Before July 27 of this year, the brand name Skindinavia was mostly known by makeup professionals. But after a business partnership breakup and an Instagram post from founder Allen Goldman, the 20-year-old beauty brand was suddenly introduced to makeup lovers everywhere.
Skindinavia is the maker and patent holder of a setting-spray formula that was previously known as Urban Decay’s cult-favorite All Nighter Setting Spray. Goldman created the signature formula in 2007, promising to preserve makeup in heat and humidity using since-patented temperature-control technology. The setting spray was briefly sold under the Skindinavia brand at Ulta and online, but Goldman said he saw little success; two years later, Goldman teamed up with Urban Decay to rebrand and lean on the larger company’s marketing prowess.
For years, it was a successful partnership: the All Nighter has consistently been one of Urban Decay’s best-selling products. Then, earlier this year, it was all over.
Urban Decay and its parent company L’Oréal announced a reformulation of the All Nighter, which also marked the end of its relationship with Skindinavia. The reformulated All Nighter promises longer wear time and a new scent, and is being marketed online as an “upgraded” version, which Goldman took issue with. That’s when Goldman posted to Skindinavia’s Instagram, directing fans to acquire the original formulation through “trusted partners” and unofficially marking the brand’s foray into primarily selling the formula directly to consumers for the first time in nearly two decades.
“They launched this new thing, and essentially, the marketing campaign is the old one sucked,” Goldman said. “Why on earth are you confusing the customer as to what you even have? This is a new product that’s not the product we had [together], calling it the same thing, very similar bottle…And oh, by the way, that’s a product I still make.”
L’Oréal did not respond to Marketing Brew’s requests for comment.
Wait, which?
After Skindinavia’s partnership with Urban Decay, Goldman said the Skindinavia brand has largely targeted professional makeup artists, while Urban Decay catered to a more general audience.
“My goal with my partner was not to compete with them, not only for ethical reasons, but for business reasons. This is a very saturated category, so to confuse the customer [about] where you can get it, what it is, who you are, who they are, seems crazy,” Goldman said. “And quite frankly, there was no point doing it.”
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Over the years, the All Nighter grew popular with beauty influencers and beauty fans, particularly popping up in early YouTube beauty creators’ videos. In 2019, Urban Decay partnered with then-emerging TikTok creators Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae to promote the product to the audiences on the platform. Plus, the product was being sold in Ulta and Sephora, major beauty retailers that were not carrying Skindinavia products, he said.
Goldman credits the product’s success to Urban Decay’s marketing, including its brand storytelling, its existing following, and the budget that can come with corporate ownership. By ceding broader brand recognition, though, he said he’s now feeling the ramifications.
“To accelerate that distribution model, the partnership that we had did it, but it was at the price of building a great brand, and that’s what left me exposed,” Goldman said.
Onwards and upwards
The new All Nighter product and campaign are part of a larger marketing effort from Urban Decay called “Battle the Bland” that also includes a partnership with content creator Tara Yummy, who is serving as the new face of the reformulated product. But Goldman is focused on reaching customers still interested in the original formulation, which he is doing through outreach on Instagram and TikTok after his initial post brought in a large new audience; he told us his followers nearly doubled after his initial post.
“As small as it sounds, we’re working—all of us—until pretty late, to thank people and…to try to respond to every message,” he said.
Amid the pivot, Goldman has plans to create educational content about his brand and product, host Instagram Lives to answer any questions about his business. But he doesn’t want audiences to buy Skindinavia because they pity him, he told us—that’s not the lasting image he wants customers to associate with his brand moving forward.
Instead, “we gotta get our information out there,” he told us. “We have to engage our customer, and then we have to move on and serve that customer.”