Beauty Business News May 2025

AI is not your friend if you live in Illinois...

I know – I never quite got to it in April – so here we are. In some ways, it’s a good job I waited because a) REN and b) SpaceNK, and I’ll start with the latter.

I know – I never quite got to it in April – so here we are. In some ways, it’s a good job I waited because a) REN and b) SpaceNK, and I’ll start with the latter. Back in June 2024, SpaceNK sold its wholesale arm in the US to PCA Companies which started rumours of a possible sale. This said, SpaceNK has, in theory, been for sale for years – it’s just been too expensive and not quite seamless enough not to feel like a risk (a sale was last seriously mooted in 2018). It’s owned by Manzanita Capital (Nicky Kinnaird sold the majority of the business to them in 2007) who also own Malin + Goetz, Diptyque and Susanne Kaufmann. Prospective buyers are asked to empty their pockets to the tune of £300million +++. Personally, I think HUT has been chasing Space for years – in the meantime they bought Cult Beauty – and I wonder if Unilever, having recently decided to shutter REN will make a bid (Unilever Ventures were listed as 3^rd most active beauty investors last year). My feeling is that bids will come from Puig or L’Oreal – it’s that level of sale.

You may not have heard of US skin care brand, Futurewise, because it came and went in a flash if we apply beauty-time. The brand leveraged social media when ‘slugging’ was a thing (is it still a thing? Nobody cares) in 2022 and got shelf space in Target, CVS and Urban Outfitters. This year, it shuttered. Lasting a mere three years, Futurewise is such a good example of a ‘kiss & fly’ beauty brand that can only last as long as any given fad does. I’m sure they made plenty of money and got out while the going was good. What is interesting to me is that the founders are the same founders as spot patch brand, Starface, and as we know, because the kids are wearing them out and about, spot stickers are very much on trend. It looks like the founders are making kiss & fly beauty their niche – previously, they founded a personal care brand called Plus – now gone. For those of you (us) who don’t consume beauty on channels such as TikTok, it’s easy as anything to go viral, sell millions and then shut up shop and create another kiss and fly viral brand.

Just when you thought you could put the memories of Jessica Simpson’s Dessert Beauty brand to bed (edible beauty products – her partner liked to lick them off her body apparently - products included Whipped Body with Cream (with candy sprinkles obvs) and Kissable Sugar Shimmer Powder Banana Split, along comes Amorecco Lickable Perfume. When I clicked on the website, it offered me a licking scene that made me heave momentarily but apparently the Vanilla and Coconut blend is made to be sprayed, tasted and devoured. If it’s your thing, it’s your thing! It’s just not my thing.

Oh dear. Things aren’t good at fragrance and candle brand, Boy Smells. One of the big appeals of Boy Smells was that it was gender neutral – something that matters particularly in the queer space, if the comments on their Instagram are anything to go by. Now, it’s ‘genderful’. I loved Boy Smells as it was – quirky, with cool names and daring fragrances (Citrush was supposed to smell like poppers) Suede Pony, Marble Fruit and Les, for example. 2020 was a big growth curve for the brand thanks to the pandemic and uptick in home fragrancing. However, by 2024, things were not looking so good and the brand was taken over by a group of investors who are now taking Boy Smells to a new level. You can decide whether it’s levelling up or down. The new fragrances are called Coco Cream, Rosy Cheeks, and Sugar Baby and if that is not destined for Gen Z at Sephora, I don’t know what is. In full confession, I love the sound of Coco Cream – coconut milk, tiare and tonka bean. There is a vestige of cheekiness left with the Hard Wood candle. Time will tell if it’s a win or not.

Coty is axing 700 jobs globally – a full 5% of their workforce. I honestly don’t have it in me to bring you the absolute waffle of how they’re justifying this ‘All In To Win’ strategy but surely, surely, the irony of the brand reboot being titled All In To Win is not lost on them given a key component is booting people out. They’re calling it streamlining in press releases.

There’s nothing good coming out of The Estee Lauder Companies either with a 10% decline in net sales (for the third quarter of fiscal 2025). It’s interesting to see which brands are responsible for the decline and for this I have Global Cosmetic News to thank for breaking it down: Skin care sales down by 11% (reduction in orders from travel retail in Asia and a slow down in sales from Estee Lauder and La Mer). Make Up down 7% - MAC and Estee Lauder to blame here (remember the reshuffle dramas from February’s BBN), a small decline from Jo Malone and Clinique (1%) offset by Le Labo which grew. Poor results from Aveda have led to a drop in hair care sales of 10%.

We have a London branch of French beauty retailer, Oh My Cream, but as yet, it isn’t very present in the UK. However, they are set on expansion and as part of that, they’ve just bought UK based e-commerce site Naturismo. I’m going to make a guess that they’ve bought it for the e-tail infrastructure ready and waiting – the Naturismo site will redirect to Oh My Cream from May 19^th. Like Naturismo, Oh My Cream focuses on – I’m going to say ‘clean’ – products but will feature Victoria Beckham Beauty, BioEffect, VioletFR and Augustinus Bader – so my feeling is they have a wider understanding of the term clean than Naturismo did. Anyway, it looks fabulous and I’m going to make a point of going to one of the three London based branches that are open to date.

With the briefest mention of Boots new own-brand supplements, Modern Chemistry, launching in July this year, I’m going on to class actions. In the spotlight is Living Proof, whose online hair quiz ‘secretly and unlawfully’ captured facial geometrics (unlawful in Illinois, where the lawsuit is presented). They absolutely should be concerned about this, because when Charlotte Tilbury was accused of the same facial geometric capturing through digital beauty technology (such as Pro Skin Analysis and Foundation Finder), they recently agreed to pay $2,925,000. Ouch. Finally, e.l.f. in hot class action water for allegedly misleading consumers by selling Holy Hydration exfoliator and Glossy Lip Stain in over sized containers that are half empty. This is commonly known as ‘slack fill’ where a product looks far more generous than it actually is. We’ve all had them – you open the lid and there’s not nearly the amount we were expecting even though the weight is legally required on the labelling. 30ml and 50ml can look very small amounts indeed.

It looks like Tiffany Masterton, founder of Drunk Elephant, is ‘stepping down’ from her role at Shiseido who bought the brand in 2019. Tiffany stayed on at Drunk Elephant as Chief Creative Officer. Ron Gee, Shiseido America CEO, left a month ago and is rumoured to be responsible for recent woes such as stock problems, what Puckdotnews refers to as off-brand messaging and declining sales, so exactly what tipped Tiffany over the edge is unknown. Shiseido bought Drunk Elephant for around about the $850 million - not bad for a seven year old brand. While Tiffany certainly had her share of controversies, I hope she skipped out of that office door and took herself straight to 5th Avenue in a limo.