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The Sun
a few seconds ago
- The Sun
Beloved British skincare brand is vanishing from shelves TODAY as consumer giant pulls plug after quarter of a century
A POPULAR British skincare brand is shutting down today, after 25 years in business leaving fans devastated. The company, which was purchased by Unilever in 2015, is closing down after its parent company cited "internal factors and market challenges". BUY IT NOW Announcing the closure via an Instagram post on June 23, REN Skincare, which launched in 2000, said: "We will soon be closing our doors.... "Born in London in 2000, we've been proud to put clean skincare on the agenda, creating positive change for out people and planet. "We thank you, our community for your support over the years. "You can still shop with us over at until 31st July 2025." Customers devastated The post was flooded with comments from gutted fans, sad to see the skincare brand go. One person said: "I'm actually gutted. The AHA daily glow tonic is my holy grail!" A second person said: "I'm so gutted. REN products have left my skin in better condition than any product I have ever used and they are a dream to use." A third said: "Devastated. My go to skincare brand for the last 15 years. "Never once had a reaction to any REN products and loved that they are animal cruelty free." Ahead of the closure, REN, which is stocked in Boots, launched a huge 50% off sale, and customers can still grab bargains until 23:59pm tonight. British skincare brand sold in Boots launches 50% off sale as it prepares to close down this month Among the deals on offer, customers can nab the Radiance Brightening Dark Circle Eye Cream for £24.50 down from £49 and the Evercalm Global Protection Cream for £42, down from £29.40. Pioneering brand The pioneering brand which was ahead of the 'clean beauty' trend was founded by Rob Calcraft and Anthony Buck in 2000. Some of its prestigious products, such as Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Toner (£30,) and the Evercalm range (£75), developed a cult following. Its innovative approach to skincare attracted the attention of Unilver's prestige Brand director, Vasiliki Petrou. Biggest skincare trends for 2025 Face The Future's Head of Clinic, Kimberley Medd, shared the five skincare trends predicted to take off in 2025. 1. Exosomes Exosomes are the buzzword for 2025, taking advanced skin regeneration to new heights. These micro-messengers signal skin cells to repair damage, boost collagen, and accelerate recovery, and they're a gamechanger for targeting ageing. 2. Streamlined Skincare The age of 12-step routines is fading as consumers shift to more intentional, multi-functional products. Streamlining skincare not only saves time but also reduces the risk of overloading your skin. In 2025, we'll see a rise in hybrid products that combine active ingredients for simplified, effective results. 3. Vegan Collagen Plant-based collagen will dominate the skincare world this year, providing a sustainable, ethical alternative to traditional animal-derived collagen. Expect vegan collagen in everything from moisturisers to serums. 4. The Rise Of AI AI is revolutionising the beauty landscape, making it possible for consumers to get truly personalised skincare solutions. In 2025, we predict a dramatic shift towards AI-powered tools that help people understand their skin on a deeper level. 5. Hair Loss Solutions - Hair loss is an issue that affects more men than we often realise, and it's no longer just something we're talking about behind closed doors. This year, expect to see a continued rise in demand for treatments that not only tackle hair loss but also nurture overall scalp health. Unilever bought the company for an undisclosed amount in 2015. Under Petrou's mentorship, the 2023 turnover ballooned to £1.2bn. However, last year she left the department, and almost immediately, profits started to dip. After she left, REN reduced the number of its skincare products by a third in an attempt to 'modernise' and crack the US market. But just last August, trouble was in the works as the division reported 'muted' profits. Under Petrou Unilever's Prestige department also gobbled up other clean beauty brands such as Dermalogica and Kate Somerville, which are currently still available.
Telegraph
a few seconds ago
- Telegraph
Next rescues maternity brand favoured by Princess of Wales
Next has rescued a maternity brand favoured by the Princess of Wales weeks after the ailing firm crashed into administration. The British retail giant has paid £600,000 for the Seraphine brand and intellectual property. The maternity wear company's founder Cécile Reinaud will return as an adviser, having stepped down from the business in 2021. Next said the deal signalled 'a new chapter for the heritage British brand'. The company's clothes were worn by the Princess of Wales in 2013 for the first official family portrait following the birth of Prince George. Ms Reinaud said: 'I'm very happy to see Seraphine find a new home with Next, a British brand with so much heritage and customer trust that resonates with millions of women and families. 'This new ownership feels like a good fit and I believe Seraphine will thrive again.' Just weeks ago, the company was forced to make the majority of its 95 employees redundant after collapsing into administration after failing to find a buyer for the whole business. Ms Reinaud had been critical of the stewardship of the business by private equity firm Mayfair Equity Partners, which she sold the business to. Writing on LinkedIn earlier this year, after Seraphine launched a new logo, she said: 'My original vision was to create clothes you'd want to wear even if you weren't pregnant. That guiding principle seems to have vanished now. 'Seraphine was once a proud example of British fashion entrepreneurship, recipient of two Queen's Awards: now, it seems to have lost its recognisable identity.' Mayfair defended the rebrand at the time as 'a hugely exciting moment for Seraphine, with the unveiling of its enhanced website and refreshed brand identity that incorporated consumer desire for a modernised look and feel.' Seraphine listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 with a value of £150m. However, it suffered a string of profit warnings and Mayfair Equity took it off the stock market in 2023. At that point, it was worth £15.3m. The company made an operating loss of £13m on revenues of £42m during its latest financial year. It then called in administrators at Interpath on July 7. Will Wright, the company's joint administrator, said: 'Unfortunately, the strong economic headwinds that have been impacting a number of the UK's high street and online retailers, including rising costs and brittle consumer confidence, have proved too challenging to overcome.'
Geeky Gadgets
29 minutes ago
- Geeky Gadgets
Why the AI Boom Won't End Like the Dotcom Bubble
Twenty-five years ago, the dotcom bubble popped, wiping out trillions in market value and transforming Silicon Valley's swagger into soul-searching. Overnight. It was a cautionary tale of hype outrunning the reality of startups with no viable product or revenue model securing millions in funding, simply for having a '.com' at the end of their name. Fast forward to now, and artificial intelligence is entering its own white-hot phase. Valuations are soaring, and the tech giants are all-in, pouring massive resources into model training, infrastructure, and product integration. At the same time, governments and regulators are scrambling to understand the implications, while the public is still trying to figure out whether this new wave is a friend or a threat. The buzzwords have changed, but the emotional arc feels familiar: euphoria, urgency, and fear of missing out. Many would rightfully assume the AI bubble might pop as well, but this time it's different because AI is different from everything that has happened before. When Decades Happen in Years The first critical difference from the dotcom era concerns the deceptive nature of technological adoption curves. Today's AI explosion might feel like it came out of nowhere. But that's an illusion. Much like the internet, which had been quietly evolving since the 1970s before hitting its stride in the '90s, AI is the product of decades of incremental progress. Machine learning breakthroughs have been in motion for years. What changed was the spark. Models like ChatGPT caught fire, and suddenly the world noticed. In contrast to the dial-up days of the internet, where it took years to gain user traction, AI adoption has moved at breakneck speed. ChatGPT hit 100 million users within two months. That kind of scale was unheard of in the early internet. But fast adoption doesn't mean mature technology. Hype can build far faster than infrastructure or regulation can keep up. The lesson here isn't that rapid adoption is inherently dangerous, but that we must prepare for consequences at an unprecedented scale and speed. The internet's gradual integration allowed for course corrections and adaptive learning. AI's explosive growth demands proactive rather than reactive strategies, as the window for adjustment may close rapidly once certain technological and social tipping points are crossed. Regulators Can No Longer Watch From the Sidelines The second crucial difference involves the delicate dance between innovation and regulation. During the rise of the internet, regulators largely took a hands-off approach. It was a different time. The web was experimental, slow-moving, and misunderstood. Lawmakers could afford to 'wait and see.' That luxury doesn't exist with AI. The speed and potential scale of AI, especially with discussions around job automation, misinformation, and existential risk, have thrown governments into reactive mode. There's pressure to regulate quickly, but without clear direction, that regulation risks being either toothless or overly restrictive. The internet era suggests that effective AI regulation must be both swift and strategic, identifying critical intervention points while preserving space for beneficial innovation. This requires unprecedented cooperation between technologists, policymakers, and society at large to navigate competing priorities and unknown risks. The Hype Cycle's Inevitable Correction? Not With AI The 1990s internet boom was driven by the mantra 'the Internet will change everything,' with valuations completely disconnected from financial fundamentals. This belief proved accurate in the long term. The internet did transform virtually every aspect of human society. However, the timeline and mechanisms differed dramatically from initial expectations. When the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, corrections were swift and brutal. Companies valued in billions evaporated overnight, leading many to conclude that internet technologies were merely speculative fads. The market correction was so severe it obscured the underlying technological revolution continuing beneath the financial turbulence. The post-bubble shakeout ultimately strengthened the internet ecosystem by eliminating companies with unsustainable business models while allowing genuinely innovative organizations to consolidate. Google and Amazon survived the correction and emerged stronger, eventually justifying even the bubble era's most optimistic valuations. Today's AI boom exhibits remarkably similar characteristics but here's the main difference. Today's AI boom is rooted in technologies that are already embedded in daily life and scaling rapidly across industries. While investment enthusiasm has inflated some valuations, the core capabilities like natural language processing, generative tools, and autonomous agents are not speculative ideas. Even if the market cools, AI isn't going to vanish or retrench the way many dotcom startups did. Its momentum is structural, not hype-driven. When Giants Control the Future The fifth difference is perhaps the largest one. During the internet's early years, established corporations dismissed the technology's potential. Companies like General Electric and AT&T experimented with online strategies but remained skeptical about broad appeal. This corporate hesitation created extraordinary opportunities for startups to establish themselves as industry leaders. Today's AI world presents a starkly different competitive environment. Rather than dismissing the technology, the world's largest tech companies have committed massive resources to AI development. Unlike the internet's distributed development model, AI advancement increasingly depends on resources that only the largest companies can marshal: vast datasets, specialized computing infrastructure, and teams of highly skilled researchers. This concentration extends beyond competitive concerns to fundamental questions about technological governance. When a handful of companies control the development of potentially transformative AI capabilities, their decisions about safety protocols, ethical guidelines, and deployment strategies effectively shape society's AI future. Unlike previous technological revolutions, where market forces naturally distributed control, AI's resource intensity may naturally consolidate power among existing tech giants. Approaching the Point of No Return AI possesses unique characteristics that could make its trajectory irreversible once certain thresholds are crossed. Take seemingly simple consumer-facing services like AI companions. Candy AI, Replika, Nomi, and Lovescape are just some of the dozens of companies offering increasingly humanlike companionship through large language models, hint at just how quickly emotional and behavioral dependencies on AI systems are forming. Future AI systems may develop capabilities that enable them to improve themselves recursively, creating feedback loops that accelerate development beyond human ability to control or redirect. This potential for technological autonomy distinguishes AI from previous innovations like the internet, which remained fundamentally tools under human direction. While the internet transformed how we communicate, work, and think, humans retained ultimate authority over its development and application. AI systems with sufficient sophistication could potentially assume roles in their own advancement, creating scenarios where human preferences become secondary to algorithmic optimization processes. The internet boom's gradual development allowed for course corrections and adaptive learning throughout the process. If AI development accelerates beyond human oversight capabilities, opportunities for similar adjustments may disappear rapidly. This doesn't suggest AI development should be halted, but decisions made during this critical period will have lasting consequences that extend far beyond typical business cycles. What Happens if AGI Arrives Soon? There's another major difference between the AI gold rush and anything that preceded it. And that's the possibility of AGI's arrival. During the Dotcom era, there was only one internet. There was no possibility that a new, better Internet could make the old one obsolete overnight. With AI however, this is a very realistic scenario. Should Artificial General Intelligence emerge in the next few years, as industry leaders increasingly suggest, we would witness disruption that dwarfs the dotcom revolution in both speed and scope. While the internet bubble taught us about hype cycles and gradual adoption, AGI's arrival would compress decades of transformation into months. The economic shock would make the 2000 market crash seem like a minor correction. The dotcom bubble primarily affected tech stocks and speculative investments, leaving most traditional industries largely intact. AGI would simultaneously threaten every knowledge-based profession, potentially eliminating entire career paths overnight. Unlike the internet, which created new job categories as it destroyed others, AGI could replace human cognitive work entirely, offering no clear pathway for displaced workers to retrain. The concentration risks identified from the dotcom era would become existential threats. During the internet boom, companies like AOL and Yahoo could emerge from nowhere to challenge established players. With AGI, the first organization to achieve breakthrough capabilities could establish permanent dominance. The winner-takes-all dynamics would be absolute. There's no competing with superhuman intelligence using conventional methods. Most critically, AGI eliminates the gradual adoption curve that allowed society to adapt during the internet revolution. The dotcom bubble eventually corrected, but underlying internet technology continued advancing. With AGI, there may be no second chances. The first deployment could fundamentally alter the trajectory of human civilization. Unlike the internet's democratizing potential, AGI could concentrate power so completely that traditional market corrections become impossible. The dotcom bubble showed how quickly hype can outrun substance, and how painful the correction can be. But it also proved that real innovation survives and reshapes the world over time. AI may follow a similar pattern, but the scale is different. The pace is faster, the concentration of power greater, and the risks more profound. The AI truly is a point of no return. And while we can't predict the exact outcome, we can recognize that it's like nothing before. Filed Under: AI, Gadgets News, Technology News Latest Geeky Gadgets Deals Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.
