innisfree toronto

Popular global beauty brand permanently closing all stores in Canada

Yet another international retail giant is shutting down operations in Canada due to challenges presented by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Innisfree, a wildly popular Korean cosmetics and skincare brand that had only just opened its first Toronto store in 2019, announced the impending demise of its remaining Canadian locations through an Instagram Stories post on Monday.

"When we opened the first Innisfree store in Canada two years ago, our goal was to bring the best and latest K-beauty products to our customers and make them accessible to all," reads the post, as screenshot by Retail Insider.

"While our commitment to quality and serving our community remains the same, circumstances have changed over the past year and we anticipate that the health and safety risks of COVID-19 will be impacting our ability to deliver the right experience for the remainder of 2021 and beyond," the statement continues.

"In that challenging context, we unfortunately had to make the difficult decision to close all Innisfree retail stores in Canada."

The Innisfree stores at the Toronto Eaton Centre and Markham's Markville Mall are already closed, but two others are set to remain open until this Saturday, May 8 at Yorkdale and Scarborough Town Centre.

By "open," of course, I mean exclusively for curbside delivery and pickup. Ontario remains under stay-at-home orders amid a full provincewide shutdown that prohibits indoor shopping at all non-essential stores, and will stay that way until at least May 20.

Essential as some of us may consider the eco-friendly company's green tea seed serum and Jeju volcanic clay masks, the provincial government does not.

And it sucks — for Innisfree, consumers and all of the other brands that have left Toronto since North America's longest lockdown first began.

Fortunately for die-hard brand loyalists, Innisfree says that Canadians will still be able to buy "a select assortment" of its highly touted products at Sephora.

Lead photo by

Innisfree Canada


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