Is Makeup Geek Going Out Of Business

Makeup Geek, the color cosmetics brand from OG makeup influencer Marlena Stell, is closing next month.

Stell announced the news on Instagram and in a YouTube video posted Friday in which she describes the ruinous fiscal furnishings of the pandemic-related shift away from makeup and supply chain disruptions on her business. Following a rebrand introduced in January 2020 that led to Makeup Geek's trade selling out nearly instantly and thousands of people flocking to a restock waiting listing, the brand wasn't able to replenish products until the end of 2020.

"Having almost an unabridged yr of not having product obviously was financially devastating," says Stell in the video. "The fact that we've stayed open fifty-fifty this long after all of that says a lot about my squad and all of y'all out at that place for your back up, but it's just honestly you guys, after all of that, it's too difficult to come back from that…It's hard to take new product coming out obviously to go on things going and just the timeline now is so much slower with shortages of raw materials, paper-thin, and so much going on behind the scenes that it'south difficult for anybody."

Makeup Geek founder Marlena Stell

She adds, "It's non a decision I was expecting to make this twelvemonth. However, I practise know in my soul that Makeup Geek wasn't meant to be the ultimate destination for me. When I started the company, I was 28. I'g 42 at present. I'thousand at a different stage of my life, and at that place'due south other ventures and things that I would like to do."

A loftier schoolhouse music instructor for many years, Stell began putting makeup tips on YouTube as a hobby. She quit teaching in 2010 and launched her make a year later. "At the fourth dimension, there was a huge gap between drugstore and high-stop makeup," she told Dazzler Independent in 2019. "There wasn't anything that was really high quality that notwithstanding had an affordable price point. I started my brand with eyeshadows because that's what I was actually passionate near."

At first, Stell envisioned the brand's customers would simply exist her social media followers. "I had no idea it was going to be what it became," she said almost three years ago. "I just wanted to have something to sell to my audience. I was spending then much time promoting other brands, and I wasn't able to financially survive off of that."

"Having nearly an entire twelvemonth of not having product obviously was financially devastating."

In its heyday, Makeup Geek grew to over $22 million in almanac sales "without a single loan or investor," according to information previously provided by Stell. In 2019, the brand had more than 300 stockkeeping units in its assortment and entered some 600 Target stores. Stell didn't address the difficulties of wholesaling to a big retailer similar Target in her YouTube video on the closure of Makeup Geek, only the costs of facing off against consumer packaged goods giants in a crowded retail surround can weigh heavily on a comparatively smaller brand. Makeup Geek didn't have a lengthy tenure at Target. Stell also used to have a clothing make, Marsté, that shuttered in 2020.

Although several OG makeup influencers have leveraged their social media ability to plant brands (examples include Jackie Aina's Forvr Mood, MannyMUA creator Manny Gutierrez's Lunar Dazzler, KathleenLights founder Kathleen Fuentes's Lights Lacquer, Jaclyn Colina's Jaclyn Cosmetics and Ane/Size from Patrick Simondac, aka Patrick Starrr), the tanking of makeup sales amid the pandemic and the rise of TikTok, a platform with its own way and gear up of influencers catering to gen Z, has made it tricky for them to continue to stoke engagement and build followings. Today, Stell has 1.47 million subscribers on YouTube, and her make has 2.two 1000000 followers on Instagram. She plans to remain producing YouTube content.

Certainly, OG influencers aren't the simply beauty manufacture players that have struggled of late. The list of dazzler brand closures has been mounting. Beboe Therapies, Aubrey Organics, Kynd Scent, Steel Birch, Hush + Dotti, Evenprime and Woodlot are among the dazzler brands that have shuttered recently or will soon shutter. Supply concatenation obstacles, blistering competition, and soaring costs for raw materials and digital marketing are key factors in brand closures.

Without external investment, Makeup Geek built a business concern surpassing $22 meg in annual sales.

A much-loved influencer whose openness has won devoted fans, Stell's revelation of the impending closure of Makeup Geek generated an outpouring of back up on social media. An influencer with the handle RawBeautyKristi wrote on YouTube, "Over the years MUG has been such a staple in everyone'due south makeup routine and you really changed the game for pricing and quality in the makeup manufacture. I am so so so sad to hear that MUG is endmost, simply I am And then proud of you for everything you have done and everything astonishing you've brought to the dazzler customs. Thank you Marlena, thank you Makeup Geek and I cannot wait to encounter where you go from here."