Hello to all of you beautiful nerds and welcome back from traveling the vast nerd universe! It happened guys!

My Thoughts On Morphe Going Bankrupt!

It just happened in the news and man I have some thoughts!

Disclaimer

This post is based on thoughts and opinions of the topic at hand! Please respect the writer’s thoughts on it! You Have been warned!

If you have been living under a space rock, Forma Brands has gone bankrupt this past week and with everything going on some people across YouTube were waiting for it to happen. This past Christmas, we saw the closure of all the brick and mortar stores for Morphe and not only it includes the locations in the United States but Canada as well when they were supposed to keep the Canadian stores open along with the ones overseas. Apparently, Forma has owed people some money and can see where this is a part of the bankruptcy since earlier last year they had some issues paying rent on some of their physical stores. I can see where that can be an issue since retail space in a mall can be pretty high and hearing that as a part of the issue can cause problems. Another part of it is that lawsuits had been made and one of them happened to be Playa Hair Care which the owner has sued them for since they were supposed to build them up except they didn’t during the pandemic. 

Besides Forma going bankrupt, that means the brands have also gone bankrupt which includes not only Morphe, Morphe 2, Playa which their lawsuit was brought up, but also Jacklyn Cosmetics since that is under Forma too. While REM, which is owned by Ariana Grande, is separating itself from Forma so it would be bought by another company. I can see that as a good thing because it helps the brand not only become more independent but also have better creativity and life. Some people had issues where Ariana didn’t have much life and thought she didn’t care about the brand as much. Another thing too is that when it first started the products, which I heard, were not made with great quality since that can happen to any brand that starts out but under Forma the formula is not as great. One example happened to Jacklyn Hill’s vault pallets where the formula in the shadows were not as pigmented as the first Jacklyn pallet. With REM separating from Forma then they would develop better products as the brand progresses over time. I did hear about the new limited edition collection called Thank You Next where there is a shadow pallet and a few other items. I may want to check out some products, heck the concealer did catch my ear but I have to finish up some products first. 

Another part of the bankruptcy is how Morphe owed some of the influencers they had collabs with on top of that is going on, which is mostly with James Charles, Jacklyn Hill, and Jeffree Star. Plus, now they owe all of the employees who lost their jobs at every store they worked for. I have to say as someone who works a job myself, not being paid for the time worked does suck. I have seen the Tic Tocs of people who worked for locations that they were given a day’s notice to over a week’s notice that they are no longer working at the store and that their last day is in a week or the next day and they have to help pack all of the leftover inventory to clear the shelves or sell all of it tbg5fv4ro customers/ I even feel bad that the customers who enjoyed this brand lost their favorite store that they can go to and try the products out. Trust me, when the Hot Topic at the mall down the road where I used to live back in Orlando closed down after wishing it to be near me, I was sad back then. Also, the NYX did close down the Millenia location, not sure if the Florida Mall location is still open? Who knows? Still, I think having that store for Morphe did bring people to the shop until of course the pandemic happened. Like with most makeup brands, sales didn’t go well during the pandemic where anyone hardly wore makeup due to masks being worn and online sales did do well but it was mostly in skin care since people were getting zits from masks. I understand that the pandemic can affect the brick and mortar store but online sales do well since no one was out as much. Morphe did start losing sales around the pandemic like with most brands. ELF did also close their stores but they flourished online and I think Morphe could flourish after this since that is their plan to do so! 

Since I mentioned the influencers earlier, another part of them losing their sales is how these top influencers were dropped due to some factors and they happened to be Jeffree and James Charles. As we remembered, Tati made some allegations about James Charles being a predator and he was targeting some straight guys and that sparked the second Armageddon. This caused Morphe to drop him and softly sell off his pallets which were the original big pallet and his smaller one. I remembered that sale and got myself one and still have it in my drawer tower. With Jeffree, they dropped him around 2020 or was it 2019? Still, Jeffree got dropped for his racist past and dropped his brand from their stores on top of it. Some people thought they had different energies when dropping both of them and I can see that it took a bit to drop James but immediately with Jeffree. Even though they had other influencers that were not so problematic in the past but became problematic later and I feel as though despite how popular an influencer is they do have some issues and still stay the same. Yes, I had bought Jeffree Star products thinking he had changed in the past but he has still stayed the same old jerk once Morphe got him. He has been silent as of late after moving to Wyoming from what I’ve seen. I think some of the other influencers have grown since Morphe and two of them happened to be Laura Leigh and Manny MUA who not only started their own makeup brands, Laura Leigh Cosmetics and Lunar Beauty, but also have their own podcast called Full Coverage. I listened to their podcast about the Morphe stores closing and they were nice about it and they were very chill in their podcast because they were just chatting. I may want to listen to more of their podcasts. Also KathleenLights having her own brand, Lights Lacquer, she has moved on and became a business woman and having her own creativity with her nail polishes. I love her polishes myself since I have a few of them. What about Jacklyn? I have noticed that she has not done much about saving her brand as of now from what people have said, she has to do something or she will go down with Forma because if she doesn’t fight for her brand that she worked hard for then it will be dead. Will have to see if she stays in Ulta since it looks like they are keeping it there.

Closing Thoughts

I know that was long but that’s how I felt. To me Morphe is not the end all be all when it comes to makeup. We have so many of them out there and to me we can choose our favorite brands easily. I still enjoy NYX, Mac, Urban Decay, and a few others but Morphe is not one of them. I feel as though with the change of the market online, whether it’s with YouTube, Tic Toc, and makeup as a whole, things have changed since how much the pandemic changed with how people spent their money on more skin care than cosmetics. Who knows how well Morphe will survive online in this environment since ELF has flourished with their new formulas, new products, and they have flourished still in Target and Ulta. Now they are carried in WalMart and have been doing well there, CVS and Walgreens. I think what Morphe should do is not only stay in Ulta but also try for other stores if they want people to buy their products by being in WalMart, CVS, or even Target since Ulta has their own space there. REM on the other hand, it looks like they are going into Sephora which is somewhere they could be more at home. I hope they get more creative and have Ariana have more creative power if possible.Jaclyn Hill should try to save her brand from going down with the ship by keeping up with the makeup environment because she only comes up with something new almost once a year or twice a year and most brands are creating new things months after months. Look at Colour Pop for example who creates new products two weeks after a new launch which they are coming out with a Winx Club collab. That’s another thing too, Morphe and Jacklyn need to survive by being more relatable with the customers and what is trendy in the makeup sphere. Not only making products with favorite series but seeing what is new in trends right now and keep it fresh as they do those releases. Who knows what will happen to both brands but we have to see the YouTube sphere spin it.

That’s it for this post! I feel like doing this post finally and that is makeup products I loved in 2022! I haven’t talked about my favorite products in so long! Until next time!