We’ve received so much feedback via email, our feedback form and guestbook about the status of the reformulation of the Aromaleigh mineral foundations that we decided it was a great time to give an update about the foundations.
Aromaleigh v.1 had an expansive range of foundation shades and one of the specialties was making pale foundation shades available- something which, when Aromaleigh began offering Mineral Foundation, was not commonly available from either the few Indie companies in business at the time (about 10 years ago), or large mineral makeup brands, most notably Bare Escentuals.
Aromaleigh v.1 foundations were available in 30 gram jars, which held approximately 12 grams of foundation. Based on feedback we received, we found that many customers wanted a smaller sized jar, and many customers wanted a larger sized jar…
The new foundations will be available in sample sizes, 20 gram jars, and 50 gram jars. We do not at this time have the exact gram weights for the amount of foundation in the 20 and 50 gram jars.
The new Aromaleigh v.2 foundations will have new names (but will reference the Aromaleigh v.1 product they are based on), and the available shades we will offer will be equivalents to Aromaleigh v.1 shades, so you won’t need to completely start over again in regards to finding your shade. The shade naming system will remain the same.
Kristen has been devoting the majority of her formulation time working on the mineral foundations, and it is the most time-intensive product to re-introduce due to the large range of shades. We thought it would help if Kristen provided some details about the reformulation process. Here’s what she had to say:
“Aromaleigh Voile and Glissade were two of our most popular products, and when I closed Aromaleigh, I realized just how important these two products were to more women than I possibly imagined!
My goal in the reformulation is not to completely change these two products, but to improve the formulations using some ingredients that were not available when they were originally formulated.
In addition, I’ve been trying to take into account years of feedback, reviews and comments about the formulations, and products such as Pure Cover, which was formulated as a high-coverage concealer, but many women relied on as their mineral foundation.
One of the most time-intensive aspects of the reformulation is the “standardization” of each specific shade. Aromaleigh v.1 foundations were blended “by eye”. In other words, I blended each new batch of Voile/Glissade by adding various amounts of iron oxides to achieve a color match to the original master batch of each color. This method of blending the foundation shades worked well for me, but for Aromaleigh v.2, it is necessary for me to develop an exact recipe in gram weights for the amount of iron oxide pigments that goes into each formula. For someone who has been blending the shades by eye for a decade, this is a new way for me to work! Hindsight is 20/20 and how I wish I had created each color this way in the first place…
Another aspect of the reformulation process has been to determine which Aromaleigh Mineral Foundation shades, both Voile and Glissade- were the best-selling shades. Some of the most common feedback I’ve received over a decade of offering such a wide range of formulations was that some of the shades were too “intense” in their level of coolness, warmth, etc… As a result, the combination of these shades, for example- 2C or 3C- with Aromaleigh’s Linen (L) range to create colors such as 2CL and 3CL resulted in hybrid shades that were infinitely more wearable.
I’ve exported 100,000 Aromaleigh orders and have been using Excel to create data spreadsheets for both the Voile and Glissade formulas… knowing that the truth about the most wearable and frequently purchased full sized shades could be found in this data.
The results of tabulating the data was very interesting, and was very similar for both Voile and Glissade. Here are some of my findings:
- An average of 24% of customers purchased Level One foundations.
- An average of 40% of customers purchased Level Two foundations.
- An average of 28% of customers purchased Level Three foundations.
- An average of 5% of customers purchased Level Four foundations.
- An average of .5% of customers purchased Level Five foundations.
- An average of 2.5% of customers purchased the extremely pale foundations such as Alabaster (00) of Ghost (pure white)
Within each Level, I also determined what percentage of shades were purchased in full size jars:
Of the 24% of customers who purchased Level One foundations, here is the percentage breakdown which shows the top sellers in each shade. I have marked with an asterisk and bolded the Level One Ivory shades which will be part of the new foundation shade lineup:
- 8% Ivory (1C)
- 17% Ivory (1CL) *
- 3% Ivory (1L)
- 20% Ivory (1N) *
- 2% Ivory (1P)
- 3% Ivory (1PL)
- 10% Ivory (1W) *
- 14% Ivory (1WL) *
- 10% Ivory (1Y) *
- 13% Ivory (1YL) *
Of the 40% of customers who purchased Level Two foundations, here is the percentage breakdown which shows the top sellers in each shade. I have marked with an asterisk and bolded the Level Two Light shades which will be part of the new foundation shade lineup:
- 4% Light (2C)
- 14% Light (2CL) *
- 5% Light (2L)
- 24% Light (2N) *
- 2% Light (2P)
- 4% Light (2PL)
- 10% Light (2W) *
- 14% Light (2WL) *
- 10% Light (2Y) *
- 13% Light (2YL) *
Of the 28% of customers who purchased Level Three foundations, here is the percentage breakdown which shows the top sellers in each shade. I have marked with an asterisk and bolded the Level Three Medium shades which will be part of the new foundation shade lineup:
- 4% Medium (3C)
- 13% Medium (3CL) *
- 5% Medium (3L)
- 22% Medium (3N) *
- .08% Medium (3P)
- 1.2% Medium (3PL)
- 15% Medium (3W) *
- 16% Medium (3WL) *
- 11% Medium (3Y) *
- 13% Medium (3YL) *
Of the remaining 8% of customers, the majority of shades sold were the following: I have marked with an asterisk and bolded the 4 shades which will be part of the new foundation shade lineup. Sales of most Level 4 and Level 5 foundations were of such a small percentage that we are discontinuing them:
- Deep (4N) *
- Deep (4WL) *
- Ghost (Pure White) *
- Alabaster (00) *
Here is a shade chart from Aromaleigh v.1 which shows at a glance which shades will remain, and which will no longer be offered (they have an “X” through them). We will be redoing the shade chart in the new Aromaleigh v.2 swatch style.
We do not have an ETA for when the foundation lines will be complete. Kristen is working on one level at a time. While we realize that many customers are eagerly awaiting the return of the foundations, we will not be able to make them all available at once unless we wait several months for all formulation to be complete.
The foundation range is large, so we will start adding the shade ranges by level as Kristen completes her reformulation and testing of each shade range, starting with the lightest shades first.
Please follow us on Facebook or Twitter to get the most up-to-date announcements of when the shades are made available. (links to our social networking sites can be found
HERE)
We regret that we are not able to provide any definite ETA dates for when certain shades or levels will be available, but we assure you that we are aware that the foundations are the product that Aromaleigh customers want to come back as quickly as possible, and are working very hard towards the goal of making that happen for all of you!
Thank you!
Like this post? Please share it, Thank you!
