July and August are weird months in beauty – things tend to go quiet before picking up again in September. But, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s never quiet in class action land. Exhibit A is Dermalogica who is facing a class action filed in California for labeling their products as made in the USA. The class action alleges that this is misleading and deceptive for good Americans because the products contain ingredients from sources other than the USA. This ‘mislabeling’ category of class action is on the rise, as are influencer marketing class actions which name both brand and influencer for undisclosed partnerships meaning that they’re both being included in the action under a failure to meet a ‘clear and conspicuous’ standard set out by the FTC in the US. The reason for including both influencer and brand? More potential liability and damages. However, a reminder of the 2023 class action against L’Oreal Paris for using the word Paris and ‘deceiving’ customers into thinking it was from, er, Paris. The judge said words to the effect of don’t be ridiculous, goodbye.
While Unilever waves it’s last goodbye to REN, it’s welcoming new acquisition, Dr Squatch, which is a men’s grooming brand. This is an about turn, am I right? Pass on unisex but pay £1.9 billion for a grooming brand? It seems that they got it for something of a snip even at that price because the brand had a valuation of approximately £1.5 billion. Unilever also owns Axe and Dove Men Care. There’s a UK Dr Squatch website – tag line: ‘Dr. Squatch provides natural handmade soap to men who want to feel like a man, and smell like a champion’. Good luck with that, guys.
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According to WWD, Coty is considering selling off – well, itself, in a two part sale. The sale would separate luxury and mass market. Coty’s prestige brands include Tiffany fragrance, Burberry and Gucci and their mass market brands include Rimmel London and Max Factor plus Covergirl in the US. This puts a question mark around the relaunch of Marc Jacobs Beauty which was previewed (quietly, apparently) this month. Bearing in mind the preview was held at Maison Orveda on Madison Avenue and Orveda is a French biotech skin care brand which just happens to be co-founded by Sue Nabi, who is also the CEO of Coty, expect skin care and lots of it.
Avon has caused a bit of a ding dong (see what I did there) in the UK by changing its pay structure which has meant a drop in commissions for sellers. According to Global Cosmetics News, the commissions have fallen from up to 32% to up to 10%. Rising operational costs are to blame but which bright Avon spark thought it would be a good idea to recoup their costs from the people on the ground, hard at work, selling their products? Surely, this is a way to sell less.
As predicted, Kate Moss’s skin care brand, Cosmoss has gone into voluntary liquidation. Cos is no longer Mossing.
Owners of St Tropez tan, PZ Cussons, put the tanning brand up for sale in 2024. In a complete about turn, PZ Cussons has decided not to sell it after all despite the fact that the brand is still in decline. PZ paid £62.5 million for St Tropez in 2010 but doesn’t do nearly as well in the USA, garnering a double digit drop in sales. An extensive auction process has apparently already taken place with offers made for the brand. Instead, PZ Cussons are setting ‘a new strategic direction’ for St Tropez. Make your minds up!
L’Oreal is buying Color Wow to join its Professional Products division. This feels like a beneficial acquisition – Color Wow needs investment in innovation and L’Oreal has that in spades, while L’Oreal has space in their hair care portfolio for a high performance product range. Color Wow creator, Gail Federici, sold her previous brand, John Frieda Hair Care in 2002. She spread her wings into the music business but soon came back to what she knows best, hair. No details on the finances are as yet released but I feel this will be seamless – consumers will not notice a thing.
NB: Of course the very day I publish BBN along comes a major story! SpaceNK is being sold by its owners, Manzanita Capital, to Ulta Beauty. The deal is near to closure apparently. SpaceNK has unofficially been open to offers for years but it seems that this time, it’s for real.
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