Shares of The Beauty Health Company (NASDAQ:SKIN) were launched higher in Tuesday’s after-hours trading, fueled by better-than-expected Q4 results that overshadowed a loss for the latest quarter and downbeat guidance for Q1 and 2024.

SKIN was up 21% which would be a 5-month high during the regular session.

“To close 2023, we delivered fourth quarter financial results consistent with the expectations we outlined on our last earnings call,” said newly appointed CEO Marla Beck.

The company reported a loss of $0.07 per share versus a profit of $0.05 in the same quarter last year, on a 1.3% decline in sales to $96.8M. Both were better than expectations for a loss of $0.10 per share on $87.6M in revenue.

The company’s adjusted gross profit narrowed to 52.8% from 72.2% year-over-year while the adjusted gross margin narrowed to 54.6% from 73.6% year-over-year.

Regionally, sales were down 8.4% in the Americas, up 17.6% in APAC, and up 8.6% in EMEA.

Due to share repurchases made during Q3 and Q4, cash and cash equivalents dropped 8% to $523M. Inventories were down 16.7% at the end of the year.

For Q1, the company is projecting sales to be between $77M and $83M, shy of estimates for $85.5M in sales. Adjusted EBITDA to be between ($6M) and ($9M). The Beauty Health Company cautions that Q1 is their seasonally slowest quarter of the year.

For the full year, sales are expected to be flat to up by a low single digit percentage and adjusted EBITDA of $40M. In 2023, sales were $398M. The Street consensus is for 2024 sales of $411.7M.