In the Pink

As Glossier navigates an evolving market, a new book takes stock of the brand.

First came the dishy beauty routines filed under Into the Gloss's Top Shelf: tours, led by founder Emily Weiss, of insiders' medicine cabinets. Four years later, in 2014, Glossier arrived, with products rooted in the "idea that this-is-what-I-use is deeply linked to this-is-whoI-am," writes Marisa Meltzer in Glossy (Atria/One Signal), a piquant, deeply reported history of the brand.

(Advance copies proved as coveted as Glossier's pink bubble pouches and stickers, seen here.) Meltzer charts Weiss's rise from savant teen ("Emily was a Manolo in a school full of Birkenstocks," says a peer) to start-up mogul; Glossier's valuation topped $1 billion in 2019, and it created a grant program for Blackowned businesses the next year. Still, sales slumped, and the founder, then on the cusp of maternity leave, announced Kyle Leahy as CEO in 2022. (Glossy winds down with a wary Weiss tape-recording the final interview herself.)

Glossier, though, forges on. In February, the brand landed in 600 Sephora stores and opened a new S0H0 flagship. This month's Stretch Fluid Foundation, modeled by WNBA stars, comes in 32 shades—up from 2014's paltry three for Perfecting Let the selfies begin.

LAURA REGENSDORF