The global beauty industry, valued at over $650 billion, remains a powerhouse, yet beneath the surface, a major shift is underway. Economic uncertainty, fierce competition from agile indie brands, and changing consumer loyalty are creating unprecedented pressure.
For many legacy beauty brands and large conglomerates, 2024 and the start of 2025 have been defined by cost-cutting, inventory reduction, and significant drops in key markets like China. This struggle highlights a failure to adapt to the new consumer demands for authenticity, efficacy, and value.
As a professional in the industry, understanding this landscape is crucial for strategic positioning. Here is a detailed breakdown of 11 beauty brands struggling in 2025, based on recent financial reports and confirmed operational challenges.
A. The Conglomerate Brands: Sales Declines and Restructuring
These brands are owned by global giants (Estée Lauder, Coty, Shiseido) that have publicly reported weakness, leading to restructuring and profit warnings extending into the 2025 fiscal year. Their struggles are largely tied to reliance on traditional retail and a slowdown in the high-margin Asian travel retail sector.
1. MAC Cosmetics (Owned by Estée Lauder Companies – EL)
- The Struggle: MAC has faced intense competition from viral direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands and faster-moving competitors like e.l.f. Beauty. The parent company reported broad declines in the makeup sector regionally.
- The Detail: The brand has historically relied on department store traffic. As consumers shift to online and specialty retail, MAC has struggled to regain the momentum lost during the pandemic’s makeup slowdown.
2. Clinique (Owned by Estée Lauder Companies – EL)
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- The Struggle: Clinique’s sales have faced significant headwinds as consumers prioritize dermocosmetics and niche “cleaner” brands. Prestige skincare dollars are now being split across more targeted, clinical brands.
- The Detail: In recent quarters, Estée Lauder reported that skincare sales, the category where Clinique is strongest, sank by double-digit percentages regionally. This suggests a failure to resonate with the modern consumer’s demand for innovation.
3. CoverGirl (Owned by Coty)
- The Struggle: Coty has struggled immensely with its mass-market portfolio following its acquisition of P&G’s beauty business. Legacy brands like CoverGirl have faced ongoing brand positioning issues and difficulty standing out in the mid-tier segment.
- The Detail: Consumer demand has shifted decisively toward the prestige segment and toward indie brands that offer better value, making it difficult for CoverGirl to justify its shelf space and price point.
4. Rimmel (Owned by Coty)
- The Struggle: As another core brand in Coty’s mass division, Rimmel has been impacted by the overall 3% decline in Coty’s second quarter sales.
- The Detail: The brand is struggling to keep pace with the high-speed innovation and viral trends driven by TikTok and social media, a critical component of success in the makeup sector in 2025.
5. Shiseido (Brand) (Owned by Shiseido Company, Limited)
- The Struggle: The parent company posted sales drops and significantly underperformed rivals. Its business has been hurt by a sharp downturn in the Mainland China market and destocking by retailers.
- The Detail: Shiseido has struggled with overreliance on tourist traffic in Asia. When that traffic slows, the lack of local market demand creates massive inventory and revenue problems.
B. Indie & Niche Brands: Market Saturation and Closures
The barrier to entry in beauty is low, but the barrier to survival is high. These smaller or niche brands have either been confirmed for closure or were recently discontinued due to intense market saturation and financial strain leading into 2025.
6. Flower Beauty (Drew Barrymore’s brand)
- The Struggle: The brand is reportedly shutting down operations after over a decade in business.
- The Detail: This closure exemplifies the extreme saturation in the celebrity/mass-market color cosmetics space, proving that celebrity endorsement alone is not enough to sustain a brand against relentless competition.
7. REN Clean Skincare (Recently owned by Unilever)
- The Struggle: The brand was reportedly discontinued by its parent company, Unilever.
- The Detail: This strategic divestiture shows that even the “clean beauty” segment is not immune to financial strain. Unilever’s decision was likely driven by a significant slowdown in its beauty division amidst inflationary pressures.
8. Ami Colé
- The Struggle: This brand has been listed among the growing number of smaller players that have been forced to close their doors in 2025.
- The Detail: The challenge for brands like Ami Colé is overcoming the incredible volatility and cost of customer acquisition in a market where consumers have infinite choices.
9. Apostrophe Skincare
- The Struggle: This prescription acne treatment brand was recently shut down by its parent company, Hims & Hers Health.
- The Detail: This highlights the rapid, often brutal, restructuring in the health-tech beauty sector. Hims & Hers chose to consolidate services under its core brand, eliminating the acquired brand to streamline operations and debt.
10. Jecca Blac
- The Struggle: This vegan and gender-free makeup brand announced plans to shutter in 2025.
- The Detail: Despite aligning with modern consumer values (vegan, gender-inclusive), the brand could not overcome the extreme competitive friction and high operating costs of the digital-first beauty market.
11. Futurewise Skincare
- The Struggle: The brand revealed it will discontinue orders and shut down its business in 2025.
- The Detail: Futurewise, known for promoting the “slugging” trend, could not maintain financial stability. This proves that having a viral trend or niche concept is insufficient without a robust, efficient business model to sustain it.
Conclusion: The New Mandate for Beauty Brands
The struggles of these 11 beauty brands are a clear warning to the entire industry. Success in 2025 and beyond requires more than just marketing; it requires agile operations, extreme supply chain efficiency, and a deep focus on efficacy that can justify premium pricing or superior value that can win the mass market.
For beauty professionals and business owners, this industry shake-up creates opportunities to fill the void left by these closures and to capitalize on the rising consumer demand for licensed expertise and honest, evidence-based services.
