It can happen to you: Your favorite beauty products can get reformulated—or worse, discontinued—without warning.
Fans of Biologique Recherche’s Lotion P50 1970 know that feeling all too well; earlier this month, the French skin care brand announced it would no longer sell the original version of its popular exfoliant, and the latest shipment would be the last.
A rep confirms to Glamour that indeed, “The P50 1970 and P50V 1970 lotions are not marketed anymore, due to realignment regarding worldwide existing and evolving practices and regulations.” However, they indeed confirmed that “other iconic P50 lotions of the brand remain available in all markets.”
The reason for the discontinuation? P50 1970 contains phenol, an ingredient that’s no longer allowed in cosmetics in the U.S. Though only present in an extremely low concentration, phenol is potent enough that its other credits include paint thinner and herbicide. Still, upon hearing the news, the product’s devoted fans went into skincare panic mode.
“On my recent trip to New York, I went to Rescue Spa and purchased three since that’s the limit, and plan on ordering at least three more big ones,” says Venita Aspen, a star of the Bravo series Southern Charm. “P50 changed my life.”
The sudden disappearance of a product from shelves is something you can never rule out—even when it’s something as beloved as P50. And if it does come back, it might not be anything like its original self. Enter: the product relaunch.
“It’s probably one of the biggest consumer pain points,” says Alexis Androulakis, a beauty product developer and educator, and one half of the Lipstick Lesbians. But brands aren’t just taking away your favorite formulas to mess with you. Making over a product is, in most cases, a “nuanced and complex” process, she says.
In reality, the ingredients list in beauty products are tweaked often, but most of the changes are so subtle we don’t even notice. But some are more dramatic, in which case the brand has no choice but to call attention to it. As a bonus, a relaunch gives them a chance to put marketing budget behind a product customers already know about, instead of launching a whole new one.
That being said, the more attention that’s brought to a new formula, the more likely it’ll be scrutinized by the very people who made the original successful.
Such was the case with Givenchy’s Prisme Libre loose powder. A hero product for the brand, it’s known for its color quadrants of finely milled powder that set makeup and a blurred, soft-focus finish.
The reformulation, as most of them are, was done with good intentions: The original formula was made with talc, an ingredient many brands have moved away from due to concerns about asbestos contamination. (For what it’s worth: The FDA did not detect any asbestos in talc-containing cosmetic samples in 2023.)
In the new formula, Givenchy swapped in kaolin clay and mica, which give it a shimmery, highlighter-esque finish. They called it “luminous matte” in an attempt to address the difference, to no avail with customers.
Fans flooded the brand’s Instagram with comments begging them to bring back the old formula, talc be damned. “Why would you mess with perfection!!!!????” commented one person, while another wrote that, “‘Luminous matte’ isn’t a real thing. It’s one or the other.” Points were made.
