H&M have had some interesting developments lately.
The H&M group used to consist of Monki, Cheap Monday, Weekday, Cos, Arket, &Other Stories, H&M Home, AFound, and H&M. In recent years, Cheap Monday and Afound closed. Monki is now closed/incorporated into Weekday.
H&M stores (both online and brick-and-mortar) were long seen as a bit of a jumble sale. Clothes in a mess, no order, and many garments of poor quality. It was like the shabby country cousin of the other brands in the H&M stable.
H&M have somewhat rebranded themselves though (in Stockholm anyway). They do garment rentals, garment repairs, as well as offering carefully curated second-hand selections of both H&M and other brands. They recently had pop-up archive sales from their 20 years of collaborations. New stores are more like designer galleries than the cramped, chaotic spaces we are used to.
This is the second-hand section
One newer development is H&M Beauty. A flagship store opened a few weeks ago near where I work. It is very Sephora-like in selection and appearance, and sells niche brands as well as H&M’s own beauty line (newly revamped)
The revamped H&M own-brand beauty line has a small, well-curated line of basics. I was intrigued by their mascara. I bought the lash-lengthening one because volumising mascaras on my small eyes looks absolutely ridiculous.
It cost $9 and it is actually not bad. Not the best mascara I have ever used but by far not the worst. It did not irritate my eyes at all and did not flake or smudge at all, despite snow and wind. I will *definitely* buy again.