Max Factor returns to US market

01-Aug-2016 - Last updated on 02-Aug-2016 at 18:03 GMT

As of yesterday, the color cosmetics brand from P&G is available (online) in the States for the first time in six years—a test perhaps, to gauge whether the personal care giant should grow its makeup business globally.

Max Factor’s new US collection was put together by the brand’s global creative director Pat McGrath. “The relentless creator of new trends like coloured lashes, three dimensional beauty, thick eyebrows and matt skin; Pat McGrath is arguably the beauty industry’s arbiter of future direction,” according to the company’s online bio of her.

“Since 2004, Pat has been Max Factor’s Global Creative Design Director, contributing to the design and direction of colour trend collections as well as the development of products and technologies.”

Starting small

What’s on sale now in the US is hardly a full relaunch. Instead, it’s an assortment of products curated around a single look: “cat eye with a nude or rose lip…. I wanted to create a collection of essentials that give a fresh take on classic glamour,” McGrath tells Sophia Panych of allure.com.

The collection, which is available on drugstore.com, amazon.com, walgreens.com, and target.com, includes a mascara, a liquid eyeliner, and lipstick.

Legacy story

Max Factor is banking on its connection to iconic glamor and its beauty industry history to appeal to today’s consumers.

“Max Factor is a brand that has always been passionate about makeup artistry. It was the first makeup for film-industry professionals. Max Factor, the founder, didn’t just create makeup—he invented the word,” McGrath says in her conversation with Panych. “He changed the way makeup was done and made it the first professional brand real women could use. That’s in the spirit of the brand today—to create makeup that is modern, glamorous, and innovative for every woman to use.”

Legacy and experience are brand story elements many big companies are leaning on in an effort to compete with the stories of entrepreneurship and innovation that indie brands are telling. (Unilever is another case in point.)

And there’s a sense of urgency at work in the Max Factor relaunch too. The collection is being touted as a “limited edition.” So makeup lovers will presumably have to buy it now or miss out.