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No-makeup makeup and a “clean girl” aesthetic has taken over beauty trends, with customers swapping out full glam for more involved skincare and a more natural look. This has created a challenge for Too Faced, whose high-wattage makeup once resonated with consumers that wanted to create visible looks on social media to stand out.
Founded in 1998, Too Faced became known for its playful packaging and unapologetically quirky names, including the Better Than Sex mascara, Born This Way foundation and Lip Injection plumping gloss. Its unique ability to engage young consumers appealed to the Estée Lauder Companies (ELC), which spent $1.45 billion to buy the brand in 2016, its biggest acquisition at the time (that figure was topped last year when ELC bought Tom Ford for $2.8 billion). Too Faced was vastly different to the classic heritage brands in ELC’s portfolio, like Clinique and Bobbi Brown, which were more expensive and targeted towards older consumers.
“When Estée Lauder thinks about a potential acquisition, we look at it through the lens of our existing portfolio and how a brand might complement and amplify [what we already have],” says ELC’s executive group president Stéphane De La Faverie. “When Too Faced came out, it was the beauty disruptor of its generation.” And, he insists, it continues to be. “It’s one thing to disrupt out of the gate like many indie brands do, but it’s something else to do it over the course of multiple decades like Too Faced has done.”
Recent performance, however, points to the need for a refresh. For fiscal 2023, ELC reported a 10 per cent decrease in net sales to $15.91 billion. While the company does not break out sales for specific brands, it said that Too Faced had lower-than-expected results in key geographic regions and channels during the second quarter of 2023, while also facing delays with international expansion in areas still impacted by Covid.
The results follow a summer of lay-offs across several of ELC’s makeup brands, including Too Faced, where 22 employees were let go. The lay-offs at Too Faced were not initiated by ELC, but were due to a creative restructure, according to the brand. International operations were also scaled back. In June, Too Faced pulled out of Japan, after three years of operating in the market. The brand exited China the previous summer, when it shut its flagship on Alibaba-owned marketplace Tmall. (Too Faced doesn’t have its own stores in China, and consumers in the country can now only purchase products through Australian beauty platform Mecca.)
Viral TikTok moments, lighter-weight products and the gradual blurring of the boundary between makeup and skincare are boosting sales of cosmetics.
In May 2022, co-founders Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson exited the brand. Last summer, the duo launched a cross-category incubator called Toy Box Brands, placing them among the ranks of beauty brand founders from the ’90s who sold up and are starting again, such as Bobbi Brown with Jones Road, Jo Malone with Jo Loves, Ren’s Rob Calcraft and Cultured and Stila’s Jeanine Lobell and Neen.
The departure of Blandino and Johnson, as well as increasing pressure from financial markets — that has prompted some strategic companies to consider offloading their portfolios and focus on core assets — has led observers to question whether ELC may be tempted to sell off Too Faced. ELC’s De La Faverie dismisses the “speculation” as nothing more. “We are extremely committed to Too Faced. It’s part of the family and we will continue to build on its strengths,” he says.
There is new leadership in the form of Tara Simon, a long-time merchandising executive, who was promoted to global brand president upon the founders’ departure. Simon is ushering in a new era for the brand that includes building on Too Faced’s core markets, strengthening its position with key partners globally and focusing on product innovation. Too Faced is already a strong performer in the US, De La Faverie points out, and is also poised to benefit from makeup’s rebound as consumers worldwide return to in-person activities post-pandemic, with new product innovation and viral TikTok moments fueling demand.
ELC’s makeup net sales grew 1 per cent in the first quarter ended September 2023, driven by double-digit growth from Too Faced, which saw sales across its eye, face and lip categories. The encouraging results reflect colour cosmetics’s return to growth, which market research firm Mintel predicts will drive sales in the US to $14.9 billion by 2028, up from $13.6 billion in 2023.
The way forward
Simon was senior vice president of merchandising for prestige beauty at Ulta Beauty, where she worked for seven years, prior to joining Too Faced as senior VP and general manager in 2020, during which she steered the brand through the pandemic. “It was a weird time, particularly for makeup brands, because people were at home and figuring out their lives,” Simon recounts via a call from Newport Beach, California, where Too Faced’s headquarters are based.
The brand’s bubbly DNA helped it navigate tough times, says Simon. “Consumers say we instil confidence and help them have more fun, even in such a dark time for the industry.” That’s something Simon is focused on continuing, even if consumer trends move onto something else. “The brand is unabashedly pink, playful and feminine. I don’t think that will ever change. We listen to what’s going on and what the expectations are [but] we also don’t follow trends.”
De La Faverie echoes that sentiment. While most trends escape true longevity, Too Faced “not only continues to attract younger consumers, but keeps the customer that grew up with the brand when it was founded [26 years ago],” he says. “We’re talking about more than two decades. To retain, as well as the ability to recruit, is what makes a successful model.”
In today’s crowded beauty market, loyalty is a determining factor for success. How does Too Faced build repeat purchases? Having a good grasp of the evolving consumer is key, and that includes working with the right partners to help share the brand’s story with new audiences, says Simon. It also requires updating and improving formulas to align with new customer preferences. A few months prior, the brand launched its Foreplay lash primer, intended for use alongside its bestselling Better Than Sex mascara. It also recently introduced Naturally Better Than Sex, a version using naturally derived ingredients, to suit modern tastes.
Still, there has been some learnings for the brand. In 2019, Too Faced launched a full skincare collection, but sales never truly took off and today it remains a “really tiny” part of the business, says Simon. “The quality of the products was amazing but, over time, they didn’t do the volume that was needed.” Too Faced has since prioritised creating hybrid formulas and “amped up the level of skincare ingredients in our complexion products”, she says — where its true strength lies.
Looking ahead, Simon sees an opportunity beyond North America and the UK. She points to Mexico, the Middle East and Australia as potential growth markets where makeup is thriving. India, she adds, is “a wonderful emerging market”. The brand previously pulled out of some APAC countries because “there had been some global expansion that might have been a little fast, [so] we did a bit of right sizing. We’re no longer there today, but that was a moment in time.”
Simon believes in the old adage about not fixing what isn’t broken. “We aren’t your no-makeup makeup brand. That’s not what our customer comes to us for.” Trends come and go, she adds. “Everything is cyclical. It’s not my first rodeo and I’ve survived the no-makeup makeup look before,” she laughs. “I think that makeup is always going to be a way for people to express their individuality. It’s a way to have fun, and it can be confidence building.”
When consumers “fall in love and stay with a product, we think about how to continue that story. Tara knows how to do that very well; to protect hero items with proven repeats but bring new excitement for customers. It’s this delicate balance that creates the megabrands of the future,” ELC’s De La Faverie explains. “I believe that Too Faced is able to surf the wave, and then surf it again, by reinforcing what makes it so special over and over again.”
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