It’s a 10 founder partners with Khloé

Carolyn Aronson is using a familiar beauty playbook in a pretty unusual way. She built It’s a 10 without outside investors, kept full control, and now she’s using the brand’s 20th anniversary to relaunch it with Khloé Kardashian as its first-ever global brand ambassador. The move is not just celebrity window dressing. It’s tied to a full visual refresh, a summer 2026 Ulta Beauty exclusive rollout, and a broader push to make a salon-born brand feel current again. Why does this stand out? Because It’s a 10 is not a venture-backed startup trying to buy awareness fast. Aronson has spent years talking about the company as independently owned and self-funded, and that changes the math. A founder who still owns the whole thing can decide to protect margins for years, then spend hard on a rebrand only when the brand needs a reset. That’s basically what this looks like now. Retail Brew’s profile frames the Khloé deal as part of a broader “starting over” moment, not a one-off campaign. So what actually changed? On April 10, It’s a 10 announced Kardashian’s appointment ahead of what it called a “comprehensive visual brand refresh.” The company tied the partnership directly to its 20th anniversary and said the new look would keep the existing formulas while updating how the brand shows up for a new generation. Beauty trade coverage adds one important detail — the refreshed products are set to launch at Ulta Beauty exclusively in summer 2026. Why Khloé? Because this is less about borrowing fame and more about translating an older hit brand into today’s beauty language. It’s a 10 grew up around a hero product — the Miracle Leave-In spray — and salon credibility. But heritage can age into invisibility if the packaging and marketing freeze in place. Kardashian gives the company instant reach with younger shoppers and social platforms, while the rebrand gives retailers something tangible to merchandise. The celebrity is the attention hook. The packaging reset is the shelf strategy. There’s also scale here that makes the bet easier to understand. Glossy says Aronson is leveraging about $500 million in annual retail sales revenue into the rebrand, spokesperson push, and a broader anniversary campaign. That matters. This is not a distressed brand grabbing for relevance at the last second. It’s a large, profitable, founder-controlled business deciding that 20 years is the right moment to modernize before drift turns into decline. The bigger takeaway is about how beauty brands are getting rebuilt right now. A lot of founders either sell early or stay independent but avoid expensive brand overhauls. Aronson is trying a third route — keep ownership, use accumulated cash flow as your war chest, and then pair a retail reset with a celebrity who can punch through a crowded market. That only works if the underlying product still has real loyalty. But if it does, this is one of the cleaner ways to make an old bestseller feel new again.