Battling fierce competition from L’Oréal, Procter & Gamble and Coty, Cosnova has built Essence and Catrice into makeup powerhouses worldwide by pairing accessible pricing with trend relevance and product franchise architecture, securing a top-six global position in cosmetics by value and establishing Essence as Europe’s bestselling makeup brand.
Now, it’s stepping out of the makeup aisle to take on skincare. Last month, Sulzbach-based Cosnova, founded 25 years ago by married couple Christina Oster-Daum and Javier González, announced its first acquisition of Spanish direct-to-consumer skincare business Niche Beauty Lab, known for approachable, ingredient-driven products. Niche Beauty Lab operates three core skincare brands—Acnemy, Transparent Lab and Theramid—under its science-backed umbrella.
“From the beginning, they offered really fantastic formulas at affordable prices. That is a big strength and an opportunity for us to leverage broader than it is done at the moment,” says Oster-Daum, who worked at Coty, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé and Wella prior to Cosnova. “They just started to be present offline in brick-and-mortar less than one year ago. So, there is a huge chance to focus on not only DTC, but also on brick-and-mortar offline distribution.”
Cosnova is preserving Niche Beauty Lab, which generated $60 million in sales last year, and its roughly 45 employees. It’s turning the business’s headquarters in Canet de Mar, near Barcelona, into a skincare hub to serve as a center for innovation.
Cosnova’s decision to push into skincare via an acquisition is as much about risk management as growth. With almost $1.2 billion in 2025 sales, up 4% from the prior year, the company’s concentration in two color cosmetics brands started, to Oster-Daum, to feel “like standing on one foot.”
Today, skincare constitutes about 5% of Cosnova’s business, and it’s highly concentrated in European countries like Spain and Germany. Oster-Daum doesn’t put a strict percentage on how much skincare could eventually contribute to Cosnova’s business, but she’s confident it could at least double its current size.
“Over the next one or two years, we will be able to figure out how big the potential is,” she says. “It should be a much bigger part of Cosnova so that we can solidly stand on two feet.”
Niche Beauty Lab sits in a field of affordably priced, ingredient-driven brands that have demonstrated wide consumer appeal and distribution reach. Brands in it include The Inkey List, The Ordinary and Minimalist, an Indian brand acquired by Unilever that recently launched at Target. In Estée Lauder’s second quarter of fiscal 2026, ended Dec. 31 last year, The Ordinary helped contribute to a 6% increase in skincare sales. Estée Lauder characterizes The Ordinary as one of its scaling brands, and its net sales are estimated to be around $1 billion.
Cosnova spent the last two to three years actively searching for a skincare brand to plug into its portfolio. With that search over, it doesn’t expect to acquire another brand in the immediate future. Oster-Daum says, “If something fantastic came along, it would be hard to say no, but rationally speaking, this is our first integration process—culturally and operationally—so ideally we would not pursue another acquisition in the next two years.”
“Being family-owned is a big advantage.”
Looking ahead to 2026, Oster-Daum projects “very good single-digit” sales growth for Cosnova. Beyond skincare, the company is expanding geographically and deepening its retail presence. The company has entered India through a partnership with Reliance Industries, marking its move into one of the world’s most coveted consumer markets. In the United States, Essence is rolling out to roughly 500 Walmart doors, expanding a retail footprint that already encompasses CVS, Ulta, Target and Amazon.
The United Kingdom is a strategic focus, too. Essence and Catrice have been picked up by Primark with prominent in-store visibility and are available online at Boots, with initial offline distribution underway. The company has a local subsidiary to strengthen execution in what it views as a high-potential prestige-mass hybrid market.
Cosnova is investing in infrastructure to support scale, including a fully automated central warehouse set to open in 2027 and a regional logistics outpost in Dubai serving the Middle East and North Africa. The company has captured greater direct control of crucial European markets, including Spain and Eastern Europe, as part of a broader international realignment designed to tighten execution and accelerate speed to market. Its strongest markets remain in Europe, led by Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, alongside the United States.
E-commerce sales climbed about 20% last year. The lip product subcategory has been a key growth engine for Cosnova, and the Juicy Bomb lip product franchise alone has sold 57 million units globally since 2020. Limited editions such as Spooky Bomb and Essence’s Pepsi collaboration have ranked among the fastest-selling items in German drugstores.
CMO Jill Krakowski envisions expansion for Catrice, a brand currently sold direct-to-consumer and on Amazon in the U.S., into physical retail. “If you think of Essence as the girl in college, Catrice is the recent graduate,” she says. “She’s in her first job. She’s probably in her mid-to-late 20s, maybe early 30s, and she wants a real luxury product, but at an affordable price point. She’s now paying rent. She has financial obligations.”
Essence and Catrice are bolstering their presence in face products, a subcategory that Krakowski identifies as one the brands can play a more meaningful role in. They’ve been introducing a series of primers, including Essence’s Jelly Grip Hydrating Primer and Bouncy Plump Smoothing Primer and Catrice’s Aqua Splash Grip Primer, Skin Glaze Hydrating Serum Primer and Extreme Blur Mattifying Primer, as they reinforce product franchises. In Ulta, Essence has exclusively launched Silky Blur Hydrating Longwear Concealer.
“You’re starting to see more of a glam look. I see matte making a bit of a comeback, which is usually a heavier coverage, but I do think that you’ll still see the skin ingredients be an important component no matter the coverage that you’re seeing with the products,” says Krakowski. “You’re seeing a lot of underpainting and contouring, and people really are caring about the skin. I think that the ingredient component is the legacy that the ‘clean girl’ effect will have.”
To convey its emphasis on value to cash-strapped consumers, Cosnova has committed to holding prices steady in the U.S. As a privately held, family-owned company, Oster-Daum suggests Cosnova can prioritize long-term brand equity over short-term margin gains. Cosnova doesn’t disclose profits in its annual report, but Oster-Daum tells Beauty Independent that Essence and Catrice win on velocity, delivering high unit volume and fast turns that make the model work at accessible price points.
Oster-Daum says, “We’ll keep on believing that being family-owned is a big advantage.”
