Flower Beauty has wilted.
After 13 years, the mass makeup brand co-owned by Drew Barrymore and Maesa is shuttering as the Bain Capital-backed incubator pivots away from makeup to focus on stronger brands in skincare, body care, fragrance and haircare. While Flower Beauty had a longer run than many celebrity beauty brands, its closure demonstrates the difficulty of building legacy brands attached to famous names and staying relevant in a fiercely competitive landscape. Flower Beauty’s website is now wiped, and its Instagram and TikTok accounts, where it has 584,000 and 51,000 followers, respectively, have been inactive since last year. The brand’s products are being heavily discounted on Ulta Beauty’s site, and it’s no longer at CVS.
A statement on the closure provided by Maesa to Beauty Independent reads, “Flower Beauty will always hold a special place in Maesa’s story. It was the first brand that Maesa incubated, in close partnership with its visionary founder, Drew Barrymore. Born in 2012, Flower was one of the first independent brands to challenge large heritage CPG incumbents in the mass channel. As part of our strategic evolution, Maesa has decided to exit the color cosmetics category. This shift allows us to focus on areas with greater growth potential and align our resources with our core strengths and consumer demands. We have been fortunate to have Drew Barrymore as a great founder partner, and we are grateful for the incredible journey we have shared.”
Data from beauty e-commerce agency Navigo Marketing shows that Flower Beauty’s sales have been under pressure for an extended period as the mature brand lost momentum with customers in a crowded market. Year-to-date, its share of sales on Ulta’s site dropped across lip stains (34%), color correcting (52%) and face oils (81%). In the same timeframe, search visibility for the brand decreased 44%, and no sponsored placements have been activated over the past two years.
Maesa is vacating makeup as it’s been a tough category, particularly in the mass market. Market research firm Circana estimates mass makeup sales were down a single-digit percentage in both units and dollars in the first half of this year. Prestige makeup sales were up a modest 1% in dollars, with units sold flat. Joah Beauty, a mass K-Beauty-inspired makeup line from Kiss Products previously stocked at CVS, also recently closed. In contrast, fragrance is the fastest-growing category in beauty, with mass fragrance sales up 17% on a dollar basis in the first half of the year.
The market shifts correspond with Maesa’s strategic pivot toward higher-growth categories. The incubator has pushed into fragrance with Target-exclusive brands Fine’ry and Mix:Bar and Kōze Place, a brand carried by Dollar General. According to reporting by the publication The Business of Fashion, Maesa has been tapped by Gap to create Old Navy’s new branded beauty assortment encompassing hair and body mist, body lotion and body wash. In April, the company launched intimate care brand Niches & Nooks at Target.
Celebrity and beauty expert brands in Maesa’s portfolio include professional hairstylist Kristin Ess’s namesake haircare brand, singer Ashley Tisdale’s wellness brand Being Frenshe, YouTube influencer Mindy McKnight’s haircare brand Hairitage and her daughters Brooklyn and Bailey’s skincare brand ITK. Products from the brands are sold at Target, CVS, Walmart, Walgreens and Amazon.
Maesa divested Hey Humans, a personal care brand launched in partnership with actress Jada Pinkett Smith in 2021. Earlier this year, actress Taraji P. Henson took complete ownership of the 5-year-old haircare brand TPH by Taraji. Maesa sold Together Beauty, a brand Maesa developed with professional hairstylist Sam Brocato that entered Sephora in 2019, to Ignite Venture Studio. Brocato continues to be involved with the business.
Flower Beauty made its retail debut exclusively at 1,500 Walmart stores in 2013 before rolling out to 4,000 locations in 2016. Its offering encompassed roughly 200 products across complexion, eye, blush, bronzer, lips and priming products priced largely under $15 each. In cheery white packaging, the brand specialized in delivering prestige-level formulas at mass-market prices. Barrymore emphasized during the publication Women’s Wear Daily’s Beauty CEO Summit in 2016 that she held an active role in the brand. She said, “Name-slapping is bad and short-lived.”
Flower Beauty landed in about 500 Ulta Beauty stores in 2018 with four exclusive products: Wanderlust Eye Shadow Palette, Galaxy Glaze Holographic Lip, Miracle Matte Metallic Liquid Lip and Flash Full Face Palette. That year, industry sources told WWD the brand was generating $50 million in annual retail sales. Flower Beauty eventually transitioned out of Ulta stores, but remained at the retailer as an online-only offering. In 2020, it was available in 3,000 CVS doors.
Beyond Flower Beauty, Barrymore has a family of Flower brands not associated with Maesa that includes Flower Hair Tools, Flower Eyewear and Flower Home, all of which are exclusively sold by Walmart and still listed on its site. Cookware brand Beautiful by Drew Barrymore is another brand the actress sells at Walmart. Flower Home was created in partnership with CAA-GBG, a licensing agency from Creative Artists Agency and Global Brands Group that has since become CAA Brand Management.
Barrymore’s stardom started at the age of 7, when she played Gertie in the classic movie “‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” Her acting resume expanded from there to movies such as “The Wedding Singer,” “Never Been Kissed” and “Charlie’s Angels.” She founded production company Flower Films in 1995, and the sixth season of her syndicated daytime talk show, “The Drew Barrymore Show,” premiered on Sept. 8.
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