Rihanna‘s Fenty Beauty makeup brand is overhauling its foundation game.
Retiring its original foundation formula, the product that launched the brand and set a new standard for shade inclusivity, Fenty is gearing up to release an entirely new formula.
Enter Pro Filt’r Fluid Flex Foundation, $48, available in 50 shades, for which Rihanna took her original shade range back and started from scratch — fine-tuning undertones, creating more neutrals and testing all around the world.
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It will be available alongside the Pro Filt’r Fluid Flex Foundation Brush, $36 — a dense, wavy bristle brush featuring a soft-scoop shape. Both products will launch globally on Sept. 4 at fentybeauty.com, Sephora and Ulta Beauty.
The brand declined to comment on sales estimates, but industry sources forecast $70 million in retail sales in its first year.
In a statement, Rihanna said: “When we launched Fenty Beauty, it was about making people feel seen in a way they hadn’t before. The response, especially to the Pro Filt’r Foundation shade range, was remarkable, and I’ll always be proud of that moment. We changed the game. But our community doesn’t hold back. They tell us what they love, what they want more of, and that’s how we get better. Fluid Flex foundation is the next chapter of that promise, but the reason we started hasn’t changed. I’ve been wearing Fluid Flex foundation for more than a year and putting it through everything because you don’t replace something people already love unless you’re confident you’ve made it even better. And we did. Once everyone tries it, they’ll understand exactly why we took our time.”
Crafted in Japan, Fluid Flex Foundation Technology is a polymer blend, infused with color-true longwear pigments that resist oxidation, while starfruit extract helps oil and shine control.
Erin O’Neill, chief brand officer at Fenty Beauty, said: “As somebody who’s never afraid to evolve and change, Rihanna asked us to take a look at what we would do as a next step in foundation from scratch, and that’s a really important part of this launch. This is not about taking our existing formula and let’s tweak it or lighten it up in terms of the coverage, or add some new shade. She was really like, ‘Let’s start from scratch and see if we can create something that we love more.’ So that’s really the journey that we’ve been on for the last three years.”
Detailing the shade matching process, she added: “We actually created 80 shades to start, and then the real art of what we do is live shade matching on real people, and that is a really important part of how we landed at our 50 shades. We did five shade matching events around the world to get to a range of 50, which we feel really good about.”
Still, there’s always room for improvement.
Roshini Greenwald, North America general manager of Fenty Beauty, said: “We really do view shade development as an ongoing, never-ending process. With this launch specifically, we want to really make that more easy for the consumer. So we’re going to launch the Unfiltered Inbox, and it’s actually going to be a place where consumers can give us that live feedback.”
Fenty Beauty launched in 2017 with backing from LVMH’s Kendo Brands. It was reported last year that LVMH was exploring deal options for Fenty Beauty, although this was never confirmed.
