In a pinch for time you run into a store to pick up another tube of your tried and true old friend [insert your favorite lipstick shade here] lipstick. Much to your surprise you’re told your favorite shade of lipstick, the one you’ve worn since high school, has been discontinued. Perhaps it’s the moisturizer you’ve been using for years; not only are you told it’s no longer available but something “new and improved” is suspiciously in its place. You never noticed anything wrong with the “old” version and exclaim out loud, “this always happens to me. As soon as I find something I like . . . it’s discontinued!”
I know it feels like it only happens to you but it happens to us all. The universal frustration of learning a trusted beauty product is no longer available and has been labeled with the dreaded “D” word is something every woman has experienced. Some companies use softer words now like “retired” instead of “discontinued” but whatever the name, the net effect for you as the consumer is still the same. You’re just not going to be able to get your Orange Dreamsicle lipstick here anymore.
What is a woman to do? Why do the cosmetic companies keep doing this to us!?! I know it feels like a personal attack but companies never discontinue products randomly. Although beauty ‘should’ be an industry designed for the perpetual happiness of it’s consumers, it is indeed a business. Great thought and care goes into the decision to discontinue manufacture of a cosmetic product or color. Some companies have a magic number that they use as a guide when tracking sales. A product could sell great at first but then slowly loose popularity over the years. If your lipstick, the most commonly discontinued product, falls below the ‘magic number’ for a company in sales, nationwide, for more than a year, it could come up for review.
Poor sales aren’t the only reason why products are sometimes discontinued. Here are some of the more common reasons:
It has gone out of style.
Blue eye shadow was popular in the 70’s and most women now associate it exclusively with that decade. Although blue eye shadow has experienced popularity surges over the years it has never been in quite the same iconic shade of periwinkle blue. Other less obvious colors have come and gone with fashion: the brighter than real life color shades of the 80’s, the dead looking brown-tinted shades of the early 90’s, the dark and purpley colors of the late 90’s (think Vamp by Chanel — not being discontinued as of posting), the color we’re just all so tired of seeing now but you are still wearing shade. Chances are that if you wore the color in high school and you’re now past your 30th birthday, you are long overdue for a fashion overhaul anyway.
You’re the only one who loved it.
A product or color may have sold very well in the South but saw mediocre sales in the rest of the country. A very trendy color may be popular in NY and LA botiques but sit in the drawers of stores everywhere else. A color’s popularity may be very limited and you’re one of the rare few who loved it. Sorry, it’s been discontinued.
Cosmetic technology has improved
Due to constant research and innovation spurred in large part by the aging of the Baby Boomer generation, and the multibillion dollar profitability of the cosmetics industry, great technological advances are made each year in cosmetic skin care. Twenty years ago, all a moisturizer had to do was moisturize. Now it has to correct the signs of aging, feed your skin with potent antioxidents, exfoliate, protect you from the aging rays of the sun and more. While your moisturizer may have been the epitome of technology five years ago, much like your laptop computer it is now obsolete as other newer formulated products with newer and better technology have come along to take it’s place. Don’t be afraid to try something new here. Because our skin changes in its moisture production throughout the year and in condition year by year, chances are your skin needs something different now anyway and you haven’t realized it yet. Let the consultant guide you to the product designed to replace the one you loved. Chances are you’ll discover a whole new level of performance for your skin.
It was always “Limited Edition.”
Chanel and Bobbi Brown immediately come to mind when I hear the words “Limited Edition.” Every season these two companies as well as many others stock their boutiques with special few-of-a-kind items only designed to be available “while supplies last.” Chanel customers are well used to this routine. As fashion trends change so quickly, these items are only designed to last as long as the trends that fuel them. All good Chanel customers know that if they want it, they better get it now before it’s gone. In the case of Bobbi Brown the items are usually her interpretation of this season’s runway trends and are only meant to be worn this year. When you run out of one of these items, you’re supposed to get excited about whatever is currently being offered as this season’s “Limited Edition.” While her ‘classic’ items are always offered, the Limited Edition items are supposed to help you get out of a makeup rut.
However, a company may have designed an item to be limited edition as a way to see how well a product is received before adding it to the regular line. Bobbi’s Shimmer Brick Compacts are an example of a recent Limited Edition Product that was so popular that not only was it kept but new colors were introduced. It is now a staple of the line.
They just need to make room for something new.
OK, there wasn’t exactly anything wrong with the product and sales were fine but the tester unit and drawers behind the counter are getting a bit crowded. With the launch of their new miracle cream, something, somewhere has got to go. Your product was it.
Companies have to keep up with the Jones’
One company launches a new style of product and suddenly the whole industry is revolutionized as other companies scramble to produce their own versions of the multimillion dollar selling product that’s taking away from their business. Your old version will quickly disappear as demand sharply drops off. When Revlon launched their ultra-matte, dry, forever wearing ColorStay lipstick, companies all over noticed a drop in sales of some of their lightweight lipsticks as customers demanded to know if their lipsticks lasted as long as ColorStay.
An ingredient in the product was banned for use in cosmetics by the FDA.
No one likes to talk about this one but it happens. Although cosmetic companies will NEVER tell you this is the reason why your favorite ‘miracle’ product has been discontinued, it certainly happens often enough to mention. In ongoing product and ingredient research, it is sometimes determined there are health risks associated with an ingredient in use in cosmetics. As the ingredient was key to the effectiveness or texture (just as important to consumers) of a product, it must be discontinued or reformulated without the banned ingredient. The FDA recently reclassified a preservative commonly used in cosmetics as for use in “rinse-off” products only. Products containing this preservative, including a popular eye cream on the market, were promptly yanked and in the case of the eye cream, no replacement was offered for a full year while the company scrambled to reformulate. If an eye shadow ingredient is determined to be a carcinogen (causes cancer) a company may decide to keep it in place while a new version is reformulated if the ingredient amount is so small as to not cause concern. Often, they don’t have this choice. Remember when we used to not have red colored M&M’s? A lab rat got some red lipstick on his teeth and developed cancer and all products containing the offensive red dye, including best-selling shades of lipstick and the aforementioned red M&Ms were promptly banned. Replacement red dyes have since been found and we now have ROYGBIV (sans the indigo) in our candy dishes and lots of red lipsticks in our cosmetic departments.
A product ingredient is no longer available or has become too expensive to keep the product affordable.
Due to climate changes, pollution of oceans, deforestation of the jungles, a bad crop year, or even political government overthrows, ingredients can go from abundant to hard to acquire to nonexistent. Worldwide ingredient availability can effect the availability of a product and may cause it to be discontinued. If an ingredient becomes hard to find, it’s price will go up accordingly due to the law of supply and demand. The new ingredient price may price the product out of the range for consumers of that line. You may love your moisturizer or favorite perfume, but would you still love it at double or triple the price? Most likely not. Sometimes a smaller company may make a product for the line of a larger company. If the smaller company goes out of business, the larger company may have to discontinue the product it made no matter how popular it was.
A whole family of products a company produces are turning the line’s sales figures from positive to negative.
Erno Laszlo has changed ownership often over the last three decades. When the company most recently changed hands, and a detailed company analysis was made, it was determined that the line could become profitable again if they would merely eliminate the flagging color line and concentrate solely on skin care. This huge change was touted as ‘getting back to our roots” and offering only skin care as Dr. Laszlo originally intended. However, if you loved a certain item form the color line, you were out of luck. Sometimes a company’s color and skin care both sell well but one part (skin care for oily skin, for example) consistently looses money. So the failing product line doesn’t bankrupt the whole company, these products must be eliminated so as to still be able to offer all the other products to the public.
A product ingredient or product has become un-PC.
LaPrairie used to have baby sheep’s placenta in most of their products. The ingredient was added as a potent anti-ager that helped to ‘revitalize’ the cells of the skin. For obvious reasons — PETA, pro-life groups, etc., the sheep’s placenta was long ago substituted for a mixture of marine extracts that are supposed to still have the same revitalizing effects. American sheep can now keep their placentas while European men and women are still injected with sheep’s placenta administered by the now nonaffiliated LaPrairie Spa in Switzerland.
The discontinuation of a product doesn’t have to be the end of the world for you. Coming soon I’ll post a strategy for you to follow if your favorite product is no longer available. Aceon
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