You may have heard of CBD oil as the next big health and wellness trend — a plant-based remedy that can serve as an alternative to pharmaceutical antidepressants, painkillers, and anti-anxiety medications. But these aren’t the only areas that CBD is poised to disrupt: another increasingly-popular application of CBD (the next big thing within the next big thing) is CBD beauty products.
CBD, you see, is a potent anti-inflammatory, and preliminary studies have found that topical CBD application may confer a number of benefits (more on that below).
It’s no surprise, then, that major high-end health and beauty retailers are jumping on the CBD train. Neiman Marcus was one of the first to the punch, and they have probably the widest selection of premium CBD beauty products of any mainstream national retailer, covering everything from CBD skincare serums and facial masks to soaps and lotions.
This article is a high-level guide to CBD at Neiman Marcus. We tell you:
- What they’re selling
- Which locations carry CBD products
- How the CBD beauty market is shaping up.
Can You Buy CBD at Neiman Marcus?
Yes, five locations (in San Francisco, Denver, Beverly Hills, Fashion Island, and Boston) are selling CBD products in retail, and you can also purchase CBD at the Neiman Marcus website (they ship to all 50 states).
Here are the full addresses of the Neiman Marcus locations selling CBD products:
- Beverly Hills: Address: 9700 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90212
- Fashion Island (Newport Beach): Address: 601 Newport Center Dr, Newport Beach, CA 92660
- San Francisco: Address: 150 Stockton St, San Francisco, CA 94108
- Boston: Address: 5 Copley Pl, Boston, MA 02116
- Denver: Address: 3030 E 1st Ave, Denver, CO 8020
Neiman Marcus CBD Products: What They’re Selling
Product Types
So let’s cut to the chase: what types of CBD beauty products can you find at Neiman Marcus? Their site lists 19 products that contain CBD, and they fall into these general categories:
- Creams
- Lotions
- Serums
- Balms
- Body oils
- Facial masks
- Bath soaks
- Pain relievers
- Lip gloss
- Soaps
Brands
They’re carrying some of the best-known CBD beauty brands on the market, including:
Selected Products
Here’s a small selection of some of Remedy Journey’s favorite CBD-infused topicals currently sold at Neiman Marcus:
CBD: the Next Big Beauty Trend?
So why start making CBD-infused beauty products? Is there a reason besides the fact that CBD is the current darling of the health and wellness crowd? Are beauty retailers just throwing CBD beauty products on shelves to cash in on this trend?
Sure, there’s probably some truth to that, but it’s by no means the whole story.
CBD’s Skincare Potential
The science on CBD is still in its infancy, but there are some promising studies which indicate CBD’s value in alleviating skin conditions and improving overall skin quality. Here’s a selection of some of the most prominent studies:
- CBD inhibits production of keratinocytes and has therapeutic potential in the treatment of psoriasis
- Cannabinoid receptors modulate epidermal keratinocyte proliferation
- CBD exerts anti-inflammatory effects on human sebocytes
- Cannabinoid receptors modulate proinflammatory chemokine creation
You may be asking yourself: what are keratinocytes? Sebocytes? They’re each different types of skin cells, and overproduction of these skin cells is associated with common skin conditions like psoriasis and dermatitis. Chemokines, on the other hand, are inflammatory markers which similarly reflect skin problems.
In all these studies CBD (or the cannabinoid receptors that CBD acts on) exerted a similar effect: inhibiting overproduction of skin cells or reducing inflammatory markers.
Full-spectrum CBD oil also contains other nutrients and compounds known to promote skin health, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
The consistency of these results indicates genuine promise, and is in line with the overall science coming into view: that CBD is a potent general anti-inflammatory. But it’s still unclear how exactly CBD confers these benefits, so we’ll have to wait for more science before definitive conclusions are drawn about where CBD should fit in your skincare routine.
CBD’s Up-in-the-air Legality
Perhaps the biggest barrier to CBD’s takeover of the beauty industry is that CBD’s legality is still a bit hazy, and major national retailers are hesitant of the potential risk involved.
While the 2018 Farm Bill formally legalized hemp-derived CBD nationally, state and local laws haven’t fully caught up and some CBD retailers have faced scrutiny from law enforcement. Major CBD brands like Charlotte’s Web and Curaleaf have received warnings from the FDA, and retailers carrying these brands (including Target and CVS) have pulled them from shelves.
However, the FDA’s main concern is the addition of CBD to food and drinks (which is still prohibited) and medical claims surrounding CBD products. CBD skincare and topicals are probably the least risky and least scrutinized CBD products, and major beauty and health/wellness brands are taking note.
Luxury Retailers Are Jumping On the CBD Train
Neiman Marcus is hardly the only luxury brand diving into the CBD market:
- Ulta Beauty currently sells 17 health and makeup products that contain CBD, like bath soaks, hand creams and salves.
- Sephora started carrying CBD products online in 2018, and announced in July that they would rollout CBD products in-store at certain locations.
Notice a pattern here? Each of these retailers conducted a small test carrying CBD products and quickly decided to dive headlong into the market. So while these stores haven’t released the sales numbers for their CBD products specifically, you can guess the results (and expect more to come).
Sources
- https://fitish.com/products/cleanser
- https://saintjanebeauty.com/products/luxury-body-serum-120ml
- https://botanika.life/products/super-soothing-pain-serum-cream-with-cbd-lidocaine
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17157480
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21248768
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25061872
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23585676
- https://www.neimanmarcus.com/