The Ordinary has revealed that it will discontinue its foundations and concealers in the new year.
In an email letter to customers and in an Instagram post, the Deciem-owned brand admitted its make-up range hadn’t garnered enough fans to make the cost of production worthwhile.
The Toronto, Canada-based label’s make-up line includes Serum Foundation (£6.40), Coverage Foundation (£6.90) and Concealer (£6.00).
It said it would stop selling concealer from 30 January 2023 and discontinue foundation products in June next year.
“The production process for colours is complex and requires heavy input from many of our team,” said The Ordinary.
“The accessible pricing that we felt was sensible to charge for the formulas would only cover our production costs if the volume that we sold was high.
“Despite many people loving the formulas, we didn’t manage to reach enough of you with our colours range and the products have not been profitable since their launch.
“Although we really strongly believe in both products, their popularity simply was not strong enough to make their production sustainable.”
That said, colour cosmetics have not completely been ruled out of The Ordinary’s future.
The letter continued: “Colours may return in our more distant future.
“Until then, we will continue to play in the space we know best – sensibly priced, science-proven skin care.”
Deciem continues to streamline
The Ordinary’s make-up phase-out follows the decision of parent company Deciem to streamline its brand portfolio earlier this year.
Four brands, HIF, Hylamide, Abnomaly and The Chemistry Brand, were discontinued in a move enabling Deciem to focus on flagship brands The Ordinary and NIOD.
In a statement released in April, Deciem said it would be “refocusing” its attention on “science-first functional skin care” – a mission statement reinforced by this week's decision to call time on The Ordinary’s range of colour cosmetics.