Olaplex’s financial woes continued into the primary quarter.

Net sales on the beleaguered hair care company fell 13.1 percent to $98.9 million within the quarter ending March 31.

By channel, sales within the skilled channel fell 19.9 percent to $38.7 million; specialty retail slid 1.2 percent to $34.4 million, and direct-to-consumer dropped 15.7 percent to $25.7 million. Within the U.S., sales rose 2.5 percent, while the international business slid 24.3 percent.

Net income plummeted 63.1 percent and adjusted net income decreased 34.4 percent. Diluted earnings per share fell to 1 cent, while adjusted diluted EPS dropped to three cents.

Olaplex is maintaining its guidance for fiscal 2024, anticipating between $435 million and $463 million in net sales. 

The corporate’s share price increased 17.14 percent to $1.64 at market close.

Olaplex chief executive officer Amanda Baldwin said on a call with Wall Street analysts Thursday that 2024 is “a yr geared toward delivering stabilization within the business.” 

“We reported net sales barely above the high end of our guidance range, driven by sooner than expected time of shipments in our specialty retail channel,” she said.

Baldwin added that 4 of the five top-selling hair care products within the prestige market within the U.S. were from Olaplex for the primary quarter, per Circana data. Along with specializing in product development, Baldwin said to expect a recent campaign specializing in the brand’s core stock keeping units.

Eric Tiziani, the corporate’s chief financial officer — who’s departing the corporate, effective Friday — attributed a number of the declines to distributor rationalization. “We’ve benefited from a weaker prior-year net sales comparator because of certain inventory rebalancing in [the first quarter] of 2023,” Tiziani said. “This was partially offset by a negative net sales impact in [first-quarter] 2024 related to our previously announced decision to rationalize our business with certain skilled distributors.”

Paul Kosturos will probably be stepping in as interim CFO following Tiziani’s departure.

Olaplex’s direct-to-consumer business was negatively impacted by the timing and phasing of shipments, “greater than offsetting strong performance from olaplex.com, which grew year-over-year for the fourth consecutive quarter,” he said.

The declines at Olaplex got here because the prestige hair care category gains steam. In 2023, prestige hair care grew 14 percent within the U.S. Olaplex was once the category’s darling, with growing sales culminating in an initial public offering that valued the corporate at $16 billion in 2021. Since then, increased competition, amongst other aspects, has whittled away on the brand’s success.