Step into any Target beauty aisle or scroll through the “clean skincare” corners of TikTok, and you’ll find a sea of familiar names. For years, 100 Percent Pure sat somewhere near the top of the heap—a darling of the natural cosmetics wave. But by the dog days of 2025, the brand’s once-sparkling reputation reads more like a cautionary tale. So, is 100 Percent Pure going out of business, or are they just facing a bit of cosmetic adversity?
Introduction to 100 Percent Pure’s Current Situation
Let’s get straight to it: If you’re hunting for 100 Percent Pure’s bestselling Vitamin C serum or signature Fruit Pigmented Mascara, prepare for a lineup of “sold out” signs and digital tumbleweeds. The reason? By all credible accounts—retail watchers, loyal customers, even ex-staff—the company is in dire shape as of August 2025. In fact, some would say “on life support” is putting things kindly.
That said, here’s where things go from mystery to melodrama. There’s no mainstream report screaming “BANKRUPT!” splashed across headlines. Instead, the clues are scattered and frustratingly unofficial—just stark supply chain woes, absentee customer service, and near-silence from the company itself.
Signs of Operational Struggles—Storefronts to Stockouts
For starters, walk into your local mall and try to spot a 100 Percent Pure store. Unless you’re living in Berkeley or Santa Monica, you’re out of luck. Almost every brick-and-mortar location outside a sliver of California has quietly shuttered—no grand closing sales, no thank-you-for-your-business flyers, just darkened windows and fading window stickers.
Online, the situation is arguably worse. Even the most loyal repeat buyers are being forced to confront a reality that almost borders on parody. By one count, more than 70% of their hero products—the cult-favorite skincare, the Instagrammable makeup—are either perennially “out of stock” or simply missing from the website. If your beauty regimen depends on their Coffee Bean Eye Cream, you’d better have a stocked backup drawer (or nerves of steel).
Customer Service and Fulfillment Problems—Tales from the Abyss
And here’s where the story shifts from “rough patch” to full-on Murphy’s Law. Hit up their customer service email, and you’re likely to get…nothing. Phone support? Expect to leave a voicemail and mark your calendar—if you hear back within a fortnight, buy a lottery ticket.
The shipping runaround has reached legendary status in online beauty forums. Orders placed in early July still haven’t shipped come August, despite automated “on its way!” emails. Some customers only receive their products after relentless calling or posting about the delay on public forums. One Reddit user joked, “At this point, my package is either lost at sea—or being packed by someone’s cousin in a garage.” It’s a pattern: you pay, you wait, you hope—then you hustle to get what you paid for.
No Public Bankruptcy Filings—But Don’t Cheer Yet
There’s a catch, though: Scan every major fashion and retail bankruptcy tracker through August 2025, and you won’t see 100 Percent Pure’s name. The company isn’t officially listed among the year’s major retail closures or Chapter 11 filings. For the spreadsheet-inclined, that technically counts as “still in business.” In the real world? Not so much.
The lack of a formal bankruptcy filing turns out to be cold comfort for customers. Brands sometimes limp along out of the media spotlight for months, fulfilling minimal orders while quietly winding down. In business, it’s called a “soft exit”—and it’s usually more whimper than bang.
Lack of Updates in Industry News—Radio Silence Since 2019
Serial entrepreneurs and market nerds know to watch the PR wire for early warning signs. But in the case of 100 Percent Pure, the industry grapevine has gone quiet—eerily so. The last hard-hitting business news about the brand surfaced in 2019, back when they announced a big pivot: pulling most of their products from third-party retailers and narrowing focus to just their own website, Amazon, and a Chinese affiliate.
It all looked strategic, at first. But that was six years ago. Back then, the chatter was about out-of-stock issues, tricky distribution logistics, and a scramble to “right-size” the inventory. Those headaches haven’t just persisted—they’ve metastasized. No new financing rounds, no headline-grabbing leadership changes, and not a whisper about recovery or expansion. When your last major update is a years-old battle with stockouts, you’re playing a dangerous game of chicken with the market.
Consumer Testimonials Highlighting Instability—Canaries in the Coal Mine
If you want to take the pulse of a struggling business, skip the investor decks—just listen to its customers. On Reddit, Facebook groups, and tiny indie beauty blogs, the refrain is painfully consistent: “I can’t get my favorite products.” “Nobody ever answers customer service.” “My local store closed and now the website never has what I want.” Even 100 Percent Pure’s diehard fans are comparing notes on replacement brands and low-key mourning the company’s decline.
One frustrated shopper shared, “It feels like they’re shutting off the lights, one bulb at a time.” Another: “I’d switch brands, but I still have a gift card—if I can even use it!” You can’t buy that kind of brand loyalty. But you also can’t pay the bills with it, either.
Physical evidence backs up the anecdotes. Google Maps now lists most of their old locations as “permanently closed.” Their Instagram is a ghost town—no new launches, no restocks, just tumbleweeds between generic promotions.
This has led to a classic retail domino effect: stockouts trigger customer frustration, which piles onto negative reviews, which destroy confidence from anyone sitting on the fence. And without new shoppers or clear communication, what’s left is a shadow business—struggling to outrun the inevitable.
Alternatives, Tough Lessons, and the Market’s Brutal Discipline
The natural skincare wave is massive—worth over $13 billion as of 2025, by some analyst estimates. But it’s also unforgiving, and it takes discipline to win. 100 Percent Pure’s very public struggles echo a dozen other legacy beauty startups: Glossier’s lost mystique, Kjaer Weis’s failed scalability, even Honest Company’s rough patches.
What’s the lesson? Simple: no amount of positive press or influencer buzz can paper over weak logistics and absent communication. A great formula will make you famous, but you need relentless execution to stay solvent.
If you’re a beauty founder taking notes at home, don’t gloss over customer fulfillment. It sounds “boring” compared to trend-spotting or packaging, but it’s the lifeblood of any consumer brand. Without inventory, fast shipping, and human support, you don’t have a company—you have a memory.
For those watching from the outside, the story highlights a recurring truth at any scale: silent brands are struggling brands. Startups shrivel when they stop talking to their customers. The only difference with 100 Percent Pure is the size of the fall.
Is This the End? Or Merely the Agony Before the Announcement?
So, are we watching a once-respected brand go out of business in real time? All evidence suggests the company is in severe distress. Persistent product shortages, widespread store closures, radio silence from leadership, and an online shopping experience racked with delays—these aren’t bad weeks, they’re warning flares.
Yet, as of August 2025, the final curtain hasn’t quite dropped. No formal bankruptcy, no public “we’re done” post—just the slow, painful winding down that only loyalists and keen-eyed shoppers seem to notice.
If you’re hoping to spot the next retail implosion—or just want to avoid holding onto a useless gift card—you can track emerging business casualties at BlueLineBiz, a quiet watchdog for exactly these dramas.
Here’s the pragmatic take: If you rely on 100 Percent Pure for your daily skincare, brace for impact. If you’re a vendor or affiliate holding unpaid invoices, start plan B. And if you’re a founder or operator studying failure, this is one postmortem you’ll want to bookmark.
The beauty story here isn’t just about mascara and moisturizer. It’s about what happens when a brand runs out of more than products: momentum, cash, or even the will to keep fighting.
So, until a judge’s gavel falls or management presses “send” on that hard goodbye email, the verdict is unresolved—but sympathy is running on empty.
One thing’s for sure: in business, silence isn’t golden. It’s usually the sound of the party ending. If you want to stick around, learn from what’s missing—before it’s your turn to disappear.
Also Read
