This week, I checked in on the backlash to Naturium founder Susan Yara’s recent beachside photos. Additionally, Gap relaunches its ‘90s fragrance hits as part of its return to beauty, and Birchbox founder Katie Beauchamp brings the skinification trend to nails.
Why Susan Yara’s beachside photos are prompting a boycott of Naturium products
On Tuesday, Susan Yara, founder of body-care brand Naturium, posted a series of photos on Instagram showing herself posing at an unspecified beach. The snaps included a shot of Naturium’s Phyto-Glow lip balm and a photo of Yara alongside model Stav Netanel Nagar. But many social media users instead took note of the background: Though Yara did not tag her location, some are claiming the photos appear to have been taken outside the beachfront Hilton property in Tel Aviv.
The post has acquired more than 2,000 comments, with many users expressing disappointment at seeing Yara allegedly choosing to travel to Israel during the country’s ongoing war on Gaza. That attitude has carried over to Naturium’s official Instagram page, where users have left comments on recent posts criticizing Yara’s actions. In response, some content creators are calling for a boycott of Naturium products.
“I have spent SO much money on Naturium over the last several years including turning my friends onto it. You just lost an extremely loyal follower and I will be spreading the word on this,” Instagram user Natalie Broderick commented on Yara’s post. Other commenters compared the post to “The Zone of Interest,” the 2023 film that depicts a Nazi officer and his family setting up their home outside the Auschwitz concentration camp.
“I think it’s willfully ignorant, tone deaf, inconsiderate and just morally wrong to go somewhere as a vacation spot where literally right across that beach there are mass genocides happening,” said Texas-based esthetician and content creator Kamryn Jackson in a TikTok post on the controversy. Tel Aviv is located roughly 40 miles north of the Gaza Strip.
Beauty creator @savdoesmakeup, who prefers to go only by her first name, Savannah, was already avoiding Naturium products due to parent company E.l.f. Beauty’s work with Matt Rife; the E.l.f. Cosmetics beauty brand faced intense backlash online for its 2025 campaign with the comedian, who had included a domestic violence joke in his Netflix special.
Savannah first learned about Yara’s Instagram photos through the r/BeautyGuruChatter subreddit. At the time, she was surprised she hadn’t yet seen other creators discussing the posts on her Instagram or TikTok feeds. But the topic has since spread across those platforms: Savannah’s TikTok posts showing dismay at Yara’s photos allegedly showing her in Israel and recommendations for replacements to Naturium products have since garnered more than 2 million total views.
“I make content for fun online and have the privilege to boycott brands that I do not like. I understand a lot of people may not have other options for things or may not be informed on every current boycott that is happening. In this situation, I do think Naturium makes some unique products, but their most popular products are replaceable with other comparable formulations on the market at the same price point,” Savannah told Glossy. “That being said, I think it’s unproductive to outwardly shame people for continuing to use a brand you are boycotting; rather, spreading awareness in a kind and informative way is almost always received better by the other party.”
Some creators have been more circumspect in their discussion of the controversy. Model and beauty content creator Dana Patterson, who has roughly 700,000 followers across her Instagram and TikTok channels, alluded to the controversy in a TikTok post and said she would provide alternative brand recommendations. Horace Gold, an L.A.-based content creator and actor who has previously recommended Naturium products on his social channels, said he was “moving on” from the brand’s body wash and asked users to tag their body-care brand recommendations in a TikTok post that has close to 1 million views.
Yara founded Naturium with beauty incubator The Center in 2019. In 2023, E.l.f. Beauty acquired the brand for $355 million. In May, Yara launched fragrance-forward body-care brand Playa, inspired by her adopted hometown of Miami. Naturium shared the following statement with Glossy via email:
“Naturium was built to make effective, science-backed skincare accessible to everyone. Our commitment to quality and our community continues to guide every decision we make. That mission is and always will be our focus.”
According to E.l.f. Beauty’s most recent quarterly earnings published in May, the company’s annual net sales increased 25% to $1.64 billion in 2026, with “particularly strong results” from its brands Naturium and Rhode.
Across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X, content creators and users have not only condemned Yara’s alleged visit to Israel but offered alternatives to popular products in the Naturium line. That includes brands like Abi Amé, the body-care brand founded by Palestinian-Jordanian lawyer Yasmin Zeinab, and Caribbean-inspired fragrance and body-care line Oui the People.
A TikTok post from Rachel Johnson, a Utah-based esthetician and content creator, outlining a replacement for roughly a dozen Naturium products has over 400,000 views.
“On my page, I’ve made a goal to help my viewers be better educated and make their consumption decisions from there. There will always be the select number of people who don’t choose to boycott brands, and that’s their right as well,” Johnson told Glossy. “I just wanted to be able to give the alternatives to those who were asking.”
Some boycotts have made an impact on companies’ bottom lines. In 2024, Starbucks reported three consecutive quarters of declining global sales and laid off thousands of workers in the Middle East; those dips followed 2023 calls for boycotts of the coffee chain after it sued its workers’ union for posting a pro-Palestinian message on social media.
But online controversies have not always translated to dips in sales. E.l.f. Beauty reported a 14% increase in net sales for the three months ending on September 30, 2025, despite the backlash to the August campaign with Matt Rife. E.l.f. Beauty reported another 38% increase in net sales the following quarter.
Other users have pointed out that Yara’s beach photos do not mean Naturium is directly complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, founded in 2005 to promote boycotts, divestments and economic sanctions against Israel, outlines complicity as including both direct complicity through efforts such as military support of Israel and corporate complicity such as through carrying out business activities in the country.
The Naturium controversy is not the first time beauty brands and founders have faced blowback amid the Israel-Palestine conflict. In 2025, TikTok removed a video by Huda Beauty founder Huda Kattan in which she claimed Israel was behind global conflicts like World War I and September 11. In June, London students protested Central Saint Martins’ partnership with L’Oréal, which provides hair and makeup artists to graduate fashion shows, over the company’s ties to Israel.
Executive moves:
- Yann Musquin is named head of LVMH fragrance brands. He succeeds Romain Spitzer, who joined Kering as CEO of Bottega Veneta in July. Musquin will oversee the growth of Givenchy’s and Kenzo’s perfume lines, having until recently acted as chief brand officer at Givenchy Parfums.
- Future Beauty Brands appoints Heather Wallace as CEO. Wallace succeeds Rob Keen in overseeing the Yellow Woods Partners beauty portfolio, which includes brands like Real Techniques and Tan-Luxe. She joins from pharmaceutical company Galderma, where she served as U.S. president.
- Bubble names Diana Rubin as chief marketing officer. Rubin joins the skin-care brand from Sol de Janeiro, where she served as vp, Americas head of marketing. As the brand’s first CMO, Rubin will oversee its global marketing strategy.
News to know:
- Gap revives its ‘90s perfume line. The revamped Dream, Grass, Heaven and Om scents are the first launch from Gap’s new beauty line, which is overseen by former Estée Lauder exec John Demsey, now executive director of Beauty at Gap Inc. The perfumes, created with DSM-Firmenich perfumers Honorine Blanc and Nicole Mancini, will hit Gap stores on July 30 and retail for $52 per 50-milliliter bottle.
- Eileen Gu is named ambassador of Armani Beauty. The Chinese Olympic gold medalist adds Armani to her numerous brand endorsements, which have included the likes of Louis Vuitton, Victoria’s Secret and Tiffany & Co. Her first campaign promotes the brand’s Lip Maestro and Armani Dolci Makeup Blush.
- Bath & Body Works expands to Brazil. The Ohio-based personal care brand and retailer opened its first outpost in the South American country in São Paulo, with additional openings in the market in the works.
- Katie Beauchamp launches Buff Beauty. The Birchbox co-founder returns to beauty with a line of “skin-care for nails,” with products mimicking the multi-step skin-care routines that have expanded to the body- and hair-care categories.
Stat of the week:
According to data from McKinsey’s “From aisle to algorithm: The beauty categories, channels, and concepts shaping 2030 growth” report, about 20% of brands at U.S. specialty beauty retailers are also stocked at Walmart, showcasing a blurring of categories and consumers seeking out price-conscious retailers.
In the headlines:
Can Summer Fridays be beauty’s next legacy brand? The kids’ personal care opportunity isn’t child’s play. The next-gen makeup artists painting beauty’s future. Gap dreams up a new take on its ’90s fragrances: Fans of the original scents review today’s versions.
Listen in:
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Tower 28 CEO and founder Amy Liu sat down with host Lexy Lebsack to unpack the brand’s custom-made billboard that spritzed passersby with its hero SOS Daily Skin Rescue Spray — and whether she would do it all over again.
Need a Glossy recap?
Snif and Ulta are betting male teenage “fragheads” can become a serious retail business. Sephora Strategies: With its expanded Quiet Hours initiative, Sephora attempts to speak to a new era of inclusivity. Exclusive: Ulta Beauty taps Ice Spice for its first TikTok Shop campaign to unveil the rapper’s first fragrance. Glossy Pop Newsletter: Ulta Beauty to welcome dupe fragrance brand Oakcha to hundreds of stores.
