Indie brands continue to turn to retailers to nurture them into greatness. Fred Segal and Henri Bendel used to fill that niche, but now TV shopping channels and select beauty boutiques, such as Beauty Collection, Space NK and Mecca Cosmetics have picked up the role as beauty’s incubators.

Online retailers are also in the game of developing brands, and the latest player, Gloss48, is an online beauty emporium dedicated to selling niche and independent brands, from nail polish to foundation to lipstick, as well as hair care, bath and body and skin care.

Founded by three female entrepreneurs—Jill Kravetz, Laura Bronner and Jodi Slater—Gloss48 aims to be a one-stop shop for all the gem-like beauty brands that are becoming harder and harder to find. The idea for Gloss48 came about from Jill and Laura’s prior experience at MiniLuxe, a Boston-based upscale nail and wax emporium the two founded which also sold niche beauty brands designed to be impulse purchases and gift items. The duo saw that the small indie brands they were carrying were having an increasingly difficult time to land distribution in specialty stores. “We felt a gap in the market. From the beauty junky perspective we wanted to do something authentic and curate that universe of niche brands,” said Jill.

Jill, who co-founded MiniLuxe while also serving as partner at The Cue Ball Group, now serves as Gloss48’s CEO. She was also the first female Partner at The Parthenon Group, a strategy and consulting boutique.

Laura, who joined Jill to run MiniLuxe, now serves as Gloss48’s Chief Marketing Officer/Chief Operating Officer. She helped develop the concepts behind MiniLuxe, as well as other beauty retail concepts, including Nail Bar and Trim, both in Chicago.

Prior to Gloss48, Jodi most recently ran MarketspaceNext, advising companies such as Urban Decay and Ippolita on digital strategy.

During the summer of 2012 the three started a 15-week beta site they built themselves with zero marketing budget and quickly accumulated 5,000 members. In May, the trio raised a round of funding, about $800,000, from angel investors, then rebranded and rebuilt the website and hired a small staff. The site officially launched November 5.

Gloss48 aims to bring to consumers new exciting cult brands as that’s where they believe the innovation lies. To make the site different from others, Gloss48 blends original content via their daily email newsletter and blog, as well as a commerce opportunity so consumers can immediately buy what they see on the site.

Gloss48 introduces new brands every day, where they tell a story via editorial or video.

“We’re like old school Daily Candy and highlight the best of them,” said Jill, referring to one of the first successful beauty email newsletters.

Items spotlighted on Gloss48 are offered at a promotional price for seven days, sometimes with a gift with purchase. The site currently offers 20 brands.

Membership is free to the site, and they’re aiming to try to get to 50,000 members by May 2014.

To drive consumer awareness, Gloss48 is active on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Google+, with Instagram as the site’s pick as the best platform for its positioning. The site uses Facebook to communicate what is happening on the site and general things in beauty. Twitter is used “nonstop” to talk about everything from a great blog to providing customer support. Pinterest is where the group pins things they have an emotional response to.