Beauty Startup Failures

The activewear brand Mickey Drexler backed with his personal reputation — destroyed by founder Tyler Haney's internal turmoil, a damning Business Insider expose, and a bankruptcy sale for $3 million

THG's stock implosion killed GLOSSYBOX UK as collateral damage in a corporate meltdown.

The DTC mattress that couldn't sleep through its unit economics

IPO at $7B, acquired by Naver for $1.2B — social commerce's 80% markdown in two years

SPAC'd at $1.5B on eco-cleaning mission — stock fell 99% as B Corp values couldn't plug the cash burn

Unilever paid $1B for subscription razors — then sold the business 7 years later for approximately 15 cents on the dollar

DTC eyewear pioneer that went public at $6B — then discovered retail stores cost as much as the old retail model

Walmart bought the DTC menswear pioneer for $310M in 2017 — and sold it for $75M in 2023

Beauty fans loved the reviews; they just didn't turn points into purchases at scale.

The sustainable shoe unicorn that lost 97% of its market cap to cheaper, faster, trendier rivals

The lingerie subscription darling was fined $1.3M by the FTC for trapping customers.

BoxyCharm was absorbed by its biggest rival and ceased to exist as a brand.

Jessica Alba's 'honest' baby products brand IPO'd at $1.5B and lost 80% of its value in 18 months

The beauty brand that built a cult following and then abandoned its DTC religion for wholesale survival

The FTC blocked Harry's $1.37B acquisition by Edgewell — forcing the brand to compete alone at a scale it wasn't built for

The radical transparency fashion brand that was opaque about its own culture — exposed during the racial justice moment of 2020

On-demand beauty startup with 5K monthly bookings killed in 90 days by a pandemic lockdown.

The $1.4B luggage unicorn undone by a Slack culture expose — CEO resigned, COVID finished the job

Disrupting beauty with a 3D printer — the lipstick never quite printed.

New York's nail salon membership model couldn't recover from COVID disruption and real estate cost inflation

UK personalized prescription skincare startup that raised $25M and hit profitability ceiling on subscription churn.

Beauty influencer brand holding company that rode the YouTube makeup wave to hundreds of millions in revenue and filed for bankruptcy when the influencer economy collapsed.

Kids meal delivery subscription service could not survive churn and competition from HelloFresh

The personalised period care subscription that couldn't survive Amazon Prime

Spanish beauty subscription box drained by retention churn and international competitor marketing budgets

On-demand beauty services platform that was blindsided by COVID-19.

Clean beauty DTC pioneer reached unicorn status on clean ingredients and social selling — then discovered $1B valuations require more than mission

Seattle beauty subscription pioneer that burned $56M as subscription fatigue and Birchbox/Ipsy competition destroyed the economics.

Personalized haircare DTC raised $100M then could not escape the CAC treadmill

London's Korean beauty subscription box couldn't survive the shift from subscription novelty to on-demand convenience

The refillable clean beauty brand that couldn't scale sustainability economics

Virtual makeup pioneer absorbed into irrelevance as AR beauty went mainstream

Finnish AI beauty personalization startup that raised $5M and could not convert free quizzes to paid subscriptions.

Acne patch pioneer sold to Church & Dwight for $630M as category it created became overcrowded

The Gen Z beauty festival empire that built a media brand on live events and had nowhere to go when COVID cancelled everything

Colombian on-demand beauty services platform that failed to achieve sustainable unit economics in a fragmented market.

Rocket Internet beauty subscription box launched in 19 countries, wound down by The Hut Group after 12 years.

Korean beauty subscription box that raised 60 million dollars from Sequoia and pivoted to private label brands but ended up with neither a working subscription nor successful brands.

German beauty subscription box pioneer acquired by The Hut Group that was shut down after 12 years as the subscription beauty model lost all commercial viability.

Stockholm's sustainable beauty marketplace ran into unit economics death by a thousand SKUs

Virtual eyeglass try-on startup backed by Lux Capital that sold to VSP Global for well below its raise.

European beauty box pioneer — ended by Birchbox and Amazon on its own turf

Parisian beauty subscription pioneer overwhelmed by Birchbox's US-funded entry into France and global beauty box saturation.

Curated beauty retailer zombie as Sephora and Ulta locked up exclusive brand supply

LA beauty festival company built entirely on live events, collapsed overnight when COVID-19 made mass gatherings impossible.

Hollywood's prestige beauty curator couldn't build a sustainable D2C moat against Sephora and Goop

Lookiero raised €32M to be the Stitch Fix of Southern Europe — then discovered that European fashion subscription economics are even harder than American ones