Naomi Osaka's Kinlò Goes Into Walmart
● The brand will be going into 2,500 Walmart doors on April 30, including with exclusive shades of its bestselling sunscreen.
Kinlò, the skin care brand founded last year by tennis player Naomi Osaka, is going wide in its first retail play.
The brand is entering 2,500 Walmart doors nationally, and on Walmart.com, on Saturday. The brand's hero product, Golden Rays Sunscreen SPF 50+, will have exclusive shade extensions with Walmart, and a slew of facial and body moisturizers and oils will also be joining the lineup. Prices range from $4.97 to $11.97.
“This is a big milestone for Kinlò and something we have been working toward since the day we launched,” Osaka told WWD in an email. “For me, it's also a really special moment to know a store I grew up shopping at is carrying a line that I worked so hard to help create. This partnership with Walmart is all about accessibility, allowing the brand to reach even more customers with affordable sun care products, no matter who they are and where they live.”
Education is a key tenet of the brand, one that will only be amplified by such a broadened footprint.
“We're launching this weekend and expanding our line this summer with Walmart, and we're really going to work on connecting with our consumer face-to-face. We're going to have a lot of experiential events to raise awareness around the need for sun protection,” said Mia Meachem, the brand's president.
“As we engaged with Walmart over time, it just became clear that they were the right partner for us, their diverse consumer base is really aligned with the Kinlò mission,” Meachem said. “It just felt like the right time and the right partner.”
Walmart has been modernizing its beauty assortment in the last few years. Earlier this year, it teamed with Space NK in a bid for the prestige beauty shopper. Prior to that, it began adding indie brands into the mix.
“The launch in-store is going to start on endcaps in about 2,500 doors, and in the beauty aisles where customers are shopping for all their beauty needs and personal care needs,” said Angel Beasley, merchandise director, beauty, Walmart. “It's going to be merchandised a bit unconventionally, in the textured hair care aisle, because in that aisle, we serve multicultural consumers.”
In 2020, Walmart joined CVS and Walgreens in stepping away from locking up beauty products targeting Black customers.