This week, I checked in on the status of once powerful makeup brands that have been put up for sale. Additionally, Google welcomes ads to its AI shopping platform, and L’Oréal opens a new content and education hub.
With Too Faced and Pat McGrath up for sale, makeup brands are in need of a pivot
In 2016, The Estée Lauder Companies purchased the coquettish makeup brand Too Faced for $1.45 billion, making it the conglomerate’s largest purchase at the time. A decade later, the conglomerate is selling off the brand along with fellow cosmetics line Smashbox and K-beauty innovator Dr. Jart as it streamlines its portfolio.
Too Faced is not likely to recapture its 2016 valuation, and it’s not the only cosmetics giant to lose its footing in recent years. Pat McGrath Labs, which entered the scene in 2015 with viral products and a legendary founder at the helm, put its assets up for sale in December. And Milk Makeup, launched in 2016, reported a 20% drop in net revenue in Q3 2025.
While those brands dominated 2010s beauty, their artistry-driven approach fell out of fashion in the “clean girl” era. And the rise of dupe-centric lines like E.l.f. and TikTok-native beauty brands like Rhode have made for stiff competition in reaching a new generation of consumers who aren’t familiar with the history of brands like Smashbox or Milk.
“Milk and Smashbox are both born out of the hotbeds of creativity, Milk and Smashbox Studios. That story isn’t known by any new clients, or very few. And not only are they not known, but other brands’ narratives have also grown louder. And that’s really difficult [to overcome],” said Jessica Matlin, director of beauty and home at Moda Operandi and founder and host of the Fat Mascara podcast. “The space has just become so much more crowded. And none of them came to rise when social media — particularly TikTok, I would even include Instagram — had the opportunity to give their founders the horn and let them speak directly to customers.”
But as clean-girl fatigue sets in and consumers seek more playful approaches to makeup, artistry-driven brands like Too Faced and Smashbox may be poised for a comeback — that is, if they can deliver their message to a new generation of consumers.
“For years, the products have really been about skin care, skin health, “clean girl,” all those words. And that’s fantastic. But I think there is an appetite for that kind of late ‘90’s, early 2000s creativity and fun with makeup,” said Matlin.
Milk’s 2026 plan includes a return to its roots: The brand named co-founder Mazdack Rassi president in 2025.
“Because of the sheer amount of brands and things out there, you really want to double down on what makes your brand unique. And there’s no better way than bringing the founder who has built this brand to really double down on the history and the roots of Milk Makeup,” said Hind Sebti, co-founder of Waldencast, which acquired Milk in 2021. The brand also named Diana Briceno as chief marketing officer in August. “I think we have seen, in general, in beauty, way too many products and not enough brands. So, things become replaceable, and everybody’s chasing the last [trend] or the next virality.”
Today’s beauty founders like Hailey Bieber at Rhode and Selena Gomez at Rare Beauty have been instrumental faces for their brands, either by fronting campaigns or appearing at events or in social media tutorials. Too Faced founders Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson left the brand in 2022, and while McGrath has remained at her namesake brand, she took on a new role as creative director at La Beauté Louis Vuitton in 2025.
“I think Pat McGrath is the most genius makeup artist of a generation,” said Sebti. “[But] if you have a brand that is built around the founder and the founder’s artistry, that requires the founder to be very, very, very involved.”
While runaway growth categories like fragrance and body care have dominated the beauty aisle in recent years, Sebti is confident in the long-term growth of the makeup category. She attributed ELC’s selling off of Too Faced and Smashbox as less to do with a softening makeup category and more a result of the conglomerate’s overall restructuring to recapture growth.
“Sometimes people look at very short-term windows to go, ‘Makeup is dead, skin care is dead.’ No, there’s a much longer timeframe,” said Sebti, who categorized makeup’s softening sales as more of a “normalization” than a slowdown. “Makeup is, of all the beauty categories, the one that is desire-driven. So the makeup market performs as well as we innovate.”
While it hasn’t caught up to fragrance’s double-digit growth, makeup sales are rebounding, said NielsenIQ’s managing director of beauty and health, Jacqueline Flam Stokes. According to NIQ data, sales in the cosmetics and nail categories are up 9% year over year in the most recent 52 weeks, compared to 5% in the same period a year prior.
“The standouts that we’re seeing doing well now in the color cosmetics category are continuing to run the playbook of being category-additive,” said Flam Stokes. “When I think of a brand like Smashbox, of course, are you immediately think of their viral primer, which was in everyone’s makeup bag. And today, so many primers that are similar that have popped up, whether they’re dupes or otherwise. The innovation in that category has matured. And so it’s really a question of, ‘Where are we seeing the innovation coming from?’”
There are beauty consumers turning to makeup: Matlin said color is the fastest growing beauty category at Moda Operandi. But whether they’ll return to buying Milk or Too Faced is another question.
“Too Faced was over the top glamour. It’s brash, and it’s sexy, and it’s funny. It’s cute, and all these things, and it’s the opposite of ‘clean girl,'” said Matlin. “I don’t think that means it’s a death knell; I think it means the pendulum always swings. But it’s like: How are they going to tell that story?”
Executive moves:
- Olivier Teboul is named president of Parfums Christian Dior North America. Teboul succeeds Charlotte Holman Ros in the role after her move to the house’s couture division. Teboul has served as president and representative director of Dior in Japan since 2016.
- Irina Nitu joined Haus Labs as general manager for EMEA and UK regions. Nitu joined the Lady Gaga-founded makeup brand from Beautyblender, where she served as director of travel retail for EMEA, SEA and South America.
News to know:
- Google unveiled new advertising capabilities on its AI-powered shopping platform. Advertising partners will soon be able to present exclusive offers to users shopping on Google’s Gemini AI shopping platform. The ads will offer personalized deals like discount codes to users based on their search activity.
- L’Oréal has opened a 46,000-square-foot content creation hub and education space in New York’s Hudson Yards. The new space will host classes for hair stylists with representatives from its hair-care brands including Redken and Kérastase, in addition to serving as a studio for content creation and social media campaigns for L’Oréal’s beauty portfolio.
- Daisy Edgar-Jones is the newest face of Estée Lauder. The “Normal People” actress will make her debut as global brand ambassador in a campaign slated for release in February and will represent Estée Lauder across skin-care, makeup and fragrance.
Stat of the week:
According to Adobe’s quarterly AI report, 65% of consumers using AI for online shopping said they were more confident in their purchase after the help of AI. And 68% said they were less likely to return the product after using AI to assist their purchases.
In the headlines:
Drunk Elephant’s new motto: no kids allowed. Leaked documents show Instagram’s plan to win back teens. South Korea’s president identifies a new enemy: baldness.
Listen in:
Catch the latest Glossy Beauty Podcast episode featuring board-certified dermatologist Dr. Marnie Nussbaum and beauty industry veteran Jodi Kaplan — the founder and CEO, respectively, of the Dr. Marnie skin-care brand.
Need a Glossy recap?
Brazil’s oldest perfumery is making a play for U.S. fragrance consumers. And no, it’s not Sol de Janeiro. In 2025, Gen Alpha arrived as beauty consumers — in 2026, they will reshape the industry. L’Oréal bets on LED, Amorepacific launches a smart mirror, and more from CES. Inside Sabrina Carpenter’s plan for global fragrance domination.
