L’Oréal Divests Pathbreaking Textured Haircare Brand Carol’s Daughter To Joe Wong And Founder Lisa Price

When L’Oréal bought Carol’s Daughter in 2014, it heralded the deal as momentous for the “premier American multicultural brand” and pioneer of the natural beauty movement.

Now, L’Oréal has unwound the deal by selling Carol’s Daughter to Joe Wong, a financial industry veteran with stops at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Steward Partners Global Advisory, where his LinkedIn profile puts him currently as a director and founding partner. Wong has become a repository for brands offloaded by L’Oréal, and he previously acquired Baxter of California, Ambi Skincare, AcneFree and Dermablend from the beauty conglomerate. Carol’s Daughter founder Lisa Price has an equity stake in the brand under the new ownership and will be president of it.

“We are proud of Carol’s Daughter’s long legacy and the transformative impact it has had on the beauty industry,” says L’Oréal USA CEO David Greenberg in a statement. “At the heart of this legacy is Lisa Price, an entrepreneur who has always been ahead of her time and has built Carol’s Daughter into a beloved brand that has honored and celebrated women of color for decades. We are confident that, with Lisa Price as president and the support of its new partner, Carol’s Daughter will continue to thrive for years to come.”

The divestiture could give Carol’s Daughter energy to find its footing in a textured haircare category that’s evolved considerably since it started in 1993 in Price’s Brooklyn kitchen, but it will face crowds of younger, social media-savvy competitors and a shrunken marketing budget that present roadblocks to revitalization. In today’s beauty market, it’s certainly not alone in rebuilding. Price, though, has shown resilience in battling setbacks, including two bankruptcies (one personal and one involving Carol’s Daughter’s past stores) and a backlash to her decision to sell to L’Oréal from disappointed Black customers.

According to reporting by the publication Women’s Wear Daily, L’Oréal bought Carol’s Daughter for an estimated $60 million to $70 million during an acquisition spree 11 years ago that saw it pick up NYX Cosmetics, Niely, Magic Holdings, Decléor and Carita as well. In 2023, it stopped marketing Decléor. In the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2014, WWD pegged Carol’s Daughter’s sales at $27 million. Back then, the brand wasn’t far removed from its smash success with Mary J. Blige’s fragrance, My Life, which sold 72,000 bottles on HSN in 2010.

The purchase ushered in dealmaking in the textured haircare segment as companies vied for the attention and dollars of beauty consumers of color. Subsequent to L’Oréal’s acquisition of Carol’s Daughter, Unilever bought SheaMoisture parent company Sundial Brands in 2017 and Procter & Gamble purchased Mielle Organics in 2023. Market research firm NIQ approximated that Black consumer beauty spending in 2023 was $9.4 billion, with dollar, unit and household growth outpacing American consumers overall.

“I’m just not sure how big it can become.”

But corporate prerogatives tend to fluctuate. Through closure or disposal, CPG behemoths have been trimming their portfolios of late, and founders who exited brands to them have been increasingly regaining control of the brands to try to recapture the secret sauce that led to their early traction. Among a rising number of examples, Gregg Renfrew, Francisco Costa and Zoë Foster Blake reclaimed Beautycounter, Costa Brazil and Go-To Skin, respectively, in 2024.

Andrew Shore, an advisor to emerging beauty brands who retired last year as managing director at investment bank Moelis, where he guided Carol’s Daughter on its sale to L’Oréal, says, “Lisa is a fabulous entrepreneur, but the brand is most likely too small for L’Oréal, which is why it has decided to sell it as well as several others in recent years. Small brands just create complexity for big companies, and they rarely get the TLC they need to grow. I do think it can be revived under the auspices of a more focused owner. The issue is I’m just not sure how big it can become.”

Along with a sea of brands that previously received venture capital or private equity funding, but haven’t realized the expectations of their backers, the corporate divestures offer opportunities for acquirers to buy brands on the cheap, combine them into entities with shared infrastructure and reinvigorate them. Already in the market, they often have established name recognition and retail footprints. Yellow Wood Partners, which has bought the brands Suave, ChapStick, Caress, Tigi and VO5, and AS Beauty, owner of Laura Geller, Cover FX, Mally Beauty, Bliss and Julep, are following that model.

Carol’s Daughter has broad penetration in mass-market retail at CVS, Walgreens and Target. Last year, it struck a multiyear partnership for tennis sensation Coco Gauff to be a spokeswoman. The brand’s bestsellers include Goddess Strength Smooth & Shape Balm, Black Vanilla Moisture & Hold Jelly, Goddess Strength True Stretch Defining Cream and Goddess Strength 7 Oil Blend Scalp & Hair Oil. It isn’t selling products on its website, a potential unlock for Wong, and they’re priced from $3.39 to $19.58 online at Target.

Wong hasn’t responded to requests for comment on plans for Carol’s Daughter. However, LinkedIn profiles reveal that he’s installed executives that handle duties across his brands, and he could plug Carol’s Daughter into the existing architecture. Beth Dobbins, former VP of brand products at Tricoci, for instance, labels herself director of marketing and digital strategy at Baxter of California, Ambi Skincare, AcneFree and Dermablend.

Thomas Winarick, indie beauty advisor, former president of Palladio Beauty Group and founder of Doll Face Beauty, suggests, “They likely will run a much leaner operation and will have economies of scale between all their brands. Without the financial expectations nor overhead load that L’Oréal would have, they can run a profitable and more dynamic company. They would also be nimble enough to undertake different strategies for growth, laser focus on the brand and consumer via different marketing strategies, repackaging, new product development, etc.”

“Their opportunity isn’t to capture market share from Cécred or Pattern, but to redefine the conversation entirely.”

Not unusual for entrepreneurs joining large conglomerates post-exit, Price seemed to chafe at L’Oréal’s lack of nimbleness. In a discussion with Allure editor in chief Jessica Cruel hosted by the trade show Foundermade last year, she said, “What I miss about my kitchen days is I could just have an idea or a dream. I could go to sleep and dream about jasmine and mango, wake up in the morning, make it, and put it out for sale…because I didn’t have to make 10,000 of them. I didn’t have to convince Walmart and Target and CVS that they should take it. I didn’t have to convince three levels of management that it’s going to make $4 million next year. I could just do it.”

Still, it’s not easy to reenergize a brand that may have languished at a prior parent company. In the textured haircare category, brands like Beyonce’s Cécred, Pattern by Tracee Ellis Ross and Mielle Organics have been making noise, while older brands like Carol’s Daughter have struggled to appeal to younger customers born after the natural hair movement was underway.

Retailers’ relationship with the category is in flux, too. The rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusivity measures are a big discussion in it, where women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color are behind many of the brands, and their impacts are uncertain. In addition, retailers have been figuring out how to merchandise textured haircare brands to keep both core consumers of color in the category and draw a broader audience. Last year, Walmart moved to assort haircare products by hair type rather than race or ethnicity.

Amidst the category shifts, Brandon Schwartz, brand growth strategist at The Playbook, a consultancy working to scale brands such as Topicals, Pattern, Moon Oral Care, GXVE by Gwen Stefani and Scotch Porter, counsels Carol’s Daughter to shake things up. He argues it could win by speaking to Black consumers skeptical of corporate ownership, erecting salon distribution, tailoring products to elder millennial, gen X and baby boomer consumers with menopausal- and hormonal-related haircare, and employing marketing messages around adapting haircare rituals for  hormonal life stages and a Brooklyn-meets-biotech approach combining science with the brand’s heritage.

“The Carol’s Daughter reacquisition represents a watershed moment in textured hair, not just a brand changing hands, but a reclamation of cultural narrative authority,” says Schwartz. “Price needs to position the brand at the intersection of heritage wisdom and contemporary science, leveraging her founder authenticity against celebrity-backed newcomers.”

He adds, “Wong’s portfolio approach allows her to fill white spaces that other brands can’t touch: salon professional networks, aging demographic concerns and scalp ecosystem health. Most importantly, they should reject the temptation to compete on ingredient trends or marketing hype and instead rebuild Carol’s Daughter as the category elder who now combines decades of understanding with forward-looking innovation. Their opportunity isn’t to capture market share from Cécred or Pattern, but to redefine the conversation entirely.”

Michelle Breyer, CMO at CPG startup accelerator program SKU and co-founder of curly hair content destination NaturallyCurly, believes Price is integral to Carol’s Daughter story and possible comeback. “She was a true pioneer in the texture space and brought some of the first holy grail products to the market, including Hair Milk, Black Vanilla Moisturizing Smoothie, Lisa’s Hair Elixir and Mimosa Hair Honey. All were created in her kitchen,” she says. “As often happens, the brand lost a little of its magic when it was a part of a large company, and I think she’ll reinvigorate it. It will be interesting to see what she’s able to do in a category that has changed dramatically since she launched more than 30 years ago.”