I hate to be cynical but I have to say I’m not particularly surprised to hear that Avon has sold Liz Earle. This is the way with corporate brands. Avon needed some cash, and selling off this line was a handy way of realising it. Interesting bit is where exactly it has ended up. Walgreens for people who don’t know it he’s one of the biggest pharmacy chains in United States. It is a bit like Boots in the UK. In fact earlier this year it actually bought Boots. This makes it is just about the biggest Health retailer on the planet.
So where does this leave Liz Earle? Well who knows. But there is one possibility which which which might well develop over the next couple of years. To all intents and purposes is now an own brand of a big retailer. It could very well end up just like No 7. The Walgreen/boots organisation is very used to dealing with this kind of thing. It is said that if you’re a hammer all you see is nails. The most likely outcome is that Liz Earle will very soon cease to have any independent identity at all.
This is a bit shame for a brand which whatever else you might think about it certainly had some personality. I certainly don’t think we’ll be getting a representative of Walgreens turning up at a Cosmetic Scientists meeting to give a talk, as Liz once did. That I’m afraid is the way the world.
(Amongst other things, this makes my previous posts about Liz Earle rather irrelevant. Oh well. Here is one of them anyway.)
I bought my third Liz Earle box today – sensitive skin repair moisturizer, skin tonic, cleanse and wash with hot cloth and a new addition – instead of the eyebright soothing lotion, there was the intensive nourishing treatment mask. Cool, I thought. The dept. store Liz Earle rep/assistant had told me it was something wonderful. Thing was, once I was at home and getting the treats out, I looked at the ingredients of this new treat and saw it has FOUR types of parabens. This doesn’t seem very Liz Earle to me.
I’ve like the products so far but am thinking that this box could well be my last. For one, I’m always a bit suspicious of the big sell. I went to a Liz Earle evening a few months ago. She and her daughter were present and we all got a gift bag, a free glass of Prosecco and our fee of 30 UKP was redeemable against products – so I bought my second box. But I felt as if I’d been in some kind of recruitment drive, and began to wonder if this line was really the one skincare line I wanted, given that I generally avoid a big-sell approach to anything.
Also, I’m fortunate in having really good skin and bone structure that need little attention (and certainly no surgical interference. In this light, I will probably enjoy the cleanse, tone and moisturize, but chuck the treatment mask and make this my last Liz Earle.
I don’t want any product that is tested on animals, contains parabens or other suspect ingredients. I wish Liz would drop the kind of marketing approach she has as this company is now not English rose but blooming Walgreens (the only time I ever had my bank card cloned was after using it at a branch of Walgreens), so I’m fast becoming not-a-fan of LE any more. It’s a pity because I really believed the spiel. I might just stick with olive oil cleanser, rose water toner, natural organic yogurt as a skin brightening mask (it’s wonderful!) and good bio / organic moisturizer from Germany, which is pure and a heck of a lot cheaper.
If Liz reads this, which I doubt – it’s a shame she has sold out, but as long as she’s rich, what does it matter?