Most Recent Puck Article re/ Glossier business situation.

Please excuse formatting etc. The article is behind a paywall, so I have copied and pasted the whole thing into my notes app.

It is not extensive nor does it reference sources, but Rachel Strugatz is in the know in regard to all breaking beauty business stories in the industry. As a subscriber I have followed her word and that of Lauren Sherman and Sarah Shapiro who present Line Sheet at Puck every weekday. Rachel has been reporting on Glossier for quite some time and was the one to announce Fleur’s creation first, along with many other breaking Glossier stories.

I’m not posting this to harm or upset anyone. This is well known industry information. Read all the way to end, Rachel offers some positive feedback perspective.

Raiders of the Glossier Ark Rachel Strugatz June 25, 2025

The sudden departure of C.E.O. Kyle Leahy is merely the latest setback for the decade-old Millennial beauty brand, which is struggling to raise fresh capital at even half the valuation it achieved in 2021. “Everyone is balking at the price,” said a person with knowledge of the situation. And the private equity vultures are beginning to circle.

The writing had been on the wall for some time: Leahy joined Glossier in 2022, following a major restructuring in which a third of corporate staff were laid off, but she struggled to create new momentum for the company.

Amid a stalled fundraising process and a series of underwhelming product launches, Glossier has never looked more tarnished. C.E.O. Kyle Leahy, who stepped in three years ago to stabilize the Millennial D.T.C. beauty brand, announced on Tuesday that she would exit Glossier later this year. She’ll follow the departure of C.M.O. Kleo Mack, who left in April for a similar role at SharkNinja. A few months earlier, longtime creative director Marie Suter and her deputy, Adriana Deleo, both resigned simultaneously. The writing had been on the wall for some time. Leahy joined Glossier in 2022, following a major restructuring in which a third of corporate staff were laid off. But she struggled to create new momentum for the company. Revenue bounced back in 2023 and 2024, but potential acquirers seemed unexcited by her pivot to retail and new fragrance launches. In April, I reported that Glossier was raising a down round, at “south of a billion dollars”—half the valuation bestowed upon the company in 2021. I learned that Glossier was seeking $250 million—a $100 million investment into the company, plus $150 million in secondary to buy out existing stakeholders. The goal would be to recapitalize, of course, but also to inject “new blood around the board table,” according to a person familiar with the situation, ideally via a motivated new investor with more experience in consumer brands. (Reps for Glossier did not respond to requests for comment.) Yet potential investors apparently think Glossier’s reduced valuation is still too high. “Everyone is balking at the price,” a person with knowledge of the fundraising process told me. Indeed, I’m told that a number of private equity shops, including L Catterton, passed on the opportunity because they felt the company was overvalued and they saw no real pathway to profitable growth. Glossier doeshave a strong fragrance business, but that hasn’t been enough to get anyone to pay up… yet. “There are too many quality makeup assets on the market,” said a person familiar with the fundraising deck and terms.

At least one reputable P.E. shop has bid on Glossier, I’m told, but the board rejected the offer because it was significantly below the already reduced $900 million valuation the company is seeking. “They don’t think it’s worth that,” the person with knowledge of the fundraise told me. “Glossier isn’t making money.”

The Post-Sephora Malaise

Leahy stepped in as C.E.O. exactly three years ago, after founder Emily Weiss, who had served as the brand’s C.E.O. since its 2014 launch, was popemobiled up to an executive chair role. Leahy was brought in to right the ship, which she did—until she didn’t. As a young, polished executive with experience at American Express and Nike, she successfully navigated Glossier’s transition from direct-to-consumer darling to omnichannel brand. She oversaw its Sephora launch in 2023, and helped resuscitate the business by repositioning the company as the beauty brand it always was, and not the tech startup Weiss wanted it to be. But about a year after its successful Sephora debut, Glossier saw its relevance start to slip again. The brand’s makeup and skincare businesses—both in need of new “hero” items—lost market share to Summer Fridays, Rare Beauty, Sol de Janeiro, and, most importantly, Rhode, which was acquired by e.l.f. Beauty last month in a billion-dollar deal. Of course, it’s not uncommon for beauty companies, which rise and fall on trends and micro-generational loyalty, to lose their luster. But Glossier arguably accelerated its own decline by resting on its past successes. To wit: Last month, Glossier launched what felt like a two-years-too-late lip oil that got basically zero traction online. Then its new body mists launched last week with little more than a peep. Both products felt reactive (almost Estée Lauder Companies–esque), but the absolute worst part about the body mist launch was that Glossier didn’t release a mist in “You,” its longtime bestselling scent.

Glossier’s fragrance is, according to a person close to Sephora, “still holding its own” at the retail giant, “with growth outpacing total fragrance,” but there are fundamental issues with its overall fragrance strategy. The brand launched three “You” flankers in a haphazard span of five months, when it should have deployed an entirely new fragrance franchise. Now, Glossier needs to rebuild its leadership team. One investor I chatted with suggested that Glossier bring back Alexis Page, the brand’s original director of product development, who came up with the idea for the pink pouch, and most recently worked on Savannah James’s new skincare line, Reframe Beauty. There’s also Annie Kreighbaum, who was Into the Gloss’s editorial director and one of Glossier’s first employees. Lore has it that Kreighbaum invented Cloud Paint and came up with the name “Boy Brow,” a gel pomade so popular that it once made up the majority of Glossier’s sales. I hear Kreighbaum is launching her own brand. (Hopefully more on that soon.) Leahy’s departure won’t make closing a new round of funding any easier, but at least the company can start fresh with a new executive team who will actually reinvigorate the brand, develop cohesive product strategies, and close most of those damn stores. With Leahy in place through the end of the year, the brand can also do a proper executive search to fill the role. I’m already thinking of all the people who would or wouldn’t be good at spearheading another Glossier turnaround, but I do wonder what Weiss has to say about all of this.