As reported by the publication Puck News, Sephora is dropping the Estée Lauder-owned brand’s makeup line three years after the iconic 53-year-old Black Honey shade of its Almost Lipstick racked up over 10 million views on the platform and sent a new generation of shoppers scrambling to stores to buy it.

Sephora staff members have also revealed on Reddit that Clinique’s skincare selection has been scaled back at some of the beauty specialty retailer’s stores. The brand is stocked at Ulta Beauty and recently launched on Amazon, making it the first Estée Lauder brand to do so. Clinique is sold in over 100 countries worldwide.

Established in 1968, Clinique pioneered many of the skincare concepts prioritized now, including simple routines and fragrance-free and dermatologist-backed products. Its original three-step skincare system taught untold numbers of young consumers to cleanse, exfoliate and moisturize their skin and birthed classics such as Clarifying Lotion and Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion. Estée Lauder’s website mentions that a bottle of Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion is sold every seven and a half seconds.

Clinique is competing for customers’ dollars with buzzy upstarts and celebrity brands. It was absent from the group of brands that powered Estée Lauder’s 5% sales growth in the third quarter this year. Jo Malone, Le Labo, The Ordinary, La Mer and Estée Lauder were in that group. For over a decade, Clinique’s global sales have surpassed $1 billion, but, according to market research resource Statista, its brand value declined to $4.8 billion last year from nearly $6.1 billion in 2022.

As Clinique’s presence at Sephora diminishes, we were curious what could help it reverse course. So, we turned to 10 brand founders and consultants for the latest of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty to ask the following question: If you were given the opportunity to reenergize a heritage beauty brand like Clinique, what would you do to make it relevant to today’s consumers?