In October, Bloomingdale's is opening a beauty shop-in-shop concept, focused on clean beauty called WellChemist. The boutiques will be open-sell concepts taking up about 250 square feet of space within Bloomingdale's beauty departments and stocking about 600 stockkeeping units from 35 brands.

The launch of WellChemist comes one year after Bloomingdale's introduced its first beauty shop-in-shop, Glowhaus, which is targeted at Millennials and stocks brands and products more commonly found on social media or in specialty retail than in a department store. Unlike Glowhaus, WellChemist is not as obviously targeted at Millennials and while most Glowhaus boutiques are located on the contemporary floors away from the beauty counters, WellChemist shops will be located on the beauty floor. "This concept has a much wider appeal, and that's why it's on the beauty floor," said Stacie Borteck, vice president and divisional merchandise manager for cosmetics at Bloomingdale's. "I see it as multigenerational — Millennials already know and are concerned about safer ingredients and environmental impact, Gen Xers and mature shoppers are focused on health concerns."

The WellChemist brand mix is focused on clean beauty products free of parabens, phthalates and sulfates, with a focus on products that are both high performance and formulated without ingredients considered toxic. About 60 percent of the assortment is devoted to skin care, with the rest split between hair, supplements and ingestibles, makeup and tools from both niche and established brands.

The first WellChemist is set to open at the East 59th Street flagship in Manhattan on Sept. 28, and eight more are expected to rollout nationwide in October.

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