Standing in front of a wall of foundations, I’ve always felt a strange pressure: buy now, decide now, leave now. Beauty retail was built for transactions, not for the slow, honest way we actually find what suits our skin.
So I was genuinely curious when I read about a new concept just opened at 31 Crosby Street in SoHo: one address holding two brand flagships, a fragrance gallery, and a café that opens onto a hidden garden. The idea isn’t to show you more product — it’s to give you a reason to stay.
One address, two brands, one idea
The project brings together dedicated flagships for Outside In and Nature of Things, plus a fragrance gallery and an Outside In Café. The concept comes from Carisa Janes, who founded Hourglass Cosmetics and Outside In, and who also owns Nature of Things. For the interiors, she worked with Shanghai-based F.O.G. Architecture on the studio’s first project in the United States.
Leilei Wu, Partner in Charge at F.O.G. Architecture, put it better than I could: “This was a rare opportunity to design beyond the visual, to think about how a space can engage people on multiple levels at once. Each space is designed to unfold gradually, encouraging movement and engagement.”
That last sentence is the whole philosophy, and it’s what I tell my clients when they walk in with a whole magazine of screenshots. Don’t collect looks. Follow a space that unfolds — slowly, room by room, letting each one change how you feel before you ask it to change what you buy.
Touch comes first, inside the Nature of Things flagship
Nature of Things is the plant-based bath, body, hair, and hand-care brand, and its flagship is built around materials you can feel: organic surfaces, curved walls made from individually installed pieces of loofah, and — right at the entrance — a monolithic stone basin that turns product discovery into something physical.
You don’t read the label first. You run your hand along the wall, you stand at the basin, and then the products make sense. It’s the retail version of a good consultation: texture before theory.
Light does the selling, next door at Outside In
Across the hall, light becomes the main material. A sweeping coved ceiling leads to a circular oculus overhead; frosted glass and stone diffuse the light everywhere. Curved custom vanities carry their own lighting for makeup consultations and shade matching, and dimmable exterior glass adds privacy when you need it.
In the fragrance gallery, synchronized wall and ceiling lighting shifts in color and intensity around a custom scent wall — the atmosphere itself becomes part of the scent.
If you’ve ever had your makeup done under bad lighting and wondered why nothing worked, this is the fix: correct, warm, flattering light is half the formula for a shade that actually fits you. I ask my clients to test foundation near a window, never under a vanity bulb, and this space simply built that rule into the architecture.
The café, the garden, and the permission to linger
Here’s the part I love most. The Outside In Café serves pastries, coffee, and specialty drinks in custom-designed ceramics, and it opens onto a hidden garden tucked into the SoHo site. You can sit there without buying a single beauty product.
That’s a real shift from the old retail logic, where the register was the only exit. A place that gives you permission to linger is a place that trusts you’ll come back — which, as a consultant, I find more persuasive than any discount.
The Confidence Formula
Correct light + time to think + no pressure to buy = a shade (and a self) that actually fits.
The space is also planned to keep living: artist residencies, product launches, private appointments, gatherings, and cultural events are all on the program. In a neighborhood already crowded with flagships, the case here isn’t more product — it’s what can happen around the product.
Next time you’re in SoHo, you don’t have to go in with a list. Just give yourself the hour, the coffee, and the garden. The right shade will find you.
A note from Isabelle
I’ve spent years learning that the best beauty decisions are made slowly, in good light, without a sales timer. A store that understands that is rare — I hope it stays that way. Until next time, style isn’t about becoming someone else; it’s about giving yourself the time to be exactly yourself.
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