Beauty’s attitude towards sexual wellness is turning from positive to prudish.

The category, which includes sex toys, massage oils and other bedroom aides, until recently seemed poised to shed its under-the-counter reputation and take its place alongside skincare, makeup and hair care in the beauty aisle. Investor-backed start-ups with sleek packaging and marketing that centred on female pleasure, empowerment and self-care were picked up by retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Target and Sephora.

Some of those retailers are now having second thoughts. Sephora, which carries a number of sexual wellness products including toys and lubricants online, with a smaller range of more body-focused products in-store, will stop selling sex toys by the end of the year, The Business of Beauty has learned. Sephora did not respond to request for comment. The LVMH-owned retailer introduced the sexual wellness category in 2023, but senior merchandising staff had differing opinions about the category’s suitability for the business, according to an individual briefed on the decision by those involved in the process.

Some independent retailers that championed the new wave of sexual wellness brands have also struggled. Specialty sexual wellness retailer Contact Sports, which housed brands like Lelo and Butter, shuttered in 2024 after a year in business.

The retail pullback is indicative of a broader shift towards cultural conservatism, especially in the United States. The sexual openness seen in the 2010s and early 2020s is now facing both a regulatory and cultural pushback, with stricter laws on gender identity, abortion access and diversity, equity, and inclusion, and young people in surveys indicating they’re having less sex – and less interested in sex – than previous generations.

This reversal comes on top of the challenges sexual wellness brands have been navigating all along. Digital marketing, which has always been a struggle, especially on social media due to rules around the censorship of sexual content, has not eased, making it more difficult for brands to acquire new shoppers. Investor funding for a “vice” category is scant and labels have trouble getting prominent retail space.

“I think people are going to go underground a little bit and be much more quiet with their advocacy. Right now, here in the States, it’s a little bit of a scary place,” said Allyson Rees, senior strategist for insight at WGSN. “There is a potential world where a brand or a celebrity that does something super [sex positive] could get in a lot of trouble.”

Despite the challenges, experts say the sexual wellness industry is poised for significant growth globally. The market for toys and devices is expected to reach $30 billion in 2026, compared to $19 billion in 2021, according to data analysed by PwC.

However, the area expected to generate the most growth in the next few years is over-the-counter medication for sexual dysfunction such as Viagra, said Magda Starula, research consultant at Euromonitor International.

Brands are finding ways to adapt. They’re engaging in non-traditional marketing platforms like OnlyFans, adopting softer and euphemistic language so as to not trigger content moderation systems, and are revamping packaging to stand out on shelves. Many are repositioning themselves not just as brands for lube, but as sexual health or even tech companies.

“Because [the sexual wellness category] is still emerging, and we’re still in the early stages, we are realising it’s not as predictable as we thought,” said Catherine Magee, co-founder and chief executive of intimate care label Playground. “We are just in the awkward teen years as a category.”

A Retail Rethink

For Magee, the interest from big beauty retailers was always something of a mirage.

“We saw the enthusiasm from Sephora, which we loved, but ultimately, they’re a cosmetics and skincare retailer,” she said. “I would walk around to every Sephora and I saw they weren’t really supporting the category. And at the end of the day, I knew that they were never going to sacrifice skincare shelf space for products that aren’t going to make that same amount of money.”

In 2024, Playground launched in Target, which Magee calls “a better fit” as shoppers already associate the retailer with health and wellness offerings. At Target, the brand’s personal lubricants, which claim to prevent bacterial vaginosis and urinary tract infections, sit in the health and wellness aisle, alongside pregnancy tests, supplements and fertility treatments.

There’s another challenge that comes with entering mass retail, however: big box stores and drugstores tend to put sexual wellness products in locked glass cases to curb theft. Brands have adapted, however. Hello Cake, which sells topicals like Tush Cush and Tingle to Mingle at Target, now displays product information and directions on the front side of the packaging.

But though brands can make their products look appealing and modern from a distance, it hasn’t entirely solved the glass case problem.

“People don’t want to call a store attendant to unlock a case to just look at lube or a sex toy unless they want to buy it,” said Mitch Orkis, Hello Cake’s co-founder and chief retail officer.

Fighting Censors

For customers who eventually make their way to a store or visit a brand’s e-commerce site, the journey isn’t always straightforward. Marketing sexual wellness products remains a tricky endeavour, with censorship and platform restrictions making it difficult for brands to reach and engage potential consumers.

Instagram parent Meta tightened its rules in September to include sexual wellness content, alongside medical and health videos, to require a warning screen before depicting “implicit sexual activity or stimulation.” The screen obscures the posts with a pitch black screen that lets users know that the image or video they are about to see has been flagged as sensitive content.

Brands like Hello Cake calibrate their marketing to avoid running afoul of social media platforms’ rules, though that often means avoiding talking about sexual wellness in the first place.

“A barometer we use to gauge whether our content will be flagged is simple,” said Orkis. “‘This lubricant decreases pain and increases comfort’ is compliant, but ‘This decreases pain, increases comfort, and makes you feel good’ isn’t. We’ve found that positioning the brand as health-focused makes it easier to break through.”

Some indie brands leverage the backing of famous faces to get attention — singer Christina Aguilera is the co-founder of Playground, and actress Dakota Johnson serves as Dame’s co-creative director.

Wujj Pleasure, a brand still in the pre-launch phase, is positioning itself as a tech company. The brand’s flagship product is a smart vibrator connected to an app that helps users “optimise their sexual activity,” according to founder Penda N’diaye. Once ready for retail, N’diaye plans to court non-traditional retailers like Best Buy.

Doubling Down

Some brands and retailers are doubling down on pleasure-first messaging.

Emily Oberg, founder of the apparel label Sporty and Rich, is launching a sexual wellness line called Sensual Sport in the coming weeks, with plans to use OnlyFans to market the products and connect with consumers directly.

Rees says partnering with the adult creator economy is a “smart move,” and a way for labels to keep their sex-positive messaging without having to do much of the heavy lifting on social media.

Ulta Beauty is expanding its Wellness Shop, which it launched in 2023, and is adding brands across menstrual care, hormone therapy as well as sexual wellness to its assortment in 2025, according to Glossy. The retailer currently stocks Vush, Foria and Moon Juice among others and has introduced Joylux, a sexual care brand aimed at menopausal women that sells vibrators, lubricants and wipes, in the last few months.

For labels not willing to make the pivot, Rees says they will have to face the harsh truth, in a shifting cultural landscape.

“Some of these brands are quite on the edge,” she added. “They’re going to have to accept the fact that they’re not going to get everybody on board.”

Daniela Morosini contributed reporting.