Bite Beauty is going out of business after ten years in the industry.
The Canadian lip specialist, known for its ‘healthy enough to eat’ products, said in an Instagram post that it would be shutting up shop later this year.
Serial entrepreneur Susanne Langmuir established the business in 2011 and it hit the market in 2012.
Kendo, the LVMH-owned incubator brand, bought the brand two years later.
Langmuir also went on to establish her own accelerator brand SL&Co, which kicked off with the waterless skin care concept An-hydra in 2019.
“We are sad to share that Bite Beauty will be closing later this year,” Bite shared with its 800k followers.
“Thank you for the past 10 years of love, growth and fun.
“You have always been our ultimate inspiration.”
In better news, Bite’s nine Lip Lab destinations – where customers can customise their own lip product – will continue to trade.
Will colour ever recover?
Bite Beauty’s exit follows the demise of another of the industry’s famed colour brands, Becca Cosmetics.
The Estée Lauder Companies-owned (ELC) group closed down its operations in February 2021 due to the storm created by Covid-19.
At the time, the brand, which had launched beauty skus with members of the Kardashian family, said it was a “heartbreaking” decision to make.
For Q2 2021, make-up sales at ELC were down more than 60%, which forced the group to cut thousands of jobs.
Bite’s demise, however, comes as a surprise as more big beauty players are betting on the prestige category.
P&G’s buyout of Ouai and Farmacy Beauty, showed its backing for the sector, while Unilever set out plans to make its prestige group a €3bn business by 2025.
Coty’s Prestige category is thriving above its consumer business, with sales growth of 25% compared with the previous year.
Speaking to Cosmetics Business, Sue Nabi, Coty’s Chief Executive, said: “The Prestige division is showing huge opportunities for the business and there are new opportunities of growth that we need to activate.
“For Coty, it is about really reaching out to this new consumer that is becoming one of the key consumers making all prestige businesses around the world flourish.”
Maybe the same cannot be said for colour.