French beauty retailer Oh My Cream has acquired British clean beauty e-tailer Naturisimo.
The deal marks the third by Oh My Cream, operator of 26 stores in France, three stores in the United Kingdom and two stores in Belgium, since May 2023. The others were for supplement brand Combeau and beauty and wellness brand Atelier Nubio, which had been placed in receivership. Launched in 2008, Naturisimo, a business that’s been struggling of late, gives Oh My Cream greater access to beauty consumers in the U.K.
Naturisimo shared the news of its sale to Oh My Cream via an email to its customers and on its website Tuesday. It informed them its website will be directed to Oh My Cream’s site starting May 19. “This marks an exciting step in establishing a leading destination for luxury clean beauty in the UK,” said Naturisimo co-founders and co-CEOs Sophie and Robert Wills in the email. “You can now explore the very best in clean beauty—all in one place.”
Experienced Capital, the backer of Violette_FR and L:A Bruket that invested in Oh My Cream in 2019 and owns 41% of the company, appears to have partnered with Oh My Cream founder and CEO Juliette Lévy on the retailer’s deals. Quoted in fashion and beauty trade publication Women’s Wear Daily, Lévy says Oh My Cream has an “alternative investment fund” with Experienced Capital.
Naturisimo carries hundreds of skincare, body, hair, wellness and lifestyle products from over 80 international brands, including Dr. Hauschka, Josh Rosebrook, Dame, The Nue Co., Manicurist, Rahua and Kjaer Weis. There’s a fair amount of overlap between Naturisimo and Oh My Cream’s assortments. Among the brands carried by both Oh My Cream and Naturisimo are Indie Lee, Ilia, Jane Iredale, Odacité, Oskia, Maude and Ren Skincare.
When Naturisimo started, it offered a large selection of clean beauty products from global brands during a period when that was rare, a draw for clean beauty product seeker Liz Mimran, the Luxembourg-based writer of longtime blog “Smells Like a Green Spirit.” She isn’t surprised Oh My Cream picked it up as part of its expansion ambitions.
“Naturisimo is just the beginning, the stepping stone towards a bigger reach within the U.K. and beyond,” says Mimran. “It’s a move that aligns with their goal to expand into the U.K. market, and I’d assume that Naturisimo has a very solid and wide database of customers due to their presence all these years. As a result, this could assuredly assert their position in the U.K. and provide them with valuable market information in the process.”
A retailer acquiring an e-commerce player to enlarge its audience isn’t uncommon. On a small scale, clean beauty retailer The Detox Market acquired clean beauty e-tailer Clementine Fields in 2020. On a large scale, Target acquired online beauty destination Dermstore in 2013 before offloading it to THG Holdings in 2021. Also in 2021, Sephora acquired beauty e-tailer Feelunique to give it entrée into the British market. Sephora disbanded Feelunique as a standalone entity in 2022.
“It’s about acquiring trust, reach and infrastructure in one go.”
“Rather than building from the ground up, which is an expensive and time-consuming route, they have followed a playbook we’ve seen before, similar to Sephora acquiring Feelunique,” says Wizz Selvey, founder of consultancy WIZZ&CO. “It’s about acquiring trust, reach and infrastructure in one go. Naturisimo’s existing relationships with brands can be accessed straight away, and its loyal customers are incredibly valuable, particularly as they will now not be competing with Naturisimo.”
Shay Bennaim, global brand president of Amorepacific-owned Tata Harper, which is available at Oh My Cream and Naturisimo, believes Oh My Cream’s acquisition of Naturisimo makes sense. “Naturisimo does a pretty sizable business for us considering where they were when I started [in October 2024]. My only hesitation with that business, it was heavily discounted. There was a lot of promotionality going on, and for a luxury brand, it didn’t really fit, but I think it’s smart from [Oh My Cream’s] perspective. They get all these new customers.”
The heavy promotional activity may have been the result of Naturisimo’s challenged business. Last year, Beauty Independent heard from brands that they weren’t being paid by it or they were having payments from it delayed. Micaela Nisbit, founder of Neighbourhood Botanicals, went public on Instagram last September about Naturisimo being 250 days late on paying her skincare brand around 3,700 pounds or nearly $5,000. It was paid promptly after the post.
Since receiving investment from Experienced Capital six years ago, Oh My Cream’s annual sales have gone from 10 million euros or about $11.4 million to almost 40 million euros or about $46 million, per WWD’s reporting. The retailer introduced a namesake beauty range in 2017. By 2022, it accounted for 20% of its revenues, according to the publication Fashion Network. Naturisimo’s sales are just under 5 million euros or about $5.7 million.
