It’s a sad , sad day in beauty land. WWD reports that L’Oreal has announced they will close all US operations of Shu Uemura. If you’re a Shu fan like me reading this from the US, don’t panic. You won’t need to stock pile those cleansing oils or must-have lashes just yet. According to a spokesperson for beauty giant L’Oreal (who owns a controlling stake in the brand), you will still be able to buy online; but, they will be closing Shu Uemura’s doors in America this year due to dwindling sales. If you don’t know, Shu Uemura, who was a Tokyo native, made his name as a Hollywood make-up artist back in the 1960s. So the shuttering of his namesake brand in the US is especially sad given that being in America was his dream and ambition from the start.
Carol Hamilton, president of L’Oreal USA’s Luxury Division said, “This is about our desire to focus on growing the larger brands, not because the brand isn’t vibrant and beautiful. We love the brand, but it is a very small part of our portfolio.”
“It’s a simple decision after a very complex analysis: we have a very large portfolio, and we want to focus on growing the brands which have a larger presence in the U.S. market.”
WWD reported that Shu Uemura may be purchased in 18 countries and that it does about 80 percent of its business in Asia. Over the next few months, L’Oréal will pull the product from all of its retail stores (Nordstrom, Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys New York, Sephora, etc.), as well as closing the four freestanding Shu Uemura stores. Just another example of the bottmon line in the beauty industry. I just hope they don’t figure out what a gem they had after it’s too late. I know they said you can still buy online but if it’s all the same to you, I will be grabbing some supersized cleansing oil from Nordies this weekend.
Shop Pretty!!
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Lianne Farbes writes TheMakeupGirl. She is a Beauty Expert, Social Media Enthusiast, Project Manager, Event Producer, Web 2.0 Cheerleader and she is always online. Follow her on Twitter @TheMakeupGirl and friend her through any of her social profiles here.
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