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Celebrity beauty used to sound like easy money: add a famous face, beautiful packaging and prime shelf space, then watch fans line up. Lately, that formula looks shakier. Another star-backed brand is disappearing after only a few years, despite landing at major retailers and entering a beauty market that is still growing. The founder is an A-lister almost everyone knows. Yet judging by the reaction online, plenty of shoppers barely knew her brand existed. And that may be the most revealing part of this story.
It Had the Retailers Most Brands Dream About
This wasn’t some tiny operation selling moisturizer from an obscure website. The brand reached Sephora, Nordstrom and Goop, giving it access to shoppers many startups would love to have. Retail intelligence platform Charm.io estimated 2025 sales between $10 million and $25 million. Still, something wasn’t clicking. An end-of-summer sale eventually offered discounts as high as 50%, and one Reddit shopper noticed its TikTok Shop had been running steep clearances. Then came the announcement customers couldn’t mistake for another promotion.
Scarlett Johansson’s The Outset Is Done
The mystery brand is The Outset, the skincare company Scarlett Johansson co-founded with beauty and fashion executive Kate Foster in 2022. After four years, it is winding down. “After an incredible journey, The Outset has made the decision to wind down operations,” the company announced, thanking customers who brought its products into their routines. Shopping on The Outset’s website has already ended, although existing orders will still be processed. What the announcement didn’t provide is the detail everyone immediately wanted: why?
The Outset Hasn’t Given a Reason
There has been no public explanation for why the company is closing, so blaming one specific problem would be speculation. But there had been change behind the scenes: co-founder Kate Foster stepped down in April 2025. Meanwhile, the brand was competing in an increasingly packed skincare market. Johansson originally described The Outset’s philosophy as creating transparent products that could be used by as many people as possible. A straightforward idea. Perhaps too straightforward for an industry where getting noticed can be half the fight.
Reddit’s Top Reaction Was Brutal
Over on r/BeautyGuruChatter, the shutdown produced a response brands never want to hear. User bbyxmadi wrote simply, “I didn’t even know she had one.” The comment collected roughly 1,200 upvotes in the thread. Others piled on. sandwichandtortas said, “I didn’t even know it existed!” while Southern_Jicama6684 wrote, “Never heard of it.” Forget angry customers for a second. What happens when potential customers aren’t angry because they never noticed you in the first place?
Some Shoppers Blamed the Marketing
That question dominated the Reddit conversation. Glamma1970 said they had forgotten Johansson even had a skincare line because they saw nobody using or advertising it. dar1710 was similarly blunt: “It didn’t do anything to stand out other than being founded by Johansson.” Another commenter, Leighvi0let, questioned how consumers were supposed to buy something they didn’t know existed. Those are individual reactions, not proof of what killed The Outset. But they expose the harder problem celebrity brands face once the launch buzz fades.
Here’s the Twist: Beauty Isn’t Collapsing
The Outset’s closure would be easier to explain if nobody were buying skincare. Quite the opposite. McKinsey expects the global beauty market to grow around 5% annually through 2030, reaching roughly $590 billion. In the U.S., prestige skincare sales increased 9% during the first half of 2026, according to Circana, with unit sales rising by double digits. People are spending. They’re simply becoming more selective about where that money goes. Being famous can get you noticed once. It doesn’t guarantee the second purchase.
One Customer Is Genuinely Devastated
Not everyone is shrugging. Evening-Ad1231 on r/BeautyGuruChatter offered the counterpoint: “Randomly this is the ONLY skincare that has ever truly worked for me.” The commenter said they had problem skin, discovered the products through Credo and initially didn’t even know the line belonged to Johansson. That reaction matters because closures aren’t just celebrity-business gossip. People build routines around products that work. Parade specifically highlighted the Firming Vegan Collagen Prep Serum and Lip Oasis as products customers may now be hunting down.
Scarlett Johansson Isn’t Alone
The celebrity name on the bottle is becoming less of a safety net. The Outset joins other star-connected beauty businesses that have closed or changed dramatically, including Gwen Stefani’s GXVE Beauty. TheStreet also points to trouble elsewhere in the industry, including Pat McGrath Labs’ Chapter 11 filing and the closures of Cover FX and Mally Beauty under AS Beauty Group. Some celebrity brands clearly thrive. Others vanish. The increasingly important question isn’t “Who founded it?” It’s “Why should I buy this instead?”
The Celebrity Beauty Test Is Getting Harder
For The Outset loyalists, remaining stock at third-party retailers may be the last chance to replace favorites before supplies disappear. For the rest of the beauty business, the closure leaves a tougher lesson hanging in the air. Shoppers have endless choices, easy price comparisons and increasingly high expectations for performance. A celebrity can open the door. The product still has to earn space in the bathroom cabinet. So, be honest: does a celebrity name make you more interested in skincare, or does it make you less likely to buy?