Pioneering Clean Beauty Brand Boscia Closes

Boscia, a clean skincare pioneer that avoided synthetic preservatives and artificial fragrances, is closing.

Owned by Japanese beauty conglomerate Fancl Corp., the Irvine, Calif.-based brand announced the closure Wednesday on its social media accounts and website. It’s currently offering a 55% discount on all products on its site, which is scheduled to shutter on May 31. Ulta Beauty still has two Boscia products available on its site: $32 Resurfacing Treatment Toner and $38 Probiotic Exfoliating Powder Face + Scalp.

Deborah Regosin, former VP of sales at Boscia and president of beauty consultancy Regosin Consulting Group Inc., describes the brand’s plant-driven formulations and cutting-edge packaging as before their time. “They would process and manufacture their products in a clean room that was very specific, and they had airless components,” she says. “Now a lot of brands are doing airless components, but they were one of the first.”

On Wednesday, Boscia, the clean beauty brand owned by Japanese conglomerate Fancl Corp., informed customers that its website is shuttering on May 31.

According to a 2002 article in the publication Women’s Wear Daily, Boscia was developed by Kenji Ikemori after a discussion with a dermatologist to provide skincare free of chemical preservatives that irritated people with sensitive skin. Launched in 1980, Ikemori sold its products via bicycle at first. Once the products caught on, he merged Boscia with its manufacturer to create Fancl in 1981.

Boscia’s site calls Gen Inomata the founder of the brand. A former senior executive at Fancl, he established Boscia in the United States in 2002. The name Boscia refers to its combination of botanicals and science. From 2015 to 2023, Inomata’s daughter Lan Belinky was the brand’s GM. Belinky left Boscia last year and became senior director of house brands at e-tailer iHerb. Also last year, Mike Nakagawa, a former Fancl GM, was appointed president and CEO of Boscia.

Boscia had an up and down history in retail. In 2004, the brand entered Sephora, and it had an exclusive relationship with the beauty specialty chain that helped it garner attention. Later, Boscia branched out to Ulta and exited Sephora. Recently, Amazon has been a part of its distribution strategy.

“With so many brands out there, it’s easy to get lost. Have a voice, know your brand.”

In 2010, Boscia released its smash hit Luminizing Black Charcoal Mask. The product’s dark black hue stood out in a sea of white skincare, and its peel-off format had stunning visual appeal as social media’s influence on the beauty industry was taking off.

Boscia built on its charcoal franchise, and Pore Purifying Black Charcoal Strips was another of its popular products. In the charcoal realm and outside of it, the brand wasn’t afraid to experiment with intriguing product formats. In 2017, it unveiled the single-use Baby Soft Foot Peel, powder spray Charcoal Deodorant and gelatinous Charcoal Jelly Ball Cleanser.

Fancl’s business spans beauty, undergarments and health, including supplements and juice. Fancl’s site discloses that cosmetics constitute roughly 55% of its business, and overseas sales account for around 10% of its total turnover. Along with Boscia, Fancl’s brand stable contains Attenir and Fancl. Fancl sells products on e-commerce platforms such as Qoo10, Rakuten and Amazon.

Launched in 2010, Bosnia’s Luminizing Charcoal Mask was a huge hit. Across its assortment, the plant-driven clean beauty brand didn’t use synthetic preservatives or artificial fragrances.

In WWD’s ranking of top 100 beauty companies in 2023, Fancl occupies the No. 74 spot with beauty sales of $421.9 million, up 1.3% from 2022. While the company’s beauty sales advanced in 2023, they’ve deteriorated over the last few years. In its ranking of the 100 top beauty companies in 2020, WWD put Fancl in the 50th spot with sales of $612.6 million, down 14.1% from the prior year.

In today’s market, Regosin reasons Boscia may have had difficulty finding an audience amid the crowds. “In this competitive landscape now, there’s so many skincare brands, and you have to have a really great point of difference and a clear marketing strategy. All the ducks need to be aligned in order to have success,” she says. “Every single person today is like, ‘I can have my own skincare company,’ but that’s not how it works.”

Doling out advice to beauty newbies in a 2019 interview with the outlet CEW Daily, Belinky hinted that the crowded market was a big problem. She recommended, “With so many brands out there, it’s easy to get lost. Have a voice, know your brand.”