Superdrug recently celebrated the first birthday of its beauty playground concept by launching a series of new brands and products.
The concept, which launched in July 2025 at the brand’s flagship Westfield Stratford London store, now forms a permanent feature in its leading destination stores and online.
The concept serves as “a hub of beauty discovery” where customers can “explore must-have brands, access beauty services, receive expert advice, and create content while they shop,” according to the business.
The health and beauty giant is planning to roll out further beauty playground concepts by the end of the year.
“A brilliant first year”
Designed for “beauty-savvy shoppers who love discovering the next big thing,” the beauty playground is a destination that brings together “a curated mix of established favourites, emerging brands and the latest beauty trends across skincare, fragrance, wellness and K-Beauty,” chief operating officer Simon Comins says.
To celebrate its first birthday, Superdrug is rolling out another wave of product launches, including fragrance mists from Coty, skincare from Minimalist, and the latest K-Beauty from House of Hur and Peripera.
In terms of the beauty playground’s performance since its launch last year, Comins insists that it has been “a brilliant first year”.
“Since launching at Westfield Stratford in July 2025, we’ve featured nearly 1,000 products from just under 50 brands, and the concept has moved from a single flagship trial to a permanent feature in our leading destination stores and online,” he says.
“The clearest measure of success for us is the brands success: names like Kind Patches, Geek & Gorgeous and New Leaf performed strongly enough via Beauty Playground to secure wider distribution across our estate, and Daise has since rolled out into further stores.
“Several of our K-Beauty brands have also expanded significantly beyond their initial launch.”
Flipping the narrative
Superdrug’s beauty playground is designed to act as “a hub of beauty discovery,” according to the retailer.
Explaining how, Comins says: “Traditional beauty retail expects customers to know what they want before they walk in.
“Beauty playground flips that. It’s built solely around exploration. Customers can discover brands they’ve never heard of, try them properly, access beauty services, get expert advice from our teams and create content while they shop.
“It’s designed to put the fun and freedom back into beauty discovery.”
“For customers, it’s a curated window into what’s next, from viral K-Beauty to ingredient-led newness and wellness,” he says.
“For brands, it’s a genuine ‘test and learn’ environment.”
Comins shares that the concept’s “test and learn” model has “without question” been the most successful element of the beauty playground so far.
“The proof is that Beauty Playground has become a springboard rather than just a showcase,” he explains.
“Kind Patches, Geek & Gorgeous and New Leaf all launched with us and performed so strongly that they’ve secured wider distribution across the UK. Daise has rolled out into further stores, and several K-Beauty brands have expanded well beyond their initial launch.
“It works because it’s collaborative. We’re not simply giving brands shelf space and waiting to see what happens – we’re working with them on visibility, on insight, and on responding to what customers are actually reaching for.”
Two priorities for the year ahead
Superdrug is showing no signs of slowing plans for its beauty playground over the next year.
Moving forward, Comins says the business has “two priorities” for the concept over the rest of the year.
“The first is expansion – we have further beauty playground locations set to open before the end of the year, bringing the experience to more customers across the UK,” he explains.
“Beauty playground is designed to keep evolving, so customers can expect fresh brands and products to keep landing across beauty, fragrance and wellness, alongside continued growth in areas customers are clearly excited by, like K-Beauty and ingredient-led skincare.
“We’ll also keep supporting the brands already with us to scale into the wider estate, because that journey from beauty playground to nationwide distribution is central to what the concept is for.”
With plans to expand to new locations, shoppers keen to explore one of Superdrug’s beauty playgrounds in their local area may be in luck.
Although Comins does not reveal any specific areas, he affirms that the chain has “further locations confirmed to open before the end of 2026”.
“They’ll follow the same approach as our existing sites, key destination stores where we know customers come to browse, explore and spend time,” he says.
“We’re not quite ready to share the specific locations yet, but we’ll have more to announce soon.”
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