he believed the two sides were moving towards a settlement and claimed directors had not made clear where the current disagreements stood.

“The notion that I want to dictate strategy to Lululemon is just wrong,” Wilson said, adding that he stood by his nominees and believed their brand and marketing expertise could benefit the business.

The row comes during a turbulent period for Lululemon, whose shares have fallen 62 per cent over the past 12 months amid design missteps, slowing momentum and mounting concerns over its brand appeal.

The company, which has a market value of around $14bn, has also been losing ground to fast-growing rivals including Alo Yoga and Vuori.

Lululemon recently named former Nike executive Heidi O’Neill as chief executive, following the exit of Calvin McDonald earlier this year. However, shares fell on the news of her appointment, despite some investors praising her industry experience.

It also added two new directors in recent months as it looks to revive growth and stem market share losses.

Lululemon has urged shareholders to back its three directors up for election, including former Levi Strauss chief executive Chip Bergh, describing them as “vastly superior” to Wilson’s nominees.

Investors are expected to vote next month, unless the two sides reach a settlement before then.

Wilson is not the only investor to have pressed for change at the retailer. Activist investor Elliott Investment Management built a stake worth more than $1bn last year and had previously urged the board to appoint former Ralph Lauren executive Jane Nielsen as chief executive.

Elliott has not publicly commented on Lululemon’s decision to appoint O’Neill.

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The renovated floor forms part of the luxury department store’s push to tap into growing demand for wellbeing-focused retail experiences.

At the centre of the space is Pilates in the Clouds, a Reformer Pilates studio overlooking the rooftops of Knightsbridge. Harvey Nichols said it is the only studio in London offering Cadillac classes and private full apparatus sessions.

The floor is also home to the new Harvey Nichols Clinic, which offers a range of aesthetic and therapeutic beauty treatments from specialist providers.

Services include non-invasive injectables, fillers and facials from Dr Motox, cryotherapy treatments from 111CRYO, IV infusions and vitamin boosters from REVIV, and lymphatic drainage treatments from Dimple Amani.

Harvey Nichols Clinic will also become the exclusive London location for advanced laser treatments from LaserHQ.

The fourth floor will feature a selection of athleisure brands including Vuori, TALA, Literary Sport, Adidas and New Balance, as the retailer looks to create a more joined-up destination for fashion and wellness shoppers.

Smoothie and coffee bar Smoov has also opened on the floor, serving functional smoothies made with whole food proteins and gut health ingredients.

It will sit alongside a retail offer from Healf, which curates wellness products across four categories: Eat, Move, Mind and Sleep.

Harvey Nichols beauty director Lucy McPhail said: “Wellbeing has become a core part of how modern luxury is defined by our customers.

“The launch of the new fourth floor creates a destination that brings together beauty, aesthetic treatments, fitness, nutrition and fashion in one cohesive space, marking an important step in the continued evolution of our Knightsbridge flagship.”

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The cosmetics retailer is set to launch in a 1,700 sq ft unit on the shopping centre’s lower mall, bringing its offering to Nottingham for the first time.

Rebecca Milnes-James, associate director at Victoria Centre’s asset manager Pradera said: “Securing Bath & Body Works is a significant milestone for Victoria Centre, and a strong endorsement of the destination’s performance and positioning within Nottingham.

“We remain focused on curating a best-in-class retail mix that drives unrivalled footfall and customer engagement, and Bath & Body Works is a natural fit, bringing a highly experiential offer that will resonate strongly with our visitors.”

A Bath & Body Works representative added: “Victoria Centre is the perfect location for our East Midlands debut, with the destination’s strong reputation and high footfall making it an obvious choice as the next step in our UK expansion.  

“We are excited to introduce our iconic fragrances and luxurious products to a new audience, and becoming a key part of Nottingham’s retail landscape.”

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It’s this contradiction that Noli is trying to solve.

Founded by Maëlle Gasc and Amos Susskind, and backed by L’Oréal, Noli was born from questioning, in a category overflowing with products, why is it still so difficult for people to find what genuinely works for them?

For Gasc, co-founder and deputy CEO, the answer lies in the gap between beauty’s abundance and the individual customer’s ability to navigate it. “There are too many brands, too many products, too much noise,” she says. “The world doesn’t need another brand or another product. The question is, how do we help people make sense of it?”

Noli’s response is a personalised beauty platform built around an AI advisor, a curated product catalogue and a retail model that deliberately rejects sponsored product placement. Its ambition is to reshape the route to purchase around diagnosis, education and trust.

The company’s roots go back to a L’Oréal project exploring how the group could use the strength of its brand portfolio to address a customer pain point. Gasc, who had first encountered L’Oréal during an early consulting project before spending seven years in a digital scale-up, reconnected with the business as the concept was taking shape.

The opportunity, she explains, was to combine L’Oréal’s scientific expertise and beauty knowledge with a more agile, user-led start-up approach. “They had the project, they had the means, and they were receptive to a different way of doing things,” she says. “Noli was then set up as an independent startup, and we were free to confirm the user pain point, the business model and what the experience should look like.”

That process started not with technology, but with listening. The team interviewed users about how they selected beauty products, what frustrated them online and why they felt uncertain when buying. The same themes came up repeatedly. Too much choice, difficulty finding relevant reviews, a lack of trust in influencers, and the specific challenge of buying skin and haircare products without being able to try them first.

L’Oréal gave the green light in summer 2023. Six months later, Noli launched its first MVP: a functioning ecommerce site with an advisor that combined a questionnaire, a face scan and routine recommendations. Users could receive a personalised shop based on their answers, with match scores applied to products.

That first version was deliberately focused. Since then, the experience has evolved sharply. Budget preferences were added after users said price was a barrier. The journey was adapted when it became clear that not everyone wanted to buy a full routine. Most significantly, the advisor has become fully conversational, able to respond to a far wider range of prompts and needs.

“The shop itself hasn’t changed that much, because you still need retail fundamentals,” says Gasc. “But the advisor has changed a lot. The latest version is fully conversational and looks nothing like what we had at the beginning.”

The difference is clear in the current experience. A user can begin with a face scan, receive an analysis of their skin type and concerns, then ask for a specific product, such as a serum for hyperpigmentation. Noli will recommend a small selection of products, explain why each might be suitable, identify potential shortcomings and allow the customer to add a choice to basket.

Noli isn’t presenting AI as a magical layer on top of ecommerce, but trying to mimic what a strong beauty consultant might do in store: listen first, diagnose carefully, explain the reasoning and point out trade-offs.

For Gasc, this is where Noli’s stance on bias becomes central. The platform doesn’t sell sponsored recommendations and doesn’t allow brands to pay for prominence in the advisor. “There is no retail media,” she says. “If you are a brand, you cannot pay to be displayed to the consumer. We don’t have a revenue line for that at all.”

Instead, recommendations are built from product data, ingredient analysis, customer preferences, reviews and L’Oréal’s beauty knowledge graph. Gasc describes the early recommendation engine as almost “too unbiased”, built heavily around scientific logic before the team layered in the human realities that influence whether someone will actually use a product, being budget, brand preference, texture, smell and sensorial appeal.

“The scientific answer to a focus area is not always one product,” she says. “It is often a full routine that you apply for three or four months. But the routine also has to be appealing to the user.”

This is where beauty ecommerce becomes particularly complex. A product might be clinically appropriate, but if it smells wrong, clashes with foundation, feels unpleasant or fails to deliver any immediate sense of benefit, the customer may stop using it long before results appear. Noli’s job is to account for both the long-term science and the short-term reality of product use.

That requires data discipline. Before Noli could build its advisor, the team had to clean and enrich the product catalogue in detail: ingredients, fragrance, suitability for sensitive skin, active interactions, textures, descriptions and claims. The scientific data needed the same treatment.

This, Gasc argues, is the unglamorous truth behind useful AI. “People are looking for use cases for AI, but in many companies the data is not there, or it is messy,” she says. “Only when you have clean, enriched data can you put an advisor on top of it.”

Noli is also cautious about the limits of generative AI. Gasc is clear that large language models alone cannot yet provide reliable, unbiased beauty advice. They can hallucinate, rely on inconsistent sources and reproduce the biases of the data available to them. For a category that sits close to skin health, even if not medical advice, that is not good enough.

“It still requires scientific guardrails, a beauty knowledge graph, education and a catalogue of products organised in a very specific way,” she says. “AI cannot recommend in an unbiased way if you don’t put the right data at its disposal.”

The same logic applies to privacy. Noli’s face scan experience explicitly tells users that their image is not being stored. According to Gasc, that was already the company’s practice, but user feedback made it clear the reassurance needed to be visible in the journey.

“When you are a new company, especially one using AI, trust is fundamental,” she says. “We look at every opportunity to reassure the user.”

Noli collects more than 100 data points on users, but Gasc says this is used first and foremost to improve the experience, refine recommendations and personalise communication. The promise to brands is not access to personal data, but higher-level insight: where their products match customer needs, where there may be assortment gaps, and how well their portfolio serves concerns such as blemish-prone skin, wrinkles, textured hair or hyperpigmentation.

That makes Noli a two-sided marketplace, but one with strict rules. New brands must be science-backed, ingredient-led and able to substantiate their claims. The platform is also looking for brands that fill gaps in the catalogue, improving coverage across different skin tones, hair types, concerns and preferences.

Inclusivity, vitally, is not a side issue. Noli’s face scan technology is powered by ModiFace, the L’Oréal-owned augmented reality and AI business, and has been trained on a broad set of skin data points. But diagnosis is only part of the challenge. A platform can only serve diverse customers properly if the product range is broad enough to meet their needs.

That’s one reason the brand expansion strategy matters. Better data doesn’t only help Noli recommend more accurately, but also helps the business understand where its own offer is incomplete.

Beyond the advisor, Noli operates as a full retailer. Orders are fulfilled through a logistics centre in Portsmouth, with products delivered in branded packaging and supported by customer service. Post-purchase, the business surveys customers on satisfaction and product match, monitors repeat engagement and uses feedback to refine the advisor. Gasc says 97 per cent of buyers rate their recommendation as a good or excellent match, while the same proportion say Noli helps them buy with more confidence.

The commercial question now, is scale. Gasc believes AI itself can scale personalisation naturally. The harder work is operational, aka listing new products, enriching data, onboarding brands, creating new journeys and testing which acquisition routes work.

Noli is still focused first on the consumers who need it most: engaged beauty buyers who are actively searching, comparing and struggling to make confident decisions. But there are already signs of broader demand. Men account for around 20 per cent of Noli’s sales, despite not being actively targeted.

For Gasc, that suggests the service may be removing barriers that traditional beauty retail has never properly addressed. Some customers don’t know what to ask for. Some don’t want to walk into a department store and explain their skin concerns. Some simply want to explore in private, on their own terms.

“You can come to us and say, ‘I know nothing. I don’t know what to ask, but please steer me,’” she says.

That may be Noli’s most interesting proposition. It’s betting that the next phase of beauty retail will revolve around reducing cognitive load, earning trust and making the customer feel properly understood. As Gasc puts it: “We help the user find what is right for them. We kill the confusion, we bring clarity, and we help them buy what’s right.”

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The partnership will see Phlo’s services featured across Holland & Barrett’s store estate and online, with the pharmacy providing clinical support through its GPhC-registered teams.

Phlo will reportedly be responsible for all clinical services linked to the partnership, including patient assessment, care and safety.

The service will be powered by Phlo Connect, the pharmacy’s API-driven digital infrastructure platform, which operates behind the customer-facing experience. It supports clinical assessment, prescribing, dispensing and ongoing patient support.

Phlo chief executive Adam Hunter said: “Holland & Barrett has spent decades earning its position as one of the UK’s leading household names when it comes to health and wellbeing, so it’s a privilege to be the clinical partner powering this next step in its journey.

“Weight management is one of the most important health conversations happening in the UK, and people deserve access to support that is safe, clinically-led, and built around their lifestyles.

“Through Phlo Connect, we’ve brought together our GPhC-registered pharmacy, specialist clinical teams and ongoing patient support to sit seamlessly behind the Holland & Barrett experience.”

Holland & Barrett said the partnership would help customers access regulated clinical support alongside its wider nutrition and wellness guidance.

Holland & Barrett director of wellness platform Leila Thabet said: “We know that weight management is deeply personal and that the right support can look different for everyone.

“As one of the most pressing health concerns facing customers today, it requires a flexible approach, and our role is to support customers in a way that works for them. This partnership with Phlo allows us to broaden the offer available within our stores and online.

“By working with a regulated partner with market-leading expertise and technology, we can ensure that those seeking clinically supervised support can access it in a responsible way, alongside the nutrition and wellbeing guidance needed to support sustainable, long-term health outcomes.”

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