Cover FX and Mally Beauty Announce Brand Closures

Three weeks into January, Cover FX is among the first beauty brands to shutter in 2026.

The skincare-inspired makeup label, as well as makeup artist brand Mally Beauty, both announced via Jan. 22 Instagram posts that they are winding down their businesses. The closures leave Laura Geller, Bliss and Julep Beauty as the remaining brands in parent company AS Beauty’s portfolio.

Both announcements cited challenges including tariffs and market shifts as reasons for the shutdowns, and stated that customer service messages would no longer be answered. The remainder of Cover FX’s products are being sold through its website and Amazon store, while the final Mally items remain on QVC and Amazon.

“This allows us to concentrate our resources, investment, and talent on the brands that are demonstrating sustained growth and long-term potential,” said a spokesperson for AS Beauty. Its remaining three brands are showing “strong performance,” said the spokesperson, led by Laura Geller with over $300 million in annual sales.

Cover FX was a pioneer in a category that would come to be known as clean beauty, as well as in offering a 50-shade foundation range and developing skincare-makeup hybrid products, said the brand’s original co-founder Victor Casale, who left in 2019.

“I am saddened by it. It truly was a brand that supported an inclusive shade range for the world — literally one of the first to pioneer a systematic shade range that was easily understood by the consumer,” said Casale. Previously a founding cosmetic chemist at MAC Cosmetics, he launched Cover FX in 2000 with co-founder Lee Graff, a medical skincare specialist with experience in developing makeup to hide skin conditions and scars.

L Catterton took a majority stake in the Toronto-based brand in 2011. It reached $50 million in annual sales at its peak, according to industry sources, with retail partners including Sephora and Ulta Beauty.

But by 2021, it had left both beauty retailers. AS Beauty acquired the brand in 2022, with hopes of turning it around to the tune of 40 percent growth for 2023, according to its prediction announced at the time of purchase.

Founded in 2019 by original E.l.f. Cosmetics founders Alan and Joey Shamah as well as Victor and Ralph Azrak, AS Beauty is focused on acquiring beauty brands past their heyday. It previously acquired Mally Beauty, a brand popularised on QVC by its makeup artist founder Mally Roncal, in 2021.

“If Cover FX would have taken an alternate path to growth and funding, it would still be a stable product accepted globally by consumers. We launched it into 20 markets globally before I left, and then, it was all pump, pump, pump sales,” said Casale.

“When we acquired the company in 2022, it was already underperforming and no longer present in 20 global markets. Without an international footprint or any retail outlets, growing the digital business while maintaining stability and profitability was a challenge,” said the AS Beauty representative.

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Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Jan. 23, 2026, with a statement provided by AS Beauty after publication.