Clean Beauty Retailer Fig & Flower Reopens Two Years After Closing

Fig & Flower is giving beauty retail a second shot.  

The clean beauty boutique reopened on May 13 in Atlanta’s Kirkwood neighborhood nearly two years after closing its first location. The new Fig & Flower stocks around 344 products from 14 brands across skincare, makeup and bath and body, the majority of which were in its original store. Among the brands are Ursa Major, Minori, Fitglow, Roz, Ere Perez, Jenny Patinkin, Indie Lee, Kinfield, Nopalera, Poppy & Pout and Odacité. RMS Beauty will soon join its lineup, too. 

Burnt out by the stress of operating a small business during the height of the pandemic, Fig & Flower owner Rachel Taylor thought the days of running a brick-and-mortar store were behind her. “I started working at another makeup store in Atlanta and that’s when I realized, this is what I’m good at and what I like,” she says. “I also missed the business parts of it.” 

Taylor is approaching Fig & Flower differently this time around. At 550 square feet, its new space is about half the size of its 1,125-square-foot predecessor, but only two miles away from it in an area filled with coffee shops, bakeries and bookstores. It’s planning to cross-promote with local businesses to drum up momentum. 

Taylor says, “I want to be a space where people are excited to go, where we’re really hands-on and provide a good service to people.”

Fig & Flower has tighter curation than its earlier iteration and is focused on smaller beauty brands that sold briskly before. Ilia, One Love Organics, Fitglow Beauty, 100% Pure and RMS Beauty were bestsellers at Fig & Flower previously. Brands like Ilia that require retail partners to stock their full assortments have been nixed.

“For me, it’s hard to move 150 variants from one line. So, I can’t do that,” says Taylor. “I like to support small brands that have better packaging and find things that are very niche that you don’t see at Sephora and Ulta.” 

The new Fig & Flower location incorporates more beauty services, and its service menu features bridal makeup applications for $200, makeup applications for $75, lash applications for $15 and makeup lessons for $90. Taylor’s taking cues from Trish McEvoy department store counters for Fig & Flower’s service model. 

“I have been kind of watching the way they do things, and they’re genius,” she says. “They get you to sit down, they put products on you, they treat you like it’s a real luxury. That’s the kind of vibe I want.”

The store offered 50% off makeup services to kick off its opening last month. So far, the promotion has been successful, with customers booking one to two services a day. It plans to offer a similar promotion when RMS Beauty arrives.

“I want to be a space where people are excited to go, where we’re really hands-on and provide a good service to people.”

At the outset, Taylor hasn’t hired additional staff for Fig & Flower and is limiting the shop’s hours—it’s open Tuesday through Saturday—to ease back into the retail business again. She says about 80% of the customers that have come to the new Fig & Flower are returning customers from the previous store. 

Taylor became a store associate and resident makeup artist at Fig & Flower in 2017 and took over ownership with a silent partner in 2019. The boutique grossed between $200,000 and $300,000 a year in sales at its peak prior to the pandemic. 

Things began to get dicey in 2020. Fig & Flower’s landlord changed and its rent increased shortly before lockdowns shuttered the store for three months. Taylor estimates that the business’s sales plunged 50% that year. Sales partially recovered in 2021, but declined again in 2022 when a long-term construction project disrupted foot traffic in front of the store.

By 2023, sales decreased 35% from pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, Fig & Flower’s rent continued to rise between 2020 and 2023, from $1,900 to $3,500 a month. The boutique shuttered on July 1, 2023. “I missed shopping at Fig after I closed it,” says Taylor. “I was like, I don’t know where to go anymore.”

Fig & Flower’s bumpy ride is reflective of larger troubles plaguing small beauty retailers across the country. Dragged down by rising costs, declining foot traffic and consumers’ growing reliance on e-commerce, several beauty shops have closed their doors. Clean(er) Beauty Shop, Field Botanicals, Hearth & Hammer, Ware, Fine Line, Poppy Avenue Clean Beauty Bar, Selenite Beauty and Inside Outer Beauty Market are just a few examples.

Small beauty retailers are caught up in broader retail trends. According to retail and technology advisory firm Coresight Research, retail closures spiked last year to 7,325 in the United States, the highest number recorded since the pandemic. Openings surged in the same year to 5,970, the highest since 2012. Coresight is projecting closures will rise again this year to reach 15,000 stores. 

“We continue to see a trend of consumers opting for the path of least resistance,” says Deborah Weinswig, CEO of retail and technology advisory firm Coresight Research, in a press release. “Not only do they want the best prices, but they also have no patience for stores that are constantly disorganized, out of stock, and that deliver poor customer service.”

At Fig & Flower 2.0, Taylor is intent on taking a slower, considered approach with customers and brand partners. “I used to feel like, if an order came in, I had to put it in Shopify immediately. Then, someone would walk in the store and could tell I wasn’t present or relaxed,” she says. “I would love to work with brands we carry and do some in-store events.”