Liz Earle is returning to the U.S.
The brand, founded by botanical beauty expert Liz Earle in 1995, is reentering the U.S. market on Thursday via its launch on Amazon. The assortment includes the brand’s bestselling products, like its Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser, $59, one of which is sold every 20 seconds, according to the company’s website. Industry sources estimate the brand’s sales to be around 41 million pounds in the U.K.
“Years in the making, we are thrilled to bring Liz Earle, a true pioneer in plant-based skin science, back to the U.S. market,” Melanie Capella, chief marketing officer of No7 Beauty Company, home to Liz Earle, said in a statement. “We know our customers are turning to Amazon more often for proven skin care solutions and new botanically based formulas. For more than 30 years, Liz Earle has been at the forefront of gentle yet effective skin care and ethical sourcing.”
According to the team, the brand, which was acquired from Avon by Walgreens Boots Alliance in 2015, was available in the U.S. market on and off since inception and most recently in 2018 via QVC. However, the brand halted its distribution in the U.S. to focus solely on the U.K., until now.
“When it first launched in 1995 [and] entered the U.S. market, it might have been a little bit ahead of its time,” Cappella said.
Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser
In particular, Cappella said the concept of the brand’s hot cloth cleanser, which combines a gentle cleanse with a cotton cloth to remove excess, may have been too new for consumers back then. However, she said that the beauty environment and trends now are ideal for Liz Earle to reenter the market.
“[With] interest in where ingredients come from [and] more gentle cleansing, [it] just felt like the perfect opportunity to bring this back into the U.S.,” she said. “Plant-based products, botanicals, this kind of plant alchemy is a really rich space that consumers are craving.”
Cappella emphasized that alternative ingredients are a growing trend among wellness-minded consumers — think plant-based versions of hyaluronic acid or ceramides — which Liz Earle touts.
Alongside these shifting trends, the Liz Earle team has a clear target market.
“We have a name for our consumer target,” Cappella said. “We call her the ‘skintellectual,’ someone that is really invested in their skin care, interested in the ingredients, and not only what the ingredients are, but how they’re sourced.”
With this, Cappella predicts that, like in the U.K., the Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser will be the bestseller on Amazon.
“Hot cloth cleanser is really experiential [with] the sensory nature of the warm cloth that steams up, the eucalyptus oil [and] the texture of the cocoa butter,” she said.
In addition, Cappella predicts the Instant Boost Skin Tonic, $30, a moisturizing toner, and Glow Routine Collection, $110, will be hits.
As the brand reenters the U.S. market, the team is putting out feelers as to what could be next in terms of retail distribution, as well as eyeing additional markets, including Asia.
“[We’re] giving people exposure to it before we expand further into brick-and-mortar,” Cappella said. “We’ll decide over time what the best rollout would be beyond Amazon.”
