By way of an explanation, a social media post last week signed by founder Melissa Medvedich read, “Like many small businesses, we have faced challenges, both typical and unpredictable, post 2000. There have also been many changes since launching—the biggest (and best) change has been welcoming our beautiful baby girl into the world. That said, after long and careful consideration, we have made the bittersweet decision to close our beloved family studio for the foreseeable future. It is time to focus on the most important role of my life—nurturing and raising our daughter.”

Brand closures such as Supernal’s are much more common than beauty industry media coverage would lead people to believe. There’s a reason consumers aren’t generally using beauty products conceived in the 1800s, and that’s because the beauty brands from back then are largely extinct. If coverage reflected the reality, practically every day would bring news of shutterings.

As it is, most closed brands go silently into the night, making it seem like a founder moving on from a brand is atypical or, even worse, shameful. The mental health and economic damage from holding on to a struggling brand for too long can be profound and is likely exacerbated by the relative silence surrounding the power of moving on.

To show that closures are typical and nothing to be ashamed of, for the latest edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked six entrepreneurs who shuttered their brands the following: How did you know it was time to close? Why did you make that decision? Reflecting on it, is there anything you would’ve done differently? What business learnings from your brand continue to guide you?