The lead-up to the holiday break was a blur for beauty and personal care mergers, acquisitions, and financings, with headlines stacking up week after week.

One big theme was strategics leaning harder into higher-margin, science-backed categories like derm skin care, clinical beauty, and professional haircare showing off their balance sheets and clearer intent. The other was sponsors and platforms actively re-pricing and repositioning assets through sales processes, minority growth rounds, and restructurings, plus a few competitive situations that could turn into bidding fights. Let’s dive in.

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Yellow Wood Partners has merged Suave Brands Company and Elida Beauty to form Evermark LLC, a global personal care platform with about $1.9B in annual retail sales. The new company houses a broad mass-market portfolio across hair, skin, body, and everyday personal care, including Suave, ChapStick, Q-tips, Caress, St. Ives, Pond’s, Noxzema, TIGI, VO5, Brut, Impulse, Alberto Balsam, Timotei, and Monsavon. Suave CEO Daniel Alter will lead Evermark, with former Elida CEO Alfie Vivian serving as president of the European business.

L'Oréal (Paris: OR) is doubling its stake in Swiss skincare group Galderma (Swiss: GALD) to 20%, buying ~24M shares from an EQT-led investor consortium (including ADIA and others) in a deal worth about CHF 3.9B (~$4.85B) at Friday's (12/6/2025) close.

The move, funded with cash and existing credit lines, deepens L'Oréal's push into dermatology and injectables alongside recent acquisitions of Dr. G and Medik8, while reconnecting it with a business it co-founded over 40 years ago and that generated $4.4B in 2024 sales.

L'Oréal says it does not plan to further increase its stake, but Galderma may add two L'Oréal representatives to its board as EQT and partners sell out. Learn more.

Compass Diversified (NYSE: CODI), which is down 77% in the last month, has hired Raymond James to sell Atlanta-based feminine care brand The Honey Pot, which it acquired last year for $380m, per Reuters.

The plant-based period- and vaginal-care brand has become one of CODI’s best-performing assets, and the firm is said to be targeting a premium exit, though the process is still early and a sale isn’t guaranteed. A deal would help CODI de-lever following the November bankruptcy of portfolio company Lugano Diamonds after an internal accounting fraud probe.

Founded in 2012 by CEO Beatrice Dixon, The Honey Pot sells tampons, washes, lubricants, and supplements and competes with Procter & Gamble’s Tampax and Kimberly-Clark’s Kotex.

YSE Beauty, the LA-based skincare brand founded by Molly Sims, raised a $15m Series A led by Silas Capital, with L Catterton, Willow Growth Partners, and Halogen Ventures also participating, per WWD.

The melasma-focused, Sephora-exclusive “skin care–meets-makeup” line, targeting an often-overlooked Gen X consumer, plans to use the capital to support a full U.S. Sephora rollout, scale DTC and TikTok Shop, and begin international expansion, with revenue projected to approach ~$30m next year.

Coty Inc. (NYSE: COTY) has sold its remaining 25.8% stake in professional hair-care group Wella to KKR for $750m in cash, plus rights to 45% of any future sale or IPO proceeds after KKR’s preferred return.

Most of the upfront cash will go to paying down debt as Coty targets ~3x net leverage by end-2025. Coty had marked the stake at about $1B in November, so the contingent payout keeps some upside if KKR later floats or sells Wella. Learn more.

Vacation Inc., the sun care brand known for its nostalgic 1970s- and 1980s-inspired designs and bestselling Classic Whip SPF 50 sunscreen, has hired Raymond James to explore a growth investment via a minority stake sale.

The Miami-based company, founded in 2021 by Marty Bell, Lach Hall, and Dakota Green, is projected to hit $80 million in sales this year after doubling from prior levels, with a 1.2% U.S. sunscreen market share as of late November.

Sources indicate Raymond James has conducted introductory fireside chats with potential partners, with a formal process expected in 2026 targeting private equity for capital to fuel retail expansion at Ulta Beauty, Target, CVS, Nordstrom, and beyond, alongside international growth and product extensions into body care and fragrance.

New Directions Aromatics, a TruArc Partners portfolio company, acquired Aromatic Fragrances International, a Cartersville, Ga.–based fragrance supplier to beauty, personal care, home care, and other markets.

Founded in 2013 by Sean Riordan and Josh Thompson, AFI will continue to be led by its founders, who retain a material ownership stake. The deal is New Directions’ first acquisition since TruArc’s January 2022 investment and bolsters its Toronto-based platform supplying natural and organic raw materials to the beauty and wellness industries. Learn more.

Unilever (LSE: ULVR) plans to deploy about €1.5B per year on mostly U.S.-focused M&A, CEO Fernando Fernandez said at a JPMorgan event, just a day after completing the spinoff of its ice cream unit (Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers), which now trades separately in Amsterdam.

With ice cream carved out, the war chest is likely to target higher-margin beauty and personal care assets in the U.S. Likely targets are premium skin care, ethnically focused hair and body brands, and science-backed “dermacosmetic” plays that can plug into Unilever’s existing beauty & wellbeing and personal care platforms.

If Fernandez leans into U.S. beauty, expect more competition for indie and mid-market cosmetic brands that might otherwise have gone to L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Shiseido, or Private Equity Firms.

TPG Inc. (NYSE: TPG) has effectively been wiped out on most of its $600m investment in Anastasia Beverly Hills after a debt restructuring that cut its stake in the prestige brow-and-color cosmetics brand to about 6% from 38%, with founder Anastasia Soare now exploring options including a roughly $225m equity injection and revised terms with lenders, per Bloomberg.

KKR (NYSE:KKR) is preparing a rival bid for Tokyo-listed personal care maker Mandom, offering more than ¥2,800 per share, which is just over 10% above the ¥2,520 per share tender from CVC-backed Kalon Holdings that underpins management’s buyout plan, per Nikkei.

The deal would value the Gatsby and Lucido owner at over ¥100B (~$640m) and could upset the ongoing MBO after activist investor Aya Nomura’s funds pushed back on price and opened the door to higher offers.

Bain Capital has made a binding takeover bid for Japanese personal-care group FineToday Holdings, whose backers include CVC Capital Partners, after rival suitors Blackstone and KKR withdrew from the process, per Bloomberg.

FineToday, carved out of Shiseido’s personal-care unit in a ~$1.5B deal in 2021, owns mass brands such as Tsubaki shampoo and operates across 11 Asian markets, giving Bain a scaled beauty platform in Japan and China if a deal is completed.