Summarized from the New York Times
When Gregg Renfew, the founder behind clean beauty brand Beautycounter, sold her company and controlling stake to private equity firm Carlyle Group in 2021, she described the experience as akin to winning the lottery. Renfrew reportedly banked $50 million personally and her life’s work was to be championed by a powerhouse firm with more than $425 billion at its disposal.
But that optimism quickly faded. Within a year, the Carlyle Group replaced Renfrew with mainstream cosmetics executive Marc Rey as CEO in 2022, then an interim CEO in 2023. Beautycounter was founded on Renfrew’s ideals of clean beauty and a movement to bring those ideals into legal reality. Independent sellers were a crucial part of her team, and they traveled alongside her on trips to Washington where they lobbied together for more regulation in the personal care industry. Without her at the helm, the company’s culture experienced a drastic shift. New CEO Rey announced the company’s founding ethos of “clean beauty” was no longer “sexy” in the beauty industry, and that the company would instead focus on “the environment” as its clear differentiator. At the same time, a new compensation plan that would drastically reduce commissions for top sellers was announced and then enacted two months later.
Top sellers experienced massive decreases in their monthly paychecks, with some reporting a 60% loss in one month, and pushed back against the changes. The company ultimately pulled the comp plan changes, but the damage was already done. Independent sellers began working for other companies to make up for the lost income or left altogether.
For those who stayed, the culture felt unrecognizable. Where Renfrew had transparently shared intimate details about the company’s status and its direction, Carlyle kept them out of the loop.
In late 2022, Carlyle invested an additional $65 million to update technology and hired consultants. A partnership with goliath beauty retailer Ulta was a temporary stopgap, but sales continued to fall. In March of 2024, Carlyle gave the business back to its lenders, effectively surrendering its $700 million investment and succumbing to foreclosure.
Renfrew has since repurchased the rights to the Beautycounter name and announced she will relaunch the company, but the loyal and enthusiastic salesforce she spent years developing and growing is now sparse and dispersed across other brands. Those who remain state they are circumspect of any direct selling opportunity.
“There’s a lot of damage that has been done,” one former Beautycounter sales representative told the New York Times. “I don’t believe I could ever step back into that space.”
