The Evolution of Glossier: From Cult Brand to High-End Luxury?

Once upon a time, Glossier was just a blog by styling assistant Emily Weiss called Into the Gloss. Since then, Weiss expanded her blog into Glossier.com, releasing four products: the priming moisturiser, balm dotcom, soothing face mist, and the perfecting skin tint.

At first, the brand was praised: The brand was on a steady incline for the next six years, gaining recognition and earning a cult following. However, by 2020, Glossier made a string of mistakes which still haven’t been forgotten.

In August 2020, an Instagram account named GlossierEmployees was created. The people behind it were former Glossier employees exposing the allegedly toxic workplace culture. Chief among their concerns were issues of racism that the company had repeatedly failed to address.

Glossier only has one brick-and-mortar store in the UK, the Covent Garden branch. If you don’t live in London and aren’t a frequent visitor, it’s pretty out of the way. Compare this to the USA where there are eleven stores, two of them being in Los Angeles. Obviously, the USA is just a little bit bigger than the UK, but does that mean there should only be one store in a city that is not brilliantly connected to anywhere else?

Similarly, their Boy Brow four years ago would have cost £20, yet now it costs an extortionate £28. Perfecting Skin Tint has not increased in size, but its shade range has increased. When Glossier increased their prices in 2023, they released a statement, claiming higher production and shipping costs as the reason for the price hikes. As a result of Brexit, prices did increase for a number of products and brands that shipped to the UK.

The products which underwent the more severe price hikes were Glossier’s priming moisturisers range. In just one year, their Priming Moisturizer Rich has gone from £29 to £35 and the original Priming Moisturizer since 2021 has gone from £18 to a whopping £26.

For your morning routine, the Nivea Soft shares a lot of qualities with the Glossier priming moisturiser and is only £3.80. If you want to be scientific, you can compare the ingredients of Glossier products to dupes and alternatives on SkinCarisma, which breaks down each individual ingredient and gives you a similarity report.

Is it safe to say that Glossier has lost its way since the allegations in 2020? So many brands are gradually becoming solely for profit, without considering the audience they target: the consumers. Glossier says ‘YOU LOOK GOOD’ when you use their products, but how good can you really look after they’ve emptied your pockets?