Clean(er) Beauty Shop, formerly known as Trellis Beauty, is closing shop.
Founded by beauty industry veteran Tracy Trellis Flores, the clean beauty retailer is shuttering its Raleigh, N.C., flagship on July 27, and its website is scheduled to close the following day. A location in the Arizona town Gilbert closed on July 8. In November last year, a 350-square-foot shop-in-shop inside a a fashion boutique in Cary, N.C. called Charley Madelyn also closed.
Trellis Flores identified overexpansion, personnel shifts, debt and burnout as the primary reasons for her decision to end the business. Clean(er) Beauty Shop is among thousands of stores that have closed this year. According to retail data provider Coresight Research, almost 3,200 brick-and-mortar stores closed as of May this year, a 24% jump from a year ago.
“We did really well throughout COVID. Post-pandemic, we were coming off one of our best years yet, but we grew too quickly, and the retail model is always very capital intensive,” says Trellis Flores. “That’s when we really kind of took on the most debt to grow and that was a huge risk.”
After stints at MAC Cosmetics and Laura Mercier, Trellis Flores launched Trellis Beauty as an online shop in 2017 with seven clean beauty brands before opening a 1,200-square-foot brick-and-mortar location in Raleigh’s Lafayette Village a year later. Trellis Flores invested about $30,000 to purchase the store’s initial inventory order.
In the years since that initial inventory over, the retailer’s beauty assortment expanded to over 30 brands such as Meow Meow Tweet, Elate Cosmetics and SkinOwl along with bestsellers Lilfox, Plantkos and Shikohin. It opened a second Raleigh location in Boxyard RTP, a converted business park, in late 2021, but closed it a year later.
Steaming, facials, makeup consultations, brow waxing and spray tan services were added over time to complement Trellis’s retail operations, which accounted for about 60% of its sales to services 40%. Trellis Flores previously referred to the retailer’s facial steam bar service as the country’s first.
In early 2023, Trellis Beauty doubled down on its commitment to clean beauty and rebranded as Clean(er) Beauty Shop. The same year, it opened its shop-in-shop in March and Gilbert outpost in June. Clean(er) Beauty Shop’s physical expansion sent Trellis Flores traveling back and forth between three locations, hiring and training staff, and spearheading brand-building tasks to jumpstart the new offshoots.
Throughout the course of the year, staff at both the shop-in-shop and Gilbert location had to be rehired for various reasons such as an incorrect assumption that facials would outperform steam services. With about two aestheticians per location, the cost of specialized labor became a drain on Clean(er) Beauty Shop.
Trellis Flores says, “I would find these cream of the crop aestheticians, and that comes with the financial challenge of keeping them happy.”
A self-funded business at the outset, Clean(er) Beauty Shop was kept afloat largely through store profits and small business loans Trellis Flores secured from banks and companies like Square. Trouble started brewing for the retailer last October when two events conspired almost simultaneously. The Raleigh store’s head aesthetician and store manager departed the company, and the business’s end-of-year loan request was denied.
“This is maybe why you go down the route of venture capital or raising money with friends and family,” says Trellis Flores. “I’ve done this for seven years. I have not borrowed one cent from my family, but I entertained the venture capital route this year. I entertained franchising and even selling the company. It just never felt right.”
“It’s not OK to normalize a level of stress and anxiety and depression related to work.”
Sales at Clean(er) Beauty Shop ticked up by a double-digit percentage last year as it tripled its location count, but it entered 2024 in a weakened cash-flow position. It fell behind on bills and asked vendors for longer payment terms. Inventory orders subsequently dropped, causing retail sales to sink 50%. Customer acquisition suffered this year as funds earmarked for marketing and pop-ups were diverted to payroll. By early June, Clean(er) Beauty Shop had whittled its assortment down to 12 beauty brands.
“On top of all that, I was having the burnout of resentment and self-doubt,” says Trellis Flores. “I kept thinking, ‘I am not a good wife. I can’t support my family. I am ruining my credit.”
The decision to close Clean(er) Beauty Shop became clear to Trellis Flores in early June during the Raleigh store’s lease negotiation process. Unable to commit to the landlord’s three- to five-year extension requirement, she pondered closing the Raleigh store to keep the newer Gilbert location in operation. However, the Gilbert store wasn’t profitable on its own, and Trellis Flores didn’t want to take on a second job to keep money coming in.
“At the end of the day, I could keep it going. I have no doubt. I still have a very great concept,” says Trellis Flores. “I believe in our brand, but if I would have continued, we wouldn’t have had such a graceful exit.”
Both large and small retailers are grappling with profitability due to elevated costs, a challenging funding landscape and increased competition. Over the past year, brick-and-mortar retailers as varied as Neighborhood Goods, Shen Beauty, Showfields, Standard Dose and Inside Outer Beauty Market have all closed their doors. Beauty e-tailers and livestreaming platforms like NakedPoppy and Supergreat have shuttered as well.
“There’s precious few of us indie beauty retailers, so when one of us folds, it hurts the industry,” says Jennifer Tinsley, founder of Field Botanicals, a clean beauty retailer in Augusta, Ga. “Since clean beauty isn’t really a differentiation point anymore, small beauty retailers have to really be creative to find success. We’ve leaned into our local community, doing what we can to increase engagement as a whole while we educate about clean skincare and cosmetics. We govern our own growth in a sustainable way. Even so, these last two years have been a slog, and we’ve had some really tough months.”
Reflecting on what she could’ve done differently with Clean(er) Beauty Shop, Trellis Flores highlights not hiring a CFO early in the business’s lifespan as a key misstep. She urges small beauty shop owners to have patience, understand the pivotal role that capital plays in the success of retail, surround themselves with supportive people and recognize the signs of burnout.
She says, “It’s not OK to normalize a level of stress and anxiety and depression related to work.”
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