Natura, the Brazilian cosmetics and wellness company, announced this week that it is ending its United States operations entirely. The company’s US subscription program closes May 31, and all US operations shut down on June 30, 2026.

The announcement was made directly to US subscribers in a statement that struck a graceful tone. “Bringing the soul and beauty of the Brazilian Amazon into your daily life, especially through our community of subscribers, has been a true honor,” the company wrote. “Together, we shared more than just products; we shared a vision of beauty that creates a positive impact and celebrates the power of relationships.” The company offered subscribers a 65% sitewide discount through May 17 as a farewell.

The exit is not a surprise. It is the final piece of a multi-year strategic retreat from global markets that has fundamentally reshaped one of the direct selling industry’s largest players.

The Unraveling of a Global Ambition

Natura spent the better part of a decade trying to become a global beauty conglomerate. The company acquired The Body Shop in 2017, Avon in 2020, and Aesop in 2012, assembling a portfolio that briefly made it one of the largest direct selling and beauty companies in the world.

That strategy did not hold. Natura divested The Body Shop and Aesop in 2023. Then in December 2025, the company completed the sale of Avon International, covering all of Avon’s operations in Europe, Africa, and Asia, to US investment firm Regent LP for a symbolic consideration of one British pound. Natura separately sold its Avon operations in Russia. The US Natura brand shutdown is the last piece of that global divestiture process.

What remains is a company that has stripped itself back to its original core: the Natura brand across Latin America, plus Avon operations in Latin America, which it retained and is actively relaunching in Brazil and Mexico.

What the Numbers Say

The retreat is rooted in financial reality. Natura’s Q4 2025 sales declined 12.1% to approximately BRL 6.19 billion, driven by a challenging macroeconomic environment in Brazil, currency fluctuations, and temporary integration instability as Natura and Avon merged their Latin American operations in Mexico and Argentina. On a constant currency basis, the decline was 3.4%.

On the profitability side, the picture is more encouraging. Full-year EBITDA margin reached 16% in Q4 and recurring profitability for the full year hit 14.6%, up 130 basis points over the prior year. That tells you the corporate simplification strategy is working operationally even as revenue faces headwinds. A leaner company focused on markets where it has real distribution strength is performing better than the sprawling conglomerate it was attempting to be.

What the US Exit Means for the Industry

Natura’s US business was relatively small in the context of the American direct selling market. The company operated primarily through a subscription model rather than a traditional direct sales force, which meant it never built the kind of deep distributor network that anchors companies like Herbalife, doTERRA, or Nu Skin in the US market.

The closure is less a story about the failure of the US market and more a story about the limits of geographic overexpansion without the infrastructure to sustain it. Natura in Brazil is a genuinely powerful brand with decades of cultural equity, a massive consultant network, and product lines rooted in Brazilian biodiversity. That story traveled reasonably well to neighboring Latin American markets. It did not translate into the kind of competitive advantage that could sustain a premium direct-to-consumer subscription business in the United States against established domestic competitors.

The Broader Pattern

Natura’s exit joins a growing list of direct selling companies that have closed or significantly scaled back US operations in 2025 and 2026. Sipology shut down entirely in April. The US market has become more competitive, more regulated, and more expensive to operate in for companies without a deeply embedded distributor force or a product with genuine domestic demand.

For companies considering US expansion, Natura’s story is instructive. Brand equity does not automatically cross borders. Distribution infrastructure takes years to build. And a subscription model, however elegant, is a different challenge than a direct sales force when it comes to generating the kind of grassroots growth that sustains a business in a market as crowded as US health and beauty.

Natura’s closing message to its US community was genuinely warm, and the brand’s core mission of conscious beauty rooted in Latin American biodiversity remains intact in the markets where it has always mattered most. The US chapter simply never found the footing it needed to last.