Who’s Winning and Losing in Beauty’s First Half

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1:11Sheena Butler-Young: Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the business of fashion, where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young.

1:25Sheena Butler-Young: Beauty has been one of fashion and luxury's most reliable growth stories in recent years. Fragrance boomed post-pandemic, prestige beauty held up better than many categories, and fast-growing consumer brands like Elf seemed to prove that sharp pricing and marketing could keep customers spending. Last year, an almost inevitable slowdown took hold, even as there were signals of optimism in certain pockets. But the latest earnings season suggests beauty's growth is becoming more uneven. So today, we're taking a look at what these earnings can tell us about the state of the beauty category in the first half of the year.

1:57Sheena Butler-Young: Where is growth still coming from? Where are the cracks showing? And what will investors be watching for next? Joining me today to unpack the figures is BOF senior beauty correspondent, Daniela Morsini. Daniela, welcome to The Debrief. Sheena, it's so good to be back with you. So I want to start with the broader earnings picture. As I sort of described earlier, beauty has been holding down the fort as this sort of recession, COVID-proof sector of fashion and luxury more broadly. Does that still feel true halfway through 2026 as you look through these earnings reports? Does that feel accurate? People are absolutely still spending.

2:37You know, if you go into Sephora or Ulta, it's going to be packed out. You know, there's a lot of dynamism. like people are there's so much content or like TikTok and Instagram like beauty is still very very interesting to a lot of people I think what has continued to evolve since we've come out of the the pandemic is we went through this period where people were so crazy for beauty you could charge pretty much whatever you wanted there's a lot of what we call premiumization people wanted more is more is more it's more they wanted lots of products fragrances skincare everything and I think people are just getting a little bit more selective so I think the desire for newness is still there.

3:10I think it still boosts your mood when you buy a new lipstick or a new perfume and you really like it. But I think as folks get a little bit more selective and also the way that their shopping is changing, like people are much more likely to shop on maybe like TikTok or Amazon or whatever. So the spend is just kind of getting diluted and moved around a little bit.

3:29Sheena Butler-Young: So people are sort of taking a different approach to how they spend, what gets their attention. You know, you mentioned platforms being different. Like maybe it's not always Sephora and Ulta. Maybe it's TikTok shop. Maybe they're initiating a purchase on Instagram. It's a changing picture, but it's not that they're not spending at all. Absolutely. And I think like maybe they're going to be tempted by a Korean beauty brand that they've not tried before, maybe even haven't heard of before, but they've seen it on TikTok shop and it's recommended by somebody that they really like follow and they know and they trust.

4:00Or maybe they are going to get a due. they're like I don't want to pay the full price for this brand I'm going to get the you know the Emco Beauty or like a more of a dupe brand version of it or maybe they're thinking I've been buying a lot of skincare I'm not really seeing the results that I want maybe I'm going to actually hold back my spend a little bit and I'm going to go to the dermatologist and I'm going to have a laser or I'm going to have an injectable so there's just so many more ways to spend one's money when it comes to beauty and I think people are availing themselves of a lot of them.

4:30Sheena Butler-Young: So when you say there's so many more ways to spend one's beauty, there's definitely some themes emerging of what has been the growth engine, right? So even though people aren't spending the same way, they're still spending and there's categories where the spend is more pronounced. What are some of those growth engines? I think what's interesting is what's happened in skincare, right? So I think that coming out of COVID, skincare was one of the hottest categories. You know, everybody, we're all looking at ourselves, our faces on Zoom all day long. And so people start to really think about how their skin looks and all those dermatologists on like TikTok who became influencers overnight.

5:05But then as time has gone on, we've seen that the derm backed skincare brands or the dermatological brands, the more affordable ones have continued to do really well so look at CeraVe for example huge brand L 'Oreal owned but also La Roche-Posay has done really well those brands that hit both results and price are doing super super well and I think that's what a lot of Korean brands do really well we've done some surveys here the business of fashion in partnership with McKinsey before and globally we can say that customers tend to think of Korean made beauty products as superior to the ones made in their own countries with a few exceptions there.

5:41And also a lot of the Korean brands are pretty affordable as well. So I think anything that's like really results back in affordable skincare is doing great. And so as we were saying, you know, it's the lasers and the injectables of it, you know, like AbbVie, they make Botox among other injectables and sort of like plastic surgery things. Their stock price is continuing to rally. So that's interesting. The other really big standout from this earning so far has been hair care. Huge gains for L 'Oreal, big gains for Unilever as well. I think there's a few things going on there. I think that a lot of folks are on GLP-1s and they're noticing some hair loss and some hair shedding.

6:17And so they're paying more attention to their hair. But I also think there's just genuine white space in hair. There's been a lot of newness and innovation, you know, bond repair products and scalp treatment. So there's a lot of exciting things happening.

6:31Sheena Butler-Young: And then there's also some not so exciting things happening across a lot of the big conglomerates. So let's get into some of the earnings results that you've seen so far. So Estee Lauder reported in mid-August. What stood out to you in that report? I think people would describe Estee Lauder in particular being in the midst of a sort of protracted turnaround period. Where do they stand now? So this is the first fiscal year where their new CEO has been in place. And there was a lot to celebrate. You know, when I was on the earnings cool. They played this brand montage and they played this like really upbeat house music and like the vibes were pretty high.

7:08And the stock price reflected that. I think the stock price went up about 17%. You know, they came in above expectations. They raised their profit outlook. And there was a lot of gains in areas where they have historically or in the more recent history been challenged. So like their Chinese business is now doing a bit better. I think the question is, how much has Estee Lauder improved its brand's desirability and how much has it benefited from a rising tide? So like they're doing well in China, but L 'Oreal and Pooja are also doing quite well in China because that consumer is recovering. So Lauder's definitely doing the right things.

7:45You know, they've deprioritized department stores. They've pushed onto Amazon. They've did a big brand refresh for Mac, for example. But it's interesting, you know, like Like their American business has been essentially flat for some time. It did quite well in the last quarter, but for the year, it was kind of flat. And even for the last quarter, if you strip out Amazon Prime Day and kind of how that some of the shipments around that affected things, Barclays estimated that it probably only grew about 2%. So they still have a lot of challenges here at home.

8:13Sheena Butler-Young: The other interesting thing about Lotter to me is you mentioned, you know, the extent which this is a company-specific win and maybe just the tide that lifts all boats kind of moment. Another example of that is probably in fragrance. Fragrance has been doing really well for a long time, but with some waning momentum, maybe signaling in recent months to a year. Another bright spot for Lauder has been Le Labo and Killian Paris. What happens if the slowdown around fragrance, I think it's like a meager slowdown, right? it's modest, but if that takes hold, is that an area where they start to lose if they're not doing anything special enough?

8:54Yeah, it's interesting. They are definitely making the right moves for their fragrance brands, especially La Labo. This is a continually popular brand. They also have the Tom Ford perfumes. They have Frederick Meyer. So they have these really great cult niche brands that people are really quite into and they're expensive as well. You know, these are very pricey perfumes. I think that the difficulty is that fragrance's growth is definitely slowing. And it's the only division within Lauder that it has been able to grow double digits in some time. So I think that makes some analysts a little bit nervous because it's like, okay, well, this category is going to slow down even more.

9:32This growth cannot continue. Are your other categories ready to step in and pick up the slack? Because the hair unit is not doing so well for them. The makeup is not so strong. And they're making all the right noises on the call. You know, they spoke about different innovations that they have, especially in makeup, which can help make up some of the shortfall. But it's a little unclear what will happen when fragrance slows down.

9:52Sheena Butler-Young: Can you give us an update on talks with Pooj? They recently abandoned those talks. What does that tell you about, I don't know how they're thinking about their portfolio, what the shareholder value proposition is right now around M &A for Lotta? Yeah, that was definitely something that was asked on the call, you know, someone said, are you in acquisition mode? And, you know, they have about 3.5 billion in cash on hand. So acquisitions are very possible for them. I think that they're going to be very selective about what they do. What was interesting with the whole Pooj thing is when the news initially came out that the two companies were thinking about pursuing a merger, Pooj's stock went up and Lourdes went down.

10:32And I think that's partly because, you know, Lourdes has been in the midst of this big brand turnaround, a whole company turnaround, I should say. And I think for some investors, it was kind of like, if you're so committed to turning around the company on these pillars that you've outlined, why do you need to go and look outside to find growth? So it was pretty unpopular. Now, I do think that Lauder really has to buy some brands. I think most beauty companies, that's how they are built. It's on strategic acquisitions. Lauder did pick up Forest Essentials, which is an Indian skincare brand, but it has owned the majority of it for a really long time.

11:05So it's kind of neither here nor there, but I think they need to pick up a brand. And I think there's a lot of great brands in market that they could consider adding.

11:12Sheena Butler-Young: On the Pooj bit, I have to ask because their stock went up on that, on the news of those talks, which ultimately fell through. But what did investors think would be the benefit to Pooj? Because it's interesting. It's almost like if you think Lauder is, let's say, not that great of a home, you wouldn't be excited for Pooj to go. You must think that Pooj could benefit from that, right? Yeah, I think Pooj has some of the world's best known and sort of best love fragrance brands, but that is, it is essentially a fragrance company. I think more than 70 % of its revenues come from there. So by joining forces with Lauder, even though Lauder is in the midst of its own turnaround, it would be immediately adding a ton of other categories.

11:53It would be building its presence in other markets. You know, it would be very additive for Pouge overall. Pouge has really been focusing on Charlotte Tilbury, you know, the makeup brand that it has. It also has some skincare brands as well. I think they probably need to think more about diversification. They need to think about adding other categories so they're not so reliant on something, essentially prestige fragrance. That's what they do very well, just as the category is beginning to decelerate. I will say that they are growing a lot in Asia, particularly in China. That's basically all white space for them.

12:24they haven't had a big presence there before. So that's definitely still something they can look to. But in the West, they're going to, you know, it's going to be harder to eke out growth on fragrance alone.

12:31Sheena Butler-Young: So I want to talk about another turnaround story in beauty, which is Shiseido. It has also been attempting to find its way back to a more, I don't know, I guess it's growth, but also profitability maybe is a part of the equation. So its first half operating profit jumped 90%, but on a constant currency basis, revenues were flat. What is the story? Is this say, you know, sales up or is it cost cutting? What are we really seeing here? Shijedo is such an interesting company. I believe that it is the world's oldest beauty company and they're based in Japan. They've had a few issues and a lot of them are really outside of their control.

13:10So it's a Japanese company, but a lot of their business is in China. And there's been kind of geopolitical stuff going on between the two countries that has led to a boycott of Japanese owned brands in China. So they've had some issues there, which is really outside of their control. So for example, their own, like the Shiseido brand had some boycotts. There was kind of a whole host of things going on there, not in the least because China has been recovering, you know, the age has been recovering from the pandemic still. So that's been one thing. Then they've had some issues in the Americas, you know, Drunk Elephant.

13:41I know you've spoken about it on the pod before, was just like such a white hot brand and kind of teens and almost like preteens got really, really into the brand and then they lost their core customer base. So there's been like a few moving pieces, I should say. And a lot of them has been outside of Shiseido's control. I think another thing that's been interesting, and my colleague Brandon did a wonderful story on this recently, was we've been talking about fragrance. Shiseido has a very small percentage of its sales coming from fragrance. Now that might be good in the future when fragrance, you know, if it does slow down more, but for all this time when everyone else has been lifted by fragrance sales, they've kind of had to sit that one out.

14:17Sheena Butler-Young: And there's also L 'Oreal. We've seen strength in Luxe fragrance for them, skincare comeback, growth for hair and makeup. How would you describe L 'Oreal's positioning after looking at the earnings this quarter, or even for the first half, both earnings periods? Where does L 'Oreal fit into the grand equation of winner, loser, somewhere in the middle? I mean, L 'Oreal is always the one to be. It is such, you know, world's biggest BC company. And that's by like a country mile. You know, there is no one who is even really close to them, just the sheer diversity of the brands that they have. And I think that that's something that's always insulated them.

14:53They have, you know, a Garnier product that's like$5. And then they probably have stuff going up to like 500 with some of the really, really premium perfumes that they make. I think one of the things that L 'Oreal does really well, it's a huge company, but it's quite agile. When a trend is coming along, they can get on it pretty quickly. Now, I will say that they've also not really been a meaningful part of the KBC conversation. I believe they have a Korean brand or two. But I think if you look at their growth in hair care, which was one of their biggest growth drivers in the most recent quarter, they've just been really quick to deploy new innovations, things that people are really thinking about.

15:32Like, is my hair thinning a little bit? Should I be using a serum for this? And because they have so many different brands, they can deliver something at pretty much every single price point. Right.

15:41Sheena Butler-Young: And then we have the other example that I mentioned when I was introducing this episode, which is Elf, right? Elf has been an exciting story. I mean, for me personally, probably going back to college and that, you know, that very$1,$3,$2 thing. And it's sort of, it's lost a little bit of, I don't know the explanation, you know better than me, but the real growth story, the real interesting story for Elf is Rode. It's the acquisition of Haley Bieber's brand, right? That's the shining star in the earnings report as well right now. But yeah, buying Rode must feel like the cheapest billion dollars they ever paid in some ways because, yeah, I mean, Rode has led them to, you know, plus 30 % growth in some quarters.

16:25But when, as you say, when you strip that out, the core like Elf Cosmetics brand is not growing a great deal and has been in some cases flat, which is interesting, right? because it's such an affordable brand. And I think people are watching the pennies right now. So you would think that the brand would continue to do really well. I think it's interesting. They pushed through some price increases around the time of the first set of tariffs. They make a lot of their product in China and they sell a lot of it here. So they were kind of first in the firing line. A lot of retailers said, we don't want to take on these price increases.

16:57And so if people can't even take on a dollar price increase, what does that say about the health of your customer. And also their products are so cheap that for some of those products, by increasing it by a dollar, that's like a 20 % price increase. So they've been doing a little bit of price discovery. They've decreased some of the prices. They're keeping some of them the same. But I think ultimately it's been a hard value equation for them to solve to kind of continually get people excited about the core Elf brand. Yeah.

17:23Sheena Butler-Young: And by the way, their first quarter sales were up 36 % year on year. So they're not, it's not paltry over there, but I think to your point, And it is a fascinating story. It doesn't have one clear answer to you. Like earlier you talked about sort of the things that the winners have in common being like this price value equation. That's always been Elle's proposition. But I think there's so many more. This is my beauty take. I think there's so many more brands doing it and probably doing it a little bit better. And I think that one dollar jump for the tariffs, I actually think that that did not work well for them from a communication standpoint.

17:56Sheena Butler-Young: That's just my take. I think a dollar sounds like nothing. But if you're you cost three dollars, people don't just look past that. You did slip in a 20 percent increase on us, you know. I mean, you're right. Like they are still posting growth rates that most beauty companies would be very envious of, like over 30, 36 percent. But when that's basically all concentrated around one brand, that makes investors a little bit nervous because it just can't continue to grow at the rate that it has right now. And as they get closer and closer to like analyzing the acquisition of road, the comparison basis are going to get harder and it's going to become more difficult for them.

18:34Sheena Butler-Young: We'll be back with more of The Debrief right after this.

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19:42Sheena Butler-Young: okay so i want to shift gears on some some of the more positive things happening in beauty at least from where i sit one of my favorite recent uh stories that came out of the business of beauty was around you know this i think it was framed as almost a war between like proper medical prescription drug makers and their hair solutions and then the beauty companies and their hair solutions. Why do you think there's so much momentum in hair right now? You mentioned one thing, which is the GLP-1 mass proliferation of weight loss drugs that have, I think there's scientific evidence, but at least anecdotally, if people are losing weight and maybe it's affecting their hair from a nutrient standpoint.

20:21Hair loss has just become so much more of a hot topic. And I think a lot of stigma has been removed. A lot of people will go through periods in their life where they experience it, whether it's due to rapid weight loss or maybe they're postpartum or deficient in something in their diet. So I think that is more openness now about wanting, especially amongst women, about wanting to seek out solutions to deal with hair loss. But also if it's not like full hair loss, maybe just like hair thinning, irritation of the scalp, or you've over-styled your hair and it doesn't feel the way that it used to.

20:56And I also think that like healthy hair is quite euthifying. Babies and kids always have like the most gorgeous heads of hair. So I think there's a kind of like an anti-aging aspect to it as well. And then I also think that like we have really big expectations for our hair now, just like we do for our skin. You go on social media and you see people with like gorgeous hair, like whatever the style or the color or the cut that they might have. So I think there is an expectation now about good hair being kind of a bit of a wealth signifier, a bit of a youth signifier. And I think that brands like k18 and olaplex that really made bond repair into like a mainstream conversation that has increased what we expect hair products to do for us because that was like a pretty it seemed like a miracle product at the time i think premium like shampoos and conditioners are it's a bit of a hard sell because it's like you wash it down the drain right like it's hard to get people to to buy that but you know treatments sprays you know in salon treatments There's just so much newness that's coming out that's really quite exciting and appealing to people.

22:00Sheena Butler-Young: The other interesting story where some of the excitement is happening, or a lot of it is happening, as you said earlier, is K-Beauty, right? You call out two companies in your story, Amore Pacific and APR, which both posted 50 % growth, driven by North America, but also Europe. And their expansion notably is happening via Amazon, TikTok Shop, and also Sephora. I wanted to ask you sort of your you're on the ground with this, your update on a conversation we had earlier this year on the debrief, which is that a lot of the momentum around K-Beauty's arrival in North America did not live up to the hype, in some people's opinion.

22:37Sheena Butler-Young: One reason being that the brick and mortar opportunity didn't seem to be realized to the extent that people thought it would be. What's working in K-Beauty and where are the deficits? Yeah, that 50 % like profit growth for both of those companies is really exceptional. And I think APR, which owns MediCube, I'm sure you've seen them like all over social media, they grew more than like 100%, you know, continue as they continue to like push into Europe and other countries in the West. I think that the way that these Korean companies operate their brands is really, really different because they will launch a brand and they will do a bit of testing and they'll see how it's performing.

23:13If it's not performing very well, they'll just cut it. They won't try and like sink more time and money into effort into it. So it's a little bit survival of the fittest and only the strongest brands stand out. And I think also like, I don't know if you've tried a lot of Korean products, but there's some really cool innovations. There's like, MediCube has this serum that has these little spicules in it, which are like, it's like a gel, but then it has like these teeny tiny things that kind of like almost pierce the surface of the skin a little to deliver the product. And there's cushion compacts and sheet masks.

23:41So there's like real innovation and fun and play, but it just seems really digitally native. It doesn't seem so far. I mean, I will say there is a store called Sokoshi that is really taking over the US right now. It's a Canadian retailer of Asian beauty products. They're getting lines out the door, but that's because their assortment is really good. But people are buying this stuff on Amazon and TikTok. Like, I don't think they need to go into a department store or something to get it.

24:05Sheena Butler-Young: Well, the last thing that I want to get into that I think your coverage recently, you know, post-earnings, mid-earnings, first half of the year, is this idea that a lot of companies in beauty, I think it's a tale as old as time. You have that hero, the thing that people always come back for, and you might become compelled to over-rely on that. What are you seeing in terms of brands paying the price for maybe having a big hero that in a certain season or for a while underperforms? It's so interesting because you have these brands, and they are such mega brands, and it can feel like too big to fail.

24:41And then when there is deceleration, it can be a real issue. I mean, think about Beyerstorf. This is a German company. Nivea is their biggest brand and it's their biggest brand by like a long shot. And to be clear, this is still like a billion dollar, like this is a huge, huge brand, but it started to slow down a little bit to the point where they've had to actually like take their forecast, take their outlook down a little bit because it's not growing at the same rate that it was. That's partly because they tried to push through some pretty aggressive price increases and retailers didn't like it.

25:11They also did some launches. Not all of them really resonates with people. They're a little too premium. And we see this at Shiseido as well. Like the eponymous, like the Shiseido brand is kind of slowing down a little bit. And I think it just goes to show that you have to really stay on guard. It doesn't matter just how enormous a brand is, how well distributed it is. That can almost become a problem because you become so reliant on it. And it's just, you know, these really established brands, you know, Elf, for example, let's come back to Elf Beauty. We can't expect that to grow at the same rate as a road.

25:41It's just not possible at that size and that scale. And that's why it always comes back to M &A. It's why these companies keep buying more and more and more because at a certain point you have to you have to buy the growth.

25:52Sheena Butler-Young: So we have themes for losers and winners. And I'm going to I'm going to find a better word for losers for the for the sake of conversation. The big themes for what's making beauty conglomerates more resilient, some of the independent brands more resilient, and the things that are maybe going against them, the headwinds. As we go to the second half of the year, what do you think, if you had to make a prediction, what do you think the headline at the end of the second half is going to be? If right now it's, you know, winning means price value equation. It means some excitement around hair, K-beauty, fragrance cooling, but not cooled off.

26:34Sheena Butler-Young: What do you say we're going to be saying in six months? I feel like I want to do one of those disclaimers like they do at the start of earnings calls where they're like forward looking statements made. Safe harbor agreement. Yeah, we'll put up like a little ticker tape being like not investment advice. I think that, I think, you know, we've been banging this drum for a long time, but I think price and value just continue to be really big concerns for a lot of people. And to be clear, especially in the US, there are a lot of folks with absolutely zero price sensitivity whatsoever. There has been enormous wealth creation that's been happening concentrated around the tech industries.

27:10But for a lot of people, for that aspirational customer, for the excessively price customer, things are a lot harder and they need to have a really good reason to buy your product, to not buy the dupe, to buy it when it's not necessarily on promotion, to buy it at full price. There's so many more ways to shop around for products. But when something, when a brand really identifies a white space and they know who their customer is, people are actually quite happy to spend, you know? So I think the companies that can really, really innovate, especially in skin and especially in hair are going to do quite well.

27:45I think fragrance will continue to grow and there'll be a lot of excitement around it. I personally am a big makeup girly. I love makeup and I would like to see more dynamism in makeup. Lauda have said that it's a really big priority for them to gain more speed in makeup. It's just really difficult. The other thing that everyone is kind of fighting over right now is the US. Even with kind of like more macroeconomic concerns going on here it's still the biggest market it's the one to win we see british brands moving into the us we see korean brands moving in we see the american brands all fighting with each other to get the biggest market share and to figure out wait how much should we be on amazon should we be on tiktok shop like should we do this pop-up like there's so much going on here and there's a lot of essentially duking it out for the top spot absolutely well i will take all of your makeup

28:32Sheena Butler-Young: recommendations. I too am a makeup girly and also a fragrance girly and also a hair girly, all the things. It's always so much fun to have you on and to catch up, Danielle. Thank you so much for joining. A pleasure. Thanks, Sheila. Let's go shopping sometime. Yeah. Please be sure to check out Danielle's reporting on the latest earnings and all things beauty at businessoffashion.com. These and other stories are available to BOF professional subscribers only and you can find the links in the episode notes. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies and Angel Nemov.

29:06Sheena Butler-Young: I'm Sheena Butler-Young. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

29:36Sheena Butler-Young: www.bastwestern.com

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