Pretty Recent

The big houses are cleaning out the closet this week. LVMH is weeks away from selling its half of Fenty Beauty to Jay-Z's MarcyPen. The Weston family, the people behind Loblaw and Shoppers Drug Mart, are in talks to buy Boots for about nine billion dollars. The Armani heirs are opening stake-sale talks with LVMH, L'Oréal and EssilorLuxottica. And L'Oréal USA has hired restructuring advisers to figure out what to do with its talc and hair-relaxer lawsuits, the same week nine members of Congress sent a letter to Revlon about asbestos testing.

Meanwhile, the actual consumer is on TikTok Shop. e.l.f. launched a thirteen-dollar fragrance there before it hit its own site, L'Oréal launched Korean skincare brand Dr.G there before Sephora or Ulta, and Sephora itself is moving into 100 Marks & Spencer stores in the UK. Plus: why Scarlett Johansson's The Outset shut down, what the Haus Labs bronzer apology says about who actually holds power in beauty now, and Mary Kay selling snail mucin.

In this episode:
- Fenty, MarcyPen and the celebrity brand shakeout
- L'Oréal, Revlon and the talc problem
- Boots, the Westons and Sephora inside M&S
- TikTok-first launches and the K-beauty engine
- Haus Labs and shade accountability
- The Canadian numbers: Circana, NIQ and what's actually selling

Pretty Recent is the weekly beauty brief from Beauty Economy. New episodes every week.