A Gwyneth Update, Mario on the Market & The Supergoop Wars

Hi, and welcome back to Line Sheet. Sending well-wishes to those in the U.S. observing Juneteenth. I just landed in Paris, and I’m technically on vacation, so I’m handing it over to Rachel “Rachel@puck.news” Strugatz. She’s following up on one of my favorite characters in the Puck cinematic universe, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Goop, arguably her life’s greatest work—other than Emma, of course. Also: Supergoop is in the midst of what polite folks like to call a restructuring. Plus, Makeup by Mario, as Rachel has long intimated, is now the latest beauty brand to hire a banker to explore an acquisition. If you’re a beauty industry executive and you haven’t yet subscribed to Puck in order to access Rachel’s unmatched reporting, a year’s commitment is far less than a Mounjaro prescription—even with the coupon! Don’t delay. Mentioned in this issue: Gwyneth Paltrow, Goop Beauty, Supergoop, Lisa Sequino, Sephora, Makeup by Mario, Kim Kardashian, Mario Dedivanovic, Vennette Ho, Olaplex, Estée Lauder, Alicia Sontag, Target, Hailey Bieber, Rhode, Amanda Baldwin, Summer Fridays, Rare Beauty, and more.

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Supergoop switcheroo: There’s been an executive exodus at Supergoop, the maker of Unseen Sunscreen, everyone’s favorite clear matte SPF. I’m told that Sameer Agarwal, the brand’s general manager of the Americas, resigned earlier this spring, and Britany LeBlanc, the C.M.O., resigned last week. On Monday, a number of senior employees were laid off, including the art director, creative director, and production director. This all comes about six months after former C.E.O. Amanda Baldwin left to take on her next professional challenge––picking up the pieces at Olaplex, the struggling haircare brand that went public in late 2021. Baldwin, beloved by all accounts, also shepherded Supergoop through a massive deal with Blackstone in 2021 that valued the brand—which was doing about $100 million in revenue at the time—at about $700 million, a person close to the transaction said.Following a few years of rapid growth, and despite the fact that Unseen Sunscreen and Glow Screen remain Sephora’s top two sunscreens, Supergoop’s success bred a lot of competition across price points. The market was flooded with competitors from e.l.f. Cosmetics and Sun Bum to Vacation, Summer Fridays, and Kosas (the DreamBeam is apparently a formidable competitor). “Every cute brand has sunscreen now, and they didn’t three years ago,” said a senior Supergoop employee. “The plan was to sell it by 2026, so part of this is very aggressive growth plans and a lot of pressure to hit certain numbers.” I hear that the layoffs were part of a reorganization under newish C.E.O. Lisa Sequino, who is trying to “better align resources and processes with strategic properties.” Although many creative roles were eliminated, a number of positions were added, mostly in retail planning, performance marketing, data, etcetera. —Rachel Strugatz
Kim’s boy gets a banker: Makeup by Mario, the line founded by Mario Dedivanovic––a.k.a. Kim Kardashian’s makeup artist––has hired J.P. Morgan to explore a potential sale. This development is hardly surprising, given the brand’s success, and I’ve been predicting it for months now. Indeed, the beauty industry has enjoyed a rare frothy M&A market this season, with brands like Summer Fridays, Merit, and Rare Beauty also reportedly considering a sales process. Heady times for Line Sheet person of interest Vennette Ho, the Byron Trott-level banker of this market.Of all these brands, however, Makeup by Mario is probably the market-maker. It is, after all, a true artistry brand––still “indie” enough that it has plenty of upside both internationally and in terms of future product offerings. It compares favorably to Charlotte Tilbury, which Puig acquired in 2020, and is already part of the beauty establishment, a next-gen Estée Lauder. Dedivanovic’s investors include Provenance Growth and Silas Capital (the latter is a backer in Vacation and Ilia, which was acquired by Famille C, the Courtin-Clarins family holding company). —Rachel Strugatz

As Goop as It Gets

Gwyneth Paltrow created, and perfected, the very concept of the celebrity lifestyle brand. Does the actress-entrepreneur-executive-Friend-of-Harry-and-Meghan have what it takes to pull Goop out of a midlife funk?

RACHEL STRUGATZ

A few days ago, Gwyneth Paltrow launched a new mascara—a “clean” formula made with a biotin tripeptide and Tahitian microalgae that has none of the “pretty toxic” stuff in “conventional” mascara. It’s the third makeup product that Goop Beauty has released in under a year. Along with a tinted multipurpose balm and a bronzing gel, it’s part of a push to grow Goop’s decent but undersized, and recently trouble-beset, beauty business.Goop’s overall sales, which include Goop Beauty, have been more or less flat since 2021, I’m told. Paltrow’s wholesale beauty businesses aren’t doing great, either. Despite WWD recently citing “Amazon overall and the wholesale business as key strengths for Goop Beauty,” I’ve heard that U.S. retail sales for the brand were only in the six figures at Amazon and Sephora for the month of May. (Summer Fridays did millions in sales at Sephora during the same period.) A spokesperson for Goop said that Goop Beauty’s sales overall are up 17 percent year-to-date.

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Good.clean.goop, a more affordable and wholesale-only skincare brand that launched simultaneously at Target and on Amazon last October, also underperformed. I’ve heard the line is in the “bottom 15” at Target, which de-escalated some partnerships following the blowback to its LGBTQ+ Pride campaign last year. A source with firsthand knowledge of Target’s beauty business told me that the retailer had “reputational concerns” regarding Paltrow being a polarizing figure and decided to “take a step back” in terms of marketing and in-store placement of the brand. “They got so conservative because of what was happening with Pride that everything was put on hold. Gwyneth ended up opening up the brand to Amazon, and it was not an exclusive launch. The brand lost momentum––it was put on a back endcap in the store, and it never really got traction,” this person said. (A spokesperson for Target declined to comment.)There was also confusion around the market, pricing, and buyer for good.clean.goop. The line didn’t necessarily appeal to Paltrow’s wealthier core demographic, but it was still too expensive for the not-yet-Goop’d customer who doesn’t want to spend $30 to $40 on skincare, especially in the absence of serious marketing and prime placement in Target’s stores. “At the end of the day, it may not be priced correctly for what it is,” an executive at the retailer said.

Goop in Middle Age

Now 16 years old, Goop was the original celebrity lifestyle brand, and it remains the Platonic ideal for every celebrity entering beauty, fashion, spirits, etcetera. For all the mild parody around the product descriptions, bee venom therapy and vagina candles, it was totally, authentically Paltrow—decadent yet accessible, slightly out of touch but in on the joke, a mishmash of lowbrow taste with high WASP pedigree. Perhaps the only other celebrity to come close to achieving such lifestyle status is Hailey Bieber, whose beauty business, Rhode, has become larger than Paltrow’s beauty business in just a few years based on a similar reliance on an (albeit different) type of authenticity.Anyway, Goop Beauty was among the earliest to play in the “wellness” and “clean” spaces, concepts intrinsic to the maintenance of Paltrow’s famously tall, thin, blond gestalt for decades. And because Goop happened right around the time these ideas were trickling into the mainstream, the company––as an editorial property, product brand, and retailer––was able to own the conversation in “clean beauty.” The eventual rollout of various supplements and other wellness items—vibrators and jade eggs, etcetera—somehow made sense. The site even created strict (but ultimately meaningless) ingredient standards for third-party brands that wished to be sold on Goop’s e-shop.

Then the parody went mainstream. Goop Beauty lost its first-mover advantage when clean, nontoxic, and “free of” beauty marketing became inescapable. With every skincare brand chasing “clean” status––which, for the record, is purely a marketer’s gimmick since most ingredients on the “dirty” lists would never make it into beauty products in the first place––there was little setting Goop apart.Why didn’t Goop get ahead of this copycat challenge, which is inherent in the beauty and lifestyle businesses? Since its inception in 2008, Goop has never installed proper executive leadership, or even a seasoned C.E.O. with the operating chops to streamline the company’s various product lines and establish a clear “brand code.” (A C.O.O. and C.M.O. joined in January, but Paltrow remains in charge.) The team rallied to focus more on beauty in the last year, hence the newish focus on makeup, but that strategy should have been implemented years ago. Goop Beauty’s sales are infinitesimal compared to Fenty, Rare Beauty, or Kylie Cosmetics, and for the newish, lower-priced line, all but nonexistent. “Direct-to-consumer has historically been the primary focus for the beauty business, with wholesale less of a focus,” said a source close to the business, adding that Goop is “investing in wholesale in a much larger way” this year. It feels like a woefully missed opportunity, as though the original lifestyle brand has matured into a semi-scaled lifestyle business. “It’s bigger than Gwyneth––it’s a movement. It was never Gwyneth slapping her name on it,” a high-profile investor argue to me. But I’m not so sure. Is Goop a multibrand retailer, a high-end beauty brand, a low-end beauty brand, a clothing line, an activewear line, a fine jewelry line, a collection of pots and pans, a Netflix series, or a food delivery service? Of course, a lifestyle brand by definition means playing in multiple categories, but Goop still lacks a clear brand code and visual identity. And Paltrow, an Oscar-winning actress who has never been properly credited as an entrepreneur, can’t fake that.

That’s it from Rachel and me. One thing before we go… did you notice that WangMania = Sukeban + Kanye?Until tomorrow, Lauren

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