An exclusive partnership brings the US beauty discovery platform’s portfolio of founder-led global brands to South Africa for the first time – and gives Takealot another push in its beauty ambitions.
Thirteen Lune is going global, and South Africa is its first stop. The US beauty discovery platform has formed an exclusive partnership with Takealot, marking its first international expansion. The partnership is set to go live on Takealot in the fourth quarter of 2026, bringing an evolving portfolio of international beauty brands across skincare, makeup, haircare, fragrance and wellness to South African consumers. The initial launch will include Relevant Beauty, the skincare and beauty brand founded by Thirteen Lune co-founder Nyakio Grieco, while the broader portfolio of partner brands will be announced ahead of launch, with several expected to reach South African consumers for the first time. For Thirteen Lune, the deal is more than an expansion of its online footprint – it’s the company’s first move outside the US, giving it a route into an international market without having to begin by building a standalone physical retail operation. For Takealot, it represents another step in an increasingly deliberate beauty strategy. According to Bizcommunity, Ryan Ferreira, Takealot’s head of retail, said: “This is far more than the launch of new beauty brands.”
From 13 brands to a beauty retail platform
Thirteen Lune was founded in 2020 by Grieco and Patrick Herning with a proposition distinct from the traditional beauty retailer. The platform launched with 13 foundational Black-founded beauty brands, creating a destination for consumers to discover products and founders historically underrepresented in mainstream beauty retail – the number 13 became part of the company’s identity, reflecting its original assortment. The business was built around a broader idea of inclusivity: that beauty could be curated around Black and Brown founders while still serving consumers across the market.
That model grew quickly. Within two years of launching, Thirteen Lune had expanded from its original 13 brands to more than 160, with approximately 90% founded by people of colour. The company also introduced its own private-label brand, Relevant: Your Skin Seen, before expanding its physical retail presence through a partnership with JCPenney, which became an important part of its transition from a digital discovery platform into an omnichannel retailer, growing its shop-in-shop presence across hundreds of US stores.
That history makes the South African partnership particularly interesting. Thirteen Lune has already shown its model can extend beyond its own website, but South Africa presents a different proposition – rather than establishing its own stores first, it’s entering through an established local e-commerce platform.
Why Takealot makes sense for the first international move
Entering a new country through an established retailer gives Thirteen Lune immediate access to infrastructure that would otherwise take years and significant investment to build. Takealot already has the fulfilment network, customer base and marketplace ecosystem needed to introduce the brands at national scale, letting Thirteen Lune focus on what matters most initially: introducing its portfolio and building awareness.
It also creates room for the company to establish its international presence before making a potentially larger commitment to physical retail – not necessarily a replacement for brick-and-mortar, but a way to enter digitally first and develop the consumer proposition before deciding what a physical presence could look like. That distinction matters for a company whose US growth has increasingly included physical retail.
In South Africa, Thirteen Lune can arrive as a digital destination first, while the partnership leaves room for physical activations and pop-ups, with additional details expected ahead of the rollout. For Thirteen Lune, Takealot provides more than distribution – it’s a local retail partner through which the company can begin building its international story. And for Takealot, the timing is equally significant.
Takealot is building its beauty proposition
The Thirteen Lune partnership arrives as Takealot continues to invest in beauty as a category. The retailer has been using its House of Beauty platform to create a physical expression of its online beauty business, bringing consumers, brands, creators and beauty experts together through shopping, masterclasses, product experiences and activations. The 2026 edition returned to Johannesburg in April and sold out, marking the anniversary of the original event, and its continued growth has become an important part of Takealot’s broader beauty positioning as it looks to connect digital commerce with physical discovery.
That strategy gives the Thirteen Lune deal a natural place within Takealot’s wider beauty ambitions: the retailer isn’t simply adding another international assortment to its marketplace, it’s adding a platform built around discovery, founder stories and emerging beauty brands. According to Bizcommunity, Karla Levick, chief marketing officer of Takealot Group, said: “Beauty is an incredibly exciting category for Takealot and one where we have significant ambition.”
House of Beauty brings the category into a physical, experiential environment; Thirteen Lune brings another layer of international brand discovery into Takealot’s digital ecosystem. Together, they point towards a retail model where beauty is increasingly about what consumers can discover and experience, rather than simply what they can purchase.
Exclusivity gives Takealot another advantage
There’s another important element to the partnership: Takealot will be Thirteen Lune’s exclusive South African retail partner. That gives Takealot differentiation in a category where access to international beauty brands increasingly influences consumer traffic, and it strengthens the retailer’s premium and luxury beauty proposition, particularly as several Thirteen Lune brands enter South Africa for the first time.
For Thirteen Lune, the arrangement provides a single established retail partner through which to introduce its portfolio nationally. The two companies are bringing different strengths to the relationship – Thirteen Lune its curation and network of founder-led beauty brands, Takealot its scale, local infrastructure and established digital shopping ecosystem – resulting in a market entry that doesn’t require either company to build the entire proposition from scratch.
South Africa becomes the beginning, not the destination
There’s also a personal dimension to the move. Grieco, whose heritage is Kenyan, has described the expansion into South Africa as both a business milestone and a personal moment, citing her family’s connection to the African continent and her father’s years of work in the country. According to Bizcommunity, she said: “We were looking for more than a retailer.”
But the commercial story remains larger. Thirteen Lune is taking a business that began in 2020 with 13 brands and using South Africa as the starting point for international expansion, through a retailer simultaneously trying to deepen its position in beauty. That makes the partnership mutually useful – for Thirteen Lune, a way to enter a new market without immediately carrying the cost and risk of building a standalone physical retail network; for Takealot, international brands and a recognised beauty discovery platform added to a category it’s already investing in through initiatives like House of Beauty.
What happens next will be shaped by the full brand portfolio, which has yet to be announced, and by the planned pop-ups and activations, which will reveal how the partnership develops beyond the online storefront. Thirteen Lune has picked South Africa as the first stop in its international expansion, and Takealot as the platform to get it there – another international layer added to Takealot’s beauty ambitions, and a new lineup of global, founder-led beauty brands landing on a local retail platform for South African shoppers.
