Revlon, a Makeup Staple for Generations, Files for Bankruptcy (Published 2022) (2024)

For generations of women, Revlon’s red Fire & Ice, introduced in 1952, was the go-to lipstick shade on a Saturday night.

In the ’70s, they spritzed Charlie perfume on their wrists, humming the ubiquitous jingle. And when the supermodel Cindy Crawford showed up in ads wearing Raisin Rage in the 1990s, millions of women snapped up brown lipstick shades.

“All those big megaglam supermodels were spokespeople for Revlon,” recalled Tina Catania, 41, who remembers shopping for Revlon in a drugstore as a young girl in the Bronx. “They had the biggest display,” she said, recalling the stickers on the bottom of Revlon products showing the shade, and the excitement of trying the lipsticks on when she got home.

For much of its 90 years, Revlon was the leading cosmetics empire, a mainstay in bathroom cabinets since the Great Depression. But in recent decades, the company has struggled under the weight of enormous debt and competition from new generations of cosmetic brands. Now coronavirus-related shutdowns in China and related supply chain snarls have added extra strain. This week, Revlon filed for bankruptcy protection, its financial statements awash in red ink.

The makeup that shoppers now flock to buy looks different. In the past several years, lines from big names like Rihanna and Kylie Jenner have emerged and reached fans directly. Social media superstars have promoted those products to their millions of Instagram and TikTok followers, embracing inclusive color palettes and sidestepping the drugstores that Revlon traditionally relied on to sell its products.

Consumer brands “can get into trouble if they weigh themselves down with too much debt,” said David Garfield, a managing director at AlixPartners and a consumer industry expert. They can also “get in trouble if they fail to address major supply chain disruptions,” he added. “The issue there is that it can become a vicious cycle: So supply chain disruptions can cause production delays, which can cause late shipments to retailers, which can cause loss of shelf space and sales — and then the cycle repeats.”