American beauty retailer Sephora has revealed that CBD products sold in its stores will now have to meet its new CBD standard guidelines. Sephora has around 460 stores across the Americas, with around 170 now stocking CBD beauty products.
Sephora has announced that CBD brands stocked by the international retailer will now have to adhere to new “CBD standards”. The new guidelines cover potency, ingredient quality, and manufacturing processes.
In order to pass Sephora’s criteria, products must also comply with the retailer’s ‘Clean at Sephora’ standard, created in 2018. These standards were updated in 2019 to ban over 50 ingredients from products, compares with just 13 ingredients at its original launch.
However, products containing CBD must then reach Sephora’s new, additional standards. This includes only containing full or broad spectrum CBD which is domestically grown. In addition, products must be triple-tested by a third-party laboratory, with certificates of analysis made available to customers.
Cindy Deily, Vice-President of Skincare Merchandising at Sephora, said:
“Search for CBD on Sephora.com has increased over 1000 times since 2018, so there’s clearly client interest in these kind of products. As customers are looking to navigate this growing category, we saw the need to provide transparency and quality assurance.”
The announcement makes Sephora the first retailer in the USA to implement such guidelines on CBD skincare and beauty products. The retailer now stocks three CBD beauty brands, including celebrity favourite, Lord Jones. and most recently, Saint Jane. New brand, Prima, will also join the retailers CBD portfolio in the near future.
When Prima launches at Sephora, the brand will be exclusive to the retailer for six months. Prima CEO Christopher Gavigan claims that Sephora’s standardisation process played a role in this deal.
Gavigan stated:
“Brands need retailers to hold them accountable for their CBD and testing methods. There is currently no government regulation to show or prove what are contaminated or efficacious ingredients.”
Despite CBD being made effectively federally legal in the USA with the introduction of the 2018 Farm Bill, the industry still lacks any kind of federal regulation. In a landscape with a lack of FDA guidance, Sephora hopes that brands become more responsible about the claims they make.
