Retailer Standard Dose Appears To Have Closed

Standard Dose seems to have closed.

The troubled beauty and wellness retailer’s website is down, and emails sent to founder Anthony Saniger from Beauty Independent have bounced back. Saniger’s LinkedIn profile has been updated to indicate his tenure at Standard Dose concluded last month. Prior to the apparent closure, the retailer sold brands such as Vitruvi, Maude, Ursa Major, Potli, Hilma, Herbivore and Flora + Bast. 

The end of Standard Dose comes about seven months after Beauty Independent reported it owed several of the brands it carried thousands of dollars—some brands over $40,000. Following the March article, several additional brands reached out to Beauty Independent to share that Standard Dose owed them thousands of dollars, too. One founder claiming to be owed more than $32,000 for over a year by Standard Dose says Saniger’s response to requests for payment was that “he has paid us enough.”

Last week, Beauty Independent touched base again with founders interviewed in March about Standard Dose’s nonpayments. None of them say the retailer has covered the amount they’re owed, and they haven’t heard anything from Standard Dose about its closure. 

Standard Dose made a big splash when Saniger, CEO and founder of creative agency Act Second, launched it as a CBD-focused beauty and wellness retailer in January 2019, a month after the Farm Bill federally legalizing the trade of hemp, the plant CBD is derived from, was passed. The publications Vogue, Forbes and Well+Good covered the launch, and Standard Dose also drew a media spotlight when it opened a three-story Manhattan store-cum-event space in September 2019.

The retailer closed a seed funding round in 2019 led by the firm Lucas Brand Equity’s $50 million LB Equity Emerging Growth Fund. The deal marked the first investment for the fund established to back cannabis-related companies. In March, brands told Beauty Independent that Standard Dose informed them it was in the process of raising another round of funding.

Despite the Farm Bill, legal issues for hemp-based products like those at CBD beauty and wellness persisted thanks to variance in state laws and skittishness from e-commerce service providers like Shopify and payment processors. At least partially as a result of CBD’s challenges, Standard Dose ventured beyond CBD to a wide range of clean beauty, home, lifestyle and baby products. Coupled with legal and business constraints, CBD-centered companies have been confronted by diminished consumer interest in CBD beauty and wellness.

Standard Dose’s physical store shuttered once the pandemic spread to the United States in 2020, and the company pivoted to an online-only model. It never reopened its brick-and-mortar location. 

On Sept. 19, Standard Dose sent its last customer email promoting products. Recent emails have featured products from brands that say Standard Dose owes them thousands of dollars. Standard Dose’s final Instagram post is dated Sept. 13, and commenting on posts has been disabled. Previously, including in August, Standard Dose had uploaded a number of social media posts per week.