What's going on with Isamaya Ffrench and her brand? The British makeup artist is reportedly set to leave the brand as early as 2025
A phallic lipstick, an industrial aesthetic, and little interest in looking presentable by traditional standards. When Isamaya Ffrench launched her eponymous beauty brand in 2022, the message was clear. Make-up could be provocation, play, and identity, without having to correct every supposed imperfection. Four years later, however, the project bearing her name is going through a delicate phase. According to BoF, two sources close to the company reportedly confirmed that the make-up artist left Isamaya Beauty in 2025, after having stepped away from the collaboration more than a year ago. Neither Ffrench nor the brand has commented on the news, leaving questions about the reasons behind her departure unanswered. Meanwhile, the official website is offering discounts of up to 70%, and some customers have reported shipping delays, difficulties obtaining refunds, and problems with customer service online. These are individual accounts, not proof that the company is about to shut down, but they are fueling doubts about the future of the beauty brand. Founded in 2022 alongside Flash Beauty Holdings, an Italian company connected to the New Guards Group ecosystem, Isamaya Beauty was more than the personal project of an unconventional make-up artist. It was meant to turn a distinctive creative vision into a sustainable business. What led to the separation remains unknown. Theories about a clash between artistic ambitions and market demands, as well as speculation about a change in strategy, remain just that: speculation. The situation is particularly delicate when a brand borrows not only its founder's name but also her entire visual universe.
A lipstick that looks like a sex toy isn't enough to sustain an entire brand
Before becoming a name printed on product packaging, Isamaya Ffrench had built her reputation working with fashion houses and beauty brands such as Tom Ford Beauty, YSL Beauté, Burberry Beauty, and Byredo. When she launched Isamaya Beauty in 2022, she wasn't looking to add yet another cosmetics brand to the already crowded Sephora shelves. She wanted to build a universe. The Industrial collection drew inspiration from BDSM aesthetics, while the LIPS collection, with its iconic chrome phallus-shaped lipstick packaging, turned lipstick into both a collectible beauty product and a statement of intent. Glitter eyeshadows, metallic pigments, and products playing with textures and visual identity followed, leading up to the more recent Core Collection, which brings make-up and skincare closer together. Launched in 2025, it was distributed through Sephora in the United States and Canada, Space NK in the United Kingdom, and Mecca in Australia. The idea was that make-up shouldn't tell you how to look, but give you the tools to experiment with who you are. The debut also proved successful financially. In 2023, Ffrench told The Business of Fashion that the brand had reache oking for something out of the ordinary. Provocative beauty products grab attention and help a brand stand out, but they can't sustain an entire business on their own. Once the element of surprise wears off, more is needed: high-performance formulas, sustainable pricing, customer loyalty, and a customer service team that responds when a parcel doesn't arrive.
Discounts, shipping delays, and growing customer frustration
The catch is that the official European Isamaya Beauty website currently features steep beauty discounts, some products are listed as sold out, and reviews posted on Trustpilot in 2026 mention unshipped orders, unanswered refund requests, and difficulties contacting customer service. In online discussions, some users interpret the recent promotions and the brand's perceived loss of direction as signs of an attempt to make it more commercial, without successfully attracting a new audience or retaining its original one. Which raises the question: what happens when a beauty brand born to challenge the rules starts chasing the market's? The risk is that its strangeness becomes an empty shell, a provocation that can be replicated without the vision that made it meaningful in the first place. And at that point, not even a 70% discount can give it back its soul.
From Isamaya Beauty to Studio Iron, creativity finds a new address
While the future of Isamaya Beauty remains uncertain, Isamaya Ffrench seems to have already found a new space in which to experiment. It's called Studio Iron, a curatorial platform dedicated to contemporary art, design, sculpture, and collectible objects, introduced through an exhibition at Saatchi Yates in London in 2026. The artists involved include Paul McCarthy, Jordan Wolfson, Anne Imhof, and Marina Abramović. Their names make it clear that this project is a long way from the traditional concept store model. The ambition is to create a space where art, design, and function can intersect, fostering new collaborations and questioning the boundaries between disciplines. The project also looks towards establishing a permanent presence in Soho, with plans to develop original objects and work with emerging designers. This isn't necessarily an escape from the beauty industry. Ffrench studied industrial design and has always focused on constructing visual worlds, using cosmetics, materials, and bodies as narrative tools. Make-up remains part of her practice, through beauty brand collaborations and runway make-up. At the same time, in 2026 she spoke to D di Repubblica about working on a documentary exploring beauty standards and their cultural evolution. Her career therefore seems to be expanding towards creative direction, cinema, art, and design, without necessarily abandoning make-up. Studio Iron fits this trajectory, allowing her to explore objects and ideas without always having to translate them into cosmetics destined for retail. It's a different kind of freedom from the one required to run a commercial beauty brand, where every creative impulse must also contend with production, sales, and brand positioning.
What will happen to Isamaya Beauty?
For Isamaya Beauty, the outlook is harder to predict. The official website is still active, beauty products remain on sale, and no definitive brand shutdown or new structure clarifying the company's future has been publicly announced. The discounts could be intended to clear stock or could be part of a business reorganisation, but without updated corporate information, settling on an explanation would be premature. The brand could continue under a new creative director, scale back to a handful of signature beauty products, or undergo a more radical transformation. The relationship between Isamaya Ffrench and the company also remains unclear. We don't know what agreements govern the use of her name, or whether Ffrench would be able to use it for a future make-up brand. What is clear is that when a founder and a beauty brand share the same identity, her departure can leave a void that a simple change in artistic direction is unlikely to fill. Isamaya Beauty built a universe of strangeness, sensuality, industrial materials, and imperfect beauty. Its strength lay not only in its products but in the way they expressed an approach to make-up that rejected beauty standards and conformity. Now the company must prove it can maintain a recognisable brand identity without the person who created it.
Is Isamaya Ffrench moving beyond the beauty industry?
Isamaya Ffrench, meanwhile, seems more interested in building worlds than in sticking to a single category. Her career may increasingly unfold through art, design, cinema, and interdisciplinary collaborations, while her eponymous beauty brand will have to find its own direction. In the beauty industry, where a founder's name can become the main selling point, separating the person from the product is anything but straightforward. We don't know whether Isamaya Beauty will manage to preserve its original creative vision, reinvent itself, or eventually scale back. It's too early to talk about a brand shutdown, too. For now, one thing is clear: as Isamaya Beauty searches for its next move, Isamaya Ffrench is already looking ahead to her next adventure.