The Outset, the skincare brand Scarlett Johansson co-founded in 2022, is shutting down. The company posted a notice on its website Sept. 29 saying it has decided to wind down operations, and its online store has stopped taking new orders.
The statement was short. “After an incredible journey,” it began, according to Beauty Matter, the brand made the decision to close and thanked customers for welcoming it into their routines. The notice did not give a reason.
What The Outset has told customers
Existing orders will still be processed, Happi reported, and customers can reach support at help@theoutset.com. The website stopped selling, which means the only remaining place to buy the products is whatever stock sits with retailers. Beauty Independent reported that the brand had been discounting heavily, by as much as 50%, before the announcement.
Johansson and Kate Foster Lengyel started the company in March 2022. Foster Lengyel served as chief executive until April 2025, according to Beauty Independent. The line began with five products priced from $32 to $54 and grew to about 14. Its hero product was a firming vegan collagen prep serum, per the same report.
The brand’s retail footprint is described differently by different outlets. Beauty Independent listed Sephora, Amazon, Nordstrom and Credo among its stockists. Beauty Matter reported that The Outset launched in 500 Sephora locations in April 2022 and later left the retailer. Beauty Matter also listed Cult Beauty, Goop, Knockout Beauty, Niche Beauty, QVC, Revolve and Shopbop as places that carried the line.
How The Outset compares with other celebrity beauty brand closures
The Outset is the latest celebrity-founded beauty line to close in roughly a year. Cosmetics Business listed Gwen Stefani’s Gxve Beauty, which closed in February 2026, Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty in September 2025 and Kate Moss’s Cosmoss in June 2025.
What set The Outset apart at launch was its pitch to shoppers. Beauty Independent cited Foster Lengyel describing the plan to avoid a social media audience: “Scarlett is not on social media.” Most celebrity lines lean on a star’s followers for early sales. The Outset instead relied on retail placement and product claims, which meant it needed shelf space to work. The 500-store Sephora launch in 2022 gave the brand national reach, and by Beauty Matter’s account that placement did not last.
Beauty Independent reported that industry estimates put the brand’s first-year sales at about $10 million and its 2025 sales between $10 million and $25 million. Those are estimates, not figures the company published. The Outset is a private company and has not released financial results.
Who backed The Outset
The brand’s main investor was The Najafi Companies, the private investment firm of Jahm Najafi. Beauty Independent reported that Najafi put in between $5 million and $10 million, with Beliade and Plus Capital also investing.
Spread across the 54 months between the March 2022 launch and the Sept. 29 closure notice, that range works out to roughly $93,000 to $185,000 of Najafi capital for every month the brand operated, assuming the full amount was invested at launch. The company has not disclosed how much of the money was spent.
Najafi’s beauty portfolio includes a Black-founded haircare brand. Its Wikipedia entry states that Najafi invested in 2018 in the brand studio Beach House Group, which developed Pattern, the haircare line from actor Tracee Ellis Ross. It also states Najafi invested in The Outset in 2021. Happi noted the same connection in its report, calling Najafi the firm that also funded Pattern Beauty.
Pattern launched in 2019. Ross told AfroTech she could not fully fund the company herself, so she brought in business partners, and that she holds a majority stake. “I am majority owner of the company,” she said. Pattern sells haircare designed for curly and coily textures. Neither company has commented on the other.
The timeline shows how quickly the retail rollout came. The line debuted online in March 2022, and by Beauty Matter’s account it reached 500 Sephora locations the following month, April 2022. Beauty Matter’s list of other stockists runs to 10 names beyond Sephora, from online retailers such as Revolve and Shopbop to the television retailer QVC.
Cosmetics Business reported that the company gave no specific reason for closing, so the cause of the shutdown remains the company’s to explain. The brand’s website notice, posted on its homepage, is the only statement any of the outlets cited.
Johansson’s launch pitch and Najafi’s wider portfolio
When Johansson launched the line, she described a long interest in beauty and self-care that she traced to her mother, and she said she had turned down other beauty partnerships to build something of her own, according to Just Jared. That positioning set the brand apart from licensing deals in which a star lends a name to an existing manufacturer.
Najafi’s wider portfolio, per the Wikipedia entry, also includes Beis, the travel brand with Shay Mitchell, and Moon, an oral care line with Kendall Jenner. The firm made its name well outside beauty, with holdings that include the domain registrar Network Solutions and the Pert Plus and Sure brands it bought from Procter & Gamble.
Its consumer bets in this category have been celebrity-fronted companies in which a founder with an audience or a profile brings a product to market with outside capital.
What happens to Outset products and customers
For shoppers, the practical effect is limited. The company said existing orders will ship. Anyone with a question can write to the support address. Stores that still hold Outset stock can sell through it, though the brand has not said whether it will take returns or issue refunds beyond the orders it already accepted.
The website notice carried no separate comment from Johansson or Foster Lengyel, and it remains the only official word on why a brand backed by a major investor and a film star lasted just over four and a half years.
