Fenty Beauty has retired its original Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation and replaced it with a reformulated Pro Filt’r Fluid Flex Natural Matte Longwear Foundation. The new formula launched globally Sept. 4, 2026, in 50 shades priced at $48, ending the original product’s nine-year run on shelves.
Why Fenty Beauty Reformulated Its Signature Foundation
Rihanna and Fenty Beauty announced the change on Instagram on Aug. 19, 2026, telling followers the brand was discontinuing the Pro Filt’r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation that had anchored its makeup lineup since Fenty Beauty’s 2017 debut. The caption on that post read, “Made to move with you.”
The original foundation helped build Fenty Beauty’s reputation as a category disruptor. Backed by LVMH’s Kendo Brands, the label launched with a 40-shade range that was, at the time, unusually broad for the beauty industry, and it is widely credited with pushing competitors to expand their own shade offerings for deeper skin tones. But customers had reported oxidation and transfer issues with the formula over its run, according to WWD, problems the new formula was built to fix.
What Changed in the New Fluid Flex Formula
The reformulated Pro Filt’r Fluid Flex Natural Matte Longwear Foundation launched Sept. 4, 2026, at FentyBeauty.com, Sephora and Ulta Beauty, in 50 shades at $48, according to WWD. It is manufactured in Japan using what Fenty calls “Fluid Flex Technology,” a polymer blend combined with starfruit extract meant to control oil and address the transfer complaints tied to the earlier formula.
Getting there took 800 development hours across more than 30 prototypes, according to WWD. Rihanna, founder of Fenty Beauty, told WWD she wore the new formula herself for an extended stretch before signing off on it: ” 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.”
She also connected the relaunch back to the brand’s founding mission, telling WWD: ” When we launched Fenty Beauty, it was about making people feel seen in a way they hadn’t before… We changed the game.”
The Math Behind the Numbers
A look at the figures in Fenty’s own account shows how the relaunch compares with the original launch. When Fenty Beauty’s first Pro Filt’r foundation debuted in 2017 with 40 shades, that range was already considered unusually wide for the industry and was widely credited with forcing rival brands to broaden their own shade libraries. The new Fluid Flex formula’s 50-shade range is a 25% increase over that original 40-shade count.
The development timeline invites a similar check. Eight hundred hours of development work, spread across more than 30 prototypes, would take roughly 20 weeks if worked continuously at a standard 40hour week. But Rihanna said she personally wore and tested the formula for more than a year, according to WWD, a timeline well beyond 20 weeks. That gap suggests the 800 hours of formal development work were logged in stages alongside other testing and refinement, rather than as one continuous full-time sprint.
Sales Estimates and What Happens Next
Fenty Beauty has not confirmed official sales projections for the new formula. An unofficial industry estimate cited by WWD put potentialfirst-year retail sales at around $70 million, but the company itself declined to confirm that figure or provide its own numbers, according to the same report. Retail rollout continues through Sephora and Ulta Beauty alongside FentyBeauty.com, with the launch drawing attention from beauty press and consumers reacting to the shift away from a formula many had used for years, according to Sports Illustrated Lifestyle. Industry watchers are expected to track how sellthrough for the Fluid Flex formula compares against the discontinued original’s nine-year run, a test of whether Fenty Beauty can update the product most closely tied to its identity without losing the trust that made it a category disruptor in 2017.
