Knowledge
What The Honest Co.’s DTC Exit Reveals About The Channel’s Shifting Role
To The Honest Co., direct-to-consumer became a distraction, and the brand has now moved on from it. In news first reported by Retail Dive on Dec. 19, Honest, which launched as a direct-to-consumer business...
What Saks’ Bankruptcy Exposes About Luxury Beauty Distribution
After 150-plus years, Saks Fifth Avenue’s house has crumbled, leaving luxury beauty brands that depended on it for positioning and distribution in a precarious position. The luxury department store has filed for Chapter...
Dua By AB Science And The High-Stakes Gamble Of Diffusion Brands
Economic fragility, changing generational spending patterns and a deepening consumer belief that higher-priced beauty products don’t deliver meaningfully better performance than cheaper alternatives are pushing beauty companies to experiment with secondary brands to expand their market presence while...
Top Skincare Trends For 2026—And Those Losing Their Sizzle
While 2025 seemed to slam the door on slugging as a TikTok-fueled trend, the skincare category stayed sluggish for the year. In the first nine months of 2025, skincare sales inched up 1% in prestige and...
Why Purpose-Led Brands Need More Than Mission To Succeed Today
Missions haven’t been enough to salvage mission-based beauty brands lately. World of LLA, which was dedicated to self-care routines for mental health, Violets Are Blue, which was started by a breast cancer survivor and supported cancer programs,...
Beauty’s 2026 M&A Forecast: Measured Acceleration, Bifurcation And Selectivity
Beauty M&A weathered 2025 better than most categories. Beauty deal volume dipped roughly 6.7%, according to investment bank Capstone Partners, a far gentler slowdown than the broader consumer sector, and the...
