In 2025, beauty deals were dramatic and expansive as the industry kept up its momentum despite China’s decline and the uncertainty of US tariffs.
Hailey Bieber’s beauty and skincare brand Rhode was acquired by Elf Beauty for $1 billion in May, and Kering sold Kering Beauté to L’Oréal for €4 billion in October. Among the other significant deals, L’Oréal acquired Color Wow and took a majority stake in Medik8, Ulta snapped up Space NK, Unilever purchased Dr. Squatch, and Rare Beauty Brands acquired Kate Somerville.
“Scale, brand awareness, efficacy and cultural relevance continued to drive attention to the best performing brands from strategic and financial investors alike,” says Marissa Lepor, managing director at investment bank and M&A firm The Sage Group. She notes that key acquisition targets were brands that could show a laser focus on a handful of hero products, and a strong community. “This was a common thread across many of the large transactions in 2025 such as Rhode, Medik8 and Touchland.” (The latter, a buzzy hand sanitizer and body spray brand, was acquired for approximately $880 million by personal care conglomerate Church Dwight in May.)
This year’s deals were less about acquiring the fastest-growing young brands; instead, power players looked to strengthen their portfolios with more strategic acquisitions. “Beauty’s M&A strategy has undergone a fundamental reset in the post-Covid era, and if 2025 proved anything, it’s that the days of chasing every buzzy newcomer — even those with scale and strong growth and profitability — are over,” says Katie Johnson, Americas consumer and health industry leader at EY-Parthenon. “Scale alone is no longer sufficient. Authenticity, brand equity, IP ownership, clinically proven products and strategic fit have become the key drivers of value creation, as companies focus on opportunities that strengthen their ‘power alleys’.”
Here are five themes that emerged out of 2025’s biggest M&A beauty deals.
Rhode plunged further into pop culture with its marketing this year, to great effect. The beauty brand’s campaigns hit popular culture by tapping musician Tate McRae and its first-ever male face, actor Harris Dickinson (following the success of his A24 film Babygirl).
Bieber has become synonymous with creating moments that go viral. In the summer, she set up shop at a beach club in Majorca, Spain with a striking lemon-yellow color palette and the release of a limited-edition lemon-flavored lip tint. On TikTok, the brand quickly hopped onto the trend of fans turning Bieber into a man using AI, by posting similar AI-generated images of its founder but wearing Rhode eye patches. In five days since posting, the post has been seen by 4.5 million users, accumulating 792,000 likes.
“Rhode and Elf Beauty prove that marketing still works when it is both efficient and disciplined. Rhode built a powerful engine with very few SKUs, strong cultural relevance and exceptional repeat rates. Elf Beauty recognized the strength of that model and validated the idea that influence plus operational rigor can scale faster than many expected,” says Caroline Weintraub, VP at True Beauty Ventures.
Sasha Radic, Jefferies managing director of beauty and wellness investment banking, agrees. “Rhode built exceptional brand heat and cultural resonance while spending only about 11% of sales on marketing — a level of efficiency that is increasingly rare in today’s environment,” she explains. “Pairing Rhode’s modern storytelling and community engagement with Elf Beauty’s scale, omnichannel reach and operational speed creates a powerful combination.”
L’Oréal and Kering Beauté’s superalliance demonstrated the power of a name within luxury. The agreement is made up of key factors to accelerate Kering Beauté, such as the rights to enter into a 50-year exclusive license for the creation, development and distribution of fragrance and beauty products for Gucci, commencing after expiration of the current license with Coty, and respecting the Kering Group’s obligations as per the existing license agreement.
Kering is also granting L’Oréal 50-year exclusive licenses for the creation, development and distribution of fragrance and beauty products for Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga. L’Oréal will be paying royalties to Kering for the use of its licensed brands.
“This was a reminder of the power of brand equity at the luxury level,” says Weintraub, referring to L’Oréal’s acquisitions of Color Wow and Medik8 earlier this year. “L’Oréal remains one of the only players with the capital, channel coverage and global infrastructure to operate across every category. This deal highlights their appetite for scale and the likelihood that they continue to shape consolidation in prestige and luxury,” she adds.
The beauty giant spread its influence even further, taking a stake Galderma, the pharmaceutical brand that manufactures injectable aesthetics treatments including Dysport, a Botox competitor. Radic says that L’Oréal’s deals spotlight “strategic value of bringing culturally resonant luxury assets in highly attractive categories and pairing them with the infrastructure required to operate seamlessly across markets and channels”.
How do you expand in such a highly competitive global beauty retail market? For Ulta Beauty, the acquisition of British retailer Space NK for between £300 to £400 million unlocked a new market virtually overnight.
“Ulta Beauty has been expanding in the Middle East and is now entering the UK through Space NK,” says Weintraub. “It is a signal that retailers are not waiting for brand-side innovation; they are buying platforms that give them differentiation, discovery and a clear point of view. This helps Ulta Beauty compete not only with Sephora, but also with Amazon, which continues to gain share. Their latest results reinforce that this strategy is resonating.” (Ulta Beauty raised its full-year sales guidance last week, after outperforming forecasts for the third quarter of fiscal 2025, buoyed by healthy demand for fragrances and skincare, per the company. Net sales totaled $2.5 billion, a 12.9% increase from last year s $2.5 billion.)
“The acquisition of Space NK offers a unique and strategically compelling opportunity to enter the UK market with a successful and growing brand. Along with our initiatives in Mexico and the Middle East, we are creating a broader platform for Ulta Beauty to unlock long-term, profitable growth,” said Kecia Steelman, president and CEO of Ulta Beauty, in a statement.
Radic thinks that Ulta Beauty partnering with Space NK will push the British retailer to international recognition with the former’s loyal customers, data and omnichannel capabilities, making it a mutually beneficial deal.
According to Barclays’s Man in the Mirror report, the male consumer has increased spending by 58.1% within the pharmacy, health and beauty category in the last five years. Men have outpaced women’s spending within the same category, at 45.7% more over the same period. The report adds that 19% of men say they care more about beauty now than they did a decade ago.
Against this backdrop, in June, Unilever scooped up Dr. Squatch, the men’s grooming brand known for its natural soaps, body washes, deodorants, haircare and skin products for $1.5 billion.
“Dr. Squatch shows that grooming remains an attractive category when the product story matches real consumer behavior. Men are meaningful shoppers, and when you offer straightforward formats with a modern voice, they show up,” says Weintraub. “This is not the old thesis of premium men’s skincare, it is a more grounded version that aligns with mass behavior. Unilever validated that there is real purchasing power here and room for continued expansion.”
Clean beauty has somewhat lost its sheen in recent years, partly due to ambiguous definitions and regulatory gaps, which has led to confusion among consumers. However, the appetite for science-backed, results-driven beauty is growing.
In October, Rare Beauty Brands, the parent company of Dr. Dana and Patchology, acquired skincare brand Kate Somerville from Unilever for an undisclosed amount. The brand, which is stocked at Harvey Nichols, John Lewis, Amazon and Liberty, is known for clinical-grade products with targeted ingredients such as salicylic acid that address issues such as acne and/or sensitive skin.
In a statement at the time of the deal, Chris Hobson, president and CEO of Rare Beauty Brands, said that Kate Somerville aligns with the other results-driven brands in its stable: Dr. Dana (its core product is a nail “renewal system” that targets brittle nails) and Patchology (patches that deal with issues such as puffy eyes or dry skin).
Kate Somerville is a good fit, says Weintraub. “This move speaks more to portfolio rationalization and the need for brands to evolve beyond early category positioning. To win over the modern consumer you need emotional resonance, clear authority, and real innovation,” she says.
“The transaction highlights ongoing portfolio reshaping as companies focus on core capabilities and category leadership,” adds Radic. “Kate Somerville sits at that intersection with treatment-led heritage and strong specialty retail credibility. The asset offers a foundation for disciplined expansion while the divestiture allows capital and focus to be redeployed toward higher-priority brands.”
Beauty’s M&A activity shows no signs of slowing. As we head into 2026, will the industry face M&A fatigue?
The risk is that brands, in molding to a new owner, risk diluting their identity. It’s the responsibility of brands and their owners to strike a balance between identity and expansion without losing momentum, says Seb Barbero, SVP of consumer and retail investment banking at EY Capital Advisors. Barbero warns that M&A history has shown high-potential brands “initially gain scale through expanded distribution and marketing support”, but start to lose their spark as their identity is tweaked and resources become homogenous. The way forward for brands, he says, is to preserve the core DNA that resonated with consumers early on while leveraging the resources of a larger platform; that will be the winning formula as we head into the new year.
