Counter, the new venture from Beautycounter founder Gregg Renfrew, officially launches today after a soft rollout in June was spent tweaking and testing the company’s next phase.
The new Counter picks up where Beautycounter left off, with some changes. Beautycounter originally launched in 2013 with am multi-level marketing (MLM) style framework: independent “consultants” sold products directly to customers and recruited new consultants who would, in turn, generate revenue for their upline. Consultants earned not only on their own sales but also on those of their recruits — a structure that encouraged team growth.
In 2021, Renfrew sold a majority stake in Beautycounter to investment firm The Carlyle Group in a deal that reportedly valued the company at $1 billion. But after Renfrew’s exit, growth slowed and operating costs rose, and in April 2024, after Carlyle cut funding and the company defaulted on its loan, Beautycounter entered foreclosure and abruptly ceased operations. Renfrew subsequently reacquired its assets — including product formulas, inventory and the Beautycounter name — with a group of private investors, laying the groundwork for Counter’s launch.
In Counter’s new model, brand partners share unique shopping links through social channels, newsletters or direct messages — closer to a modern affiliate program than the MLM system Beautycounter once used, with no team commissions or downlines. They earn commissions of up to 40 per cent for first-time customers, with no sign-up fee, and a flat $100 referral bonus per new brand partner.
The product span is intentionally tighter. While Beautycounter’s late-stage assortment sprawled to 245 SKUs, Counter’s is focused: 32 Counter SKUs will be on sale at launch, alongside 48 “vintage clean” items — unexpired Beautycounter inventory being sold on the Counter site. Pricing runs from $24 for a lip balm to $155 for a holiday set.
Renfrew says the soft launch gave her team the opportunity to test, adjust and learn before scaling publicly. “We wanted time and space to turn the business back on, serve customers and co-create with them and our brand partners before making a big public announcement,” she says. That co-creation, she adds, was active rather than symbolic. Counter spent the summer running focus groups, surveys and small feedback sessions — some led by Renfrew herself — to understand what former Beautycounter sellers and customers wanted from the new brand.
The early months surfaced frictions that look small on paper yet matter in practice. Legacy customers accustomed to buying directly from sellers weren’t prepared to shop via creator-style links, while the packaging changes caused confusion. A new high-gloss finish led some to assume bottles had moved from glass to plastic, and different colours (the pale pink is gone) made it harder to connect new product names to old favourites. Counter adjusted with clearer education on materials and sustainability, plus explicit bridges on their website between Beautycounter SKUs and their Counter equivalents.
Now, with those early snags smoothed, Counter is ready to fully debut with a big paid and direct marketing push. Digital and in-home advertisements feature women in their late thirties, forties, and fifties wearing minimal or no makeup with language meant to empower rather than shame (e.g. “Makeup meant to highlight — not hide.”) To reach customers beyond digital, Counter mailed its first direct-mail catalogue last week; a holiday-focused mailer lands in November. “We really believe in the power of storytelling and education,” says Renfrew, noting that the channel allows them to explain product updates and the shopping flow to legacy audiences in a tangible, visually rich format.
To date, 15,000 women have joined as sellers — a fraction of Beautycounter’s former 45,000-strong sales force, but by design. The company has also built a community-management team to keep a daily feedback loop with partners. “What people missed, more than product, were the relationships,” Renfrew says. “We’ve worked hard to rebuild that connectivity between customers and brand partners.”
Renfrew also wants the program to feel more individualised over time. Not everyone is motivated purely by cash, she says; some value access, advocacy or community. Over the next few months, Counter plans to layer in non-monetary rewards — advocacy trips, IRL meetups, early product access — alongside standard commissions, so a partner’s “why” can shape what they earn. “Some people want income, some want access or purpose,” says Renfrew. “We’re building a model that lets both coexist.”
When Beautycounter debuted in 2013, clean beauty was a niche movement; today, it’s a crowded, multi-billion-dollar category. The conversation has shifted from ingredient bans to performance, transparency and sustainability, as consumers expect proof that “clean” products actually work. Digital commerce has evolved, too: social selling, creator partnerships and DTC relationships now dominate beauty distribution, replacing the hierarchical consultant model that once set Beautycounter apart. That shift plays to Counter’s strengths — a smaller product lineup, a modernised affiliate-style sales force, and a digital-first brand built for today’s more informed, values-driven shopper.
A new playbook
Renfrew says the team analysed what truly drove revenue before the shutdown and rebuilt around performance, safety and a specific customer: women 35 and up. “In the end, Beautycounter was trying to serve all people at once, and I think that’s really hard to do with one brand,” she says. Their new target shows up in both the casting of mature women in their marketing and the product formulations. Countertime remains the “ageing gracefully” franchise, now complemented by a new serum built on the brand’s retin-natural complex. The old Counter Match line has been fully renovated as Counterglow — a hydration-first line with a mist, serum, day cream, cushion night cream and a lightly exfoliating cleanser. “It’s less product done exceptionally well,” Renfrew says, adding that the goal is prestige-level value that customers can feel.
The brand’s distribution choices reflect a similar desire for control. Counter is most focused on direct-to-consumer to manage the customer experience and own the data, says Renfrew. But bricks-and-mortar isn’t off the table: they reopened the old Nantucket Beautycounter store this summer under the new name and are looking into more owned retail locations to open after the first year. The brand has also returned to Goop online and in select doors, but a Target or Ulta-type partnership like it had in the past isn’t on the near-term roadmap.
As one of the pioneers of the clean beauty movement, establishing a “Never List” of over 2,800 potentially harmful ingredients excluded from Beautycounter before it was commonplace, Renfrew says brands today need to view “clean” as more than just a restricted list. For Counter, the standard spans careful ingredient selection, responsible sourcing, transparency and packaging compatibility — avoiding the chemicals a container might leach back into a formula, for example. She sees an opening to push for a clearer industry baseline and calls closing the fragrance loophole — where ingredients can hide behind “fragrance/parfum” — a priority, alongside support for broader modernisation of cosmetics regulation.
Bringing brand partners into that work, through education and occasional in-person engagement, is part of how she intends to differentiate the community model. “One of the opportunities we see as a company entering into this market now, where there’s a lot of clean washing, is to set a definitive standard for what clean can be and working to get other brands and retailers on board,” says Renfrew. “When there’s a lack of regulation and a lack of consistency, consumers get confused.”
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When it comes to growth, Renfrew is taking a careful approach, working with investors who back her preference for long-term stability over fast scaling. She put substantial personal capital into acquiring assets and inventory from Beautycounter after the company went into foreclosure and aims to build a profitable company from the outset rather than chase growth at all costs. Counter is backed by many of the same private investors who supported Beautycounter’s earlier chapter, a group Renfrew describes as aligned with her more measured approach to growth.
A recent example that illustrates this approach: Counter pulled a product that had fallen out of stability and was separating, even though there was no safety risk and it was selling well. “The immediate cash would’ve been nice, but in the long run, customers having an amazing experience with the product matters more,” she says. That posture, she argues, protects brand trust while the team rebuilds around a tighter product lineup and a more focused audience.
As Counter officially launches this month, the key tests will be whether the new compensation plan energises its 15,000 brand partners, how the 35+ focus connects with customers who have long felt sidelined by the beauty industry, and whether a smaller product lineup can create stronger hero franchises. With more owned retail unlikely in year one, growth will hinge on e-commerce, community-led sales, and direct mail that helps reacquaint customers with the brand.
Renfrew doesn’t pretend the relaunch will be easy, but she is clear about the ambition: to lead again by example, using community to build a durable business and to pursue social impact in parallel. “I always say the world doesn’t need another beauty brand,” she says. “What it needs is a movement for change.”
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