The billion-dollar(ish) beauty brand deal spree continues.
On Monday, L’Oréal announced it’s acquiring Color Wow, the haircare brand recognized for innovative products to protect colored hair, touch up roots and ward off frizz, for an undisclosed amount. Multiple industry sources report that Color Wow generates over $300 million in sales and was looking for a $1 billion payday.
Color Wow was founded in 2013 by Gail Federici, who bootstrapped the company after previously co-founding John Frieda in 1988 and selling it to Kao Corp. for $450 million in 2002. The brand will join L’Oréal’s Professional Products Division alongside salon mainstays that have expanded to beauty retail, including Redken and Kérastase. The division’s sales were up 5% and accounted for 11% of total sales at L’Oréal in 2024, when haircare was the second fastest-growing category at the conglomerate, similar to its acceleration in the overall beauty market, where its growth has been trailing only fragrance.
The news comes less than a month after L’Oréal revealed it would scoop up a majority stake in science-centered skincare brand Medik8 for about $1.1 billion and place it in its Luxe division, and nearly four months after it divested textured haircare Carol’s Daughter to its founder Lisa Price and financial industry veteran Joe Wong.
Last week, Unilever pounced on buzzy men’s personal care brand Dr. Squatch in a transaction pegged by the Financial Times at $1.5 billion. Earlier this year, E.l.f. Beauty announced it would be buying Rhode for up to $1 billion, and Church & Dwight jumped into the beauty mergers and acquisitions fray by picking up Touchland in a transaction that could reach $880 million.
Ilya Seglin, managing director of investment banking at Cascadia Capital, believes L’Oréal’s purchase of Color Wow makes strategic sense for the company. “L’Oréal needs a growth vehicle in the professional division. Color Wow is big, profitable and continues to grow,” he says. “The founder, having sold a business previously, was able to self-fund, so was not really looking for a private equity deal. In terms of synergies, L’Oréal would bring the most to the table in the category.”
Nicole Fourgoux, operating partner at private equity firm Stride Consumer Partners, agrees that L’Oréal is the perfect landing spot for the brand. “Color Wow is known as a leader in this space with its innovation-forward positioning, standout hero products and cult-like following,” she says. “The brand fits perfectly into L’Oréal’s professional hair care portfolio, and the acquisition will allow L’Oréal to scale innovation and build global distribution while doubling down on its strength of science-first products.”
Lorne Lucree, a beauty industry expert and consultant who’s held positions at L’Oréal, Unilever and Estée Lauder, says Color Wow delivers “high-performance innovation at breakneck speed. I remember watching them bring ingredients like Silsoft CLX-E and Styleze CC-10 to market in [the brand’s products] Dream Coat and Xtra Large seemingly overnight—fast, deliberate and built for results. It’s no surprise considering the brand shares deep roots with the original John Frieda team.”
As beauty industry sales growth has softened, Color Wow has gone in the opposite direction, demonstrating its appeal to consumers more than a decade since its debut, an important differentiator at a moment when virality sends brands skyrocketing and later crashing. Color Wow, which has around 30 products mostly priced from $30 to $40 and wide distribution across professional, beauty specialty retail and online channels at Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Amazon, saw its Amazon sales spike 73% in the past 12 months, according to Envision Horizons. However, the Amazon agency notes that the brand’s sales on the giant e-tailer declined 4.9% in the most recent month.
“The acquisition will allow L’Oréal to scale innovation and build global distribution while doubling down on its strength of science-first products.”
Envision Horizons estimates Color Wow garners $8.8 million in monthly revenue on Amazon. The brand especially dominates in Amazon’s hair spray category, which contributes $4.6 million in monthly sales. Color Wow has 14.8% market share in the category on the platform.
Color Wow has over 878,000 TikTok followers and sold nearly 800,000 products on TikTok Shop. According to influencer marketing platform CreatorIQ, the brand ranked as a top 15 haircare brand by Earned Media Value (EMV), a metric calculating the monetary value of unpaid exposure, from April 2024 to May 2025. It’s achieved 24% year-over-year EMV growth and a 24% year-over-year increase in creator count. On TikTok specifically, Color Wow saw EMV and creator count climb 78% and 87% year-over-year, respectively, and it’s had a 132% year-over-year rise in the number of mentions on TikTok.
Preceding L’Oréal’s deal for Color Wow, in the haircare space, Unilever acquired K18 in December 2023 for roughly $700 million, and BIC acquired Tangle Teezer in December last year for roughly $215 million. Lucree points out Color Wow is distinct from K18 because it doesn’t own IP similar to K18’s signature patented peptide. Rather than a patented ingredient creating a moat for the brand, Lucree identifies Color Wow’s transformative powers and its ability to convey them as creating its moat.
“Their product pages are stacked with consumer testimonials, jaw-dropping before-and-afters and ‘see-it-to-believe-it’ results. Compare that to a brand like K18, which leads with science-forward storytelling—molecular diagrams, peptide pathways, clinical studies,” he says. “Both ultimately prove efficacy, but they use entirely different languages to get there: One shows you, the other explains it. And given K18’s valuation was driven primarily by community—not the molecule—I’d say Color Wow’s approach is doing something very right.”
The haircare category is loaded with other haircare brands that could eventually exit. Bansk Group-owned Amika and Prelude Growth-backed DpHue are rumored to be exploring sales. Pattern, Cécred, IGK and Gisou are others mentioned in discussions of beauty dealmaking.
“Color Wow proves that ‘more-is-more’ still has a place, when it’s done well, with performance you can see instantly,” says Lucree. “I’d predict it bodes well for brands like Amika who are blending transformation, education and cultural resonance on their own terms. I don’t think Color Wow is an anomaly, I think it’s a signal.”
Fourgoux forecasts an uptick in haircare dealmaking in the future, and she asserts science-focused haircare brands, especially those with clean formulations and strong communities, will fare well. She says, “The haircare category will continue to become more sophisticated with science-driven innovation, multistep routines and a movement towards ‘skinification’ of hair and scalp.”
But will beauty see more billion-dollar deals in haircare soon? Fourgoux isn’t convinced. “$1 billion valuations are still rare and reserved for brands that have not only been able to scale a very good business but more importantly build a fantastic brand that is clearly differentiated and has strong equity,” she says. “These brands are few and far between. Additionally, the number of buyers for these $1 billion brands is very limited.”
Talking about the haircare brands posed for possible future deals, Fourgoux expounds, “Some of these brands are still in building phase and might raise money, but not necessarily be ready for a full sale to a strategic. I think the brands that have built a clear point of difference and passionate following while achieving scale and a great financial profile are the ones that are the most likely to trade next.”
Seglin concurs that Color Wow’s longevity is rare, and the steepest prices are reserved for brands that have its kind of staying power. He says, “[It’s a] very different dynamic from some of the other brands that have come to market and failed, businesses that are big, but are less than five years old.”
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