Pixi Beauty Skintreats to Launch in Canada
Brit brand Pixi Beauty will be back on Canadian shelves as of January, this time at Shoppers Drug Mart. Although the company’s colour cosmetics were previously stocked at the now-gone Target Canada, SDM will carry not only the makeup but also debut the long-awaited Skintreats range.
Pixi Beauty Glow Tonic, $20, at Shoppers Drug Mart
The line’s most-raved-about product is Glow Tonic, an exfoliating toner made with aloe vera, ginseng and five percent glycolic acid. Four years ago, “it had a very loyal—but small—client base,” recalls Amanda Bell, global colour ambassador for Pixi, which was founded in 1999 as a single store in London, England, by makeup artist Petra Strand. “Back then, Glow Tonic was packaged in very unattractive, bland bottles that looked like hand sanitizer.”
Nevertheless, the product caught the eye of Caroline Hirons—a former Aveda beauty advisor/
aesthetician turned wildly popular blogger who “creates a retail stampede” (so says The Daily Mail) with every product rave. Sure enough, as soon as Caroline wrote about the toner, people from all over the world began emailing and calling Pixi’s London boutique, then the only place to buy it. “It became an overnight sensation,” Bell says. “But at that point, the product was about 15 years old, so it was literally the longest overnight sensation.” The Skintreats line also includes cleansers, moisturizers, serums and more.