ARTICLES
Explore our latest insights on the beauty, luxury, and lifestyle industries. At Carrara Advisory, we combine decades of hands-on experience with deep market understanding to provide actionable perspectives on strategy, innovation, and growth. Here, we share our thinking on the trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the future of your business.
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The Deal Machine: Beauty and Wellness M&A Multiples, Decoded
M&A pricing over the past years shows the market paying less for category alone and more for scarcity, ownership, and proof, whether that's owned brand IP over licensing, real margin and retention behind a celebrity name, or clinical credibility behind a skincare claim, so that the average multiple increasingly means less than knowing exactly where a given asset sits within a widening range.
From Appearance to Affect: The Neuro-Emotional Pivot in Prestige Beauty
Prestige beauty is shifting from treating appearance to treating the nervous system, with brands now converging scent, ingestibles, topicals, touch, and neurotech into a single validated stress-management platform, a shift confirmed by an August 2025 spike in search interests.
The E3volution Framework™: Why Every Entry Decision Shapes the Exit
In today's beauty and wellness industry, long-term value is maximized by treating market entry, business expansion, and eventual exit as one integrated strategic journey - where every decision made at the outset directly shapes future growth opportunities and exit outcomes
The Battle for Beauty's Middleman Margin
As beauty retail shifts from physical shelves to algorithm-driven discovery, the battle for the industry's traditional middleman margin is being won not by brands or retailers, but by social commerce platforms, creators, and logistics networks that increasingly control how consumers discover, purchase, and receive beauty products.
The Deal Machine: Understanding M&A in Beauty and Wellness
Fifteen years of proprietary transaction data reveal a sector defined by structural resilience, counter-cyclical deal logic, and a consolidation dynamic that no public source has yet been able to map in full.
Beauty Private Label Beauty: Success Stories, Innovations, and Award-Winning Products
Retailer-owned beauty brands have moved from cheap alternatives to genuine market leaders, with proof points ranging from No7 outscoring Chanel and Dior on UK brand health metrics to Kirkland Signature generating $86 billion in annual sales.
The Strategic Reinvention of Private Label in Beauty and Wellness
Beauty and wellness retailers are no longer using private label merely as a margin tool, but are increasingly building sophisticated owned brands across skincare, wellness, and personal care categories, transforming themselves from distributors into direct competitors of the brands they once primarily sold.
Beauty Tech Devices: The Strategic Bet Behind Beauty’s Operating Layer
Beauty tech devices are evolving from standalone premium hardware into integrated platforms that drive consumer routines, personalized treatments, and ecosystem-driven value, positioning them as the operating layer of the modern beauty industry.
NORMAL: The Discount Retailer Reaches €2Bn in Half the Time of ACTION
Normal, a Danish discount variety retailer, has reached €2 billion in revenue faster than any comparable European chain, growing at a 39% CAGR versus Action's 27% at the same stage, and may be the most overlooked growth story in European retail today.
A Fragmented Industry at an Inflection Point: Global Destination Management
The global Destination Management Company industry is a structurally resilient, fast-growing, and largely invisible USD 9 billion business whose core value (translating deep local expertise into seamless on-the-ground execution for clients operating far from home) is becoming more rather than less relevant in an increasingly complex world.
The Great Beauty Portfolio Reset - When Divestiture Becomes the Growth Strategy
The beauty industry is undergoing a structural reset in which large groups like Estée Lauder and Coty are divesting mid-tier, makeup-heavy, marketing-dependent brands that no longer fit their economic and strategic models, signalling a broader shift toward smaller, more focused portfolios built around brands with clear positioning, defensibility, and sustainable growth.
The Real COGS Killer: Bad Planning.
Small and mid-sized beauty brands don’t ruin their margins because of component prices, but because they produce too often in small batches - poor planning, not suppliers, is the real COGS killer.
The Eugevity Era: Joi+Blokes and HerMD Lead the Health Revolution
The acquisition of HerMD by Joi+Blokes marks a new era in virtual healthcare, combining diagnostic rigor, clinical specialization, and Eugevity‑focused preventive care to transform how adults manage their long-term health and vitality.
Brands vs Manufacturers: Decoding the Numbers
Brands and manufacturers follow distinct financial and operational models, with brands driving growth and high margins through marketing and consumer engagement, while manufacturers generate stable, volume-driven revenue through operational efficiency, offering investors complementary opportunities across risk, profitability, and scalability.
Crossroads: Kering’s Current Challenges and the Road Ahead
Kering stands at a critical crossroads where restoring Gucci, streamlining operations, clarifying group identity and exploring bold strategic moves such as mergers, Eyewear monetization or deep digital transformation will determine whether it emerges as a more diversified, resilient and operationally disciplined luxury leader or remains overly dependent on a single brand.
Performance: The Financial Backbone of Kering’s Transformation
Kering’s financial performance over the past two decades reflects the payoff, and limits, of its luxury-focused strategy, showing how margin expansion, working capital evolution, and leverage dynamics shaped the group’s profitability and balance sheet strength.
Reinvention: Kering’s Strategic Transformation
Kering’s evolution from a timber business into a focused luxury powerhouse reflects six decades of deliberate reinvention - driven by bold acquisitions, disciplined divestitures, and a constant reallocation of capital and talent toward high-value, brand-driven growth.
In-House vs Licensing: Strategic Choices and the Cost of Control
While licensing offers a low-risk, capital-light entry and in-house delivers greater control, profitability, and long-term brand equity, the most effective path is not fixed but depends on each brand’s context.
In-House vs. Licensing: Why Luxury Fashion Houses Struggle with Beauty.
Luxury fashion houses are increasingly re-evaluating the balance between licensing and in-house beauty operations, with mixed success, as seen in the contrasting strategies of Hermès, Chanel, Kering, Richemont, and Dolce & Gabbana.
Proya Group: The Blueprint of China’s Rising Beauty Empires
Proya Group’s rise from a local Chinese skincare brand to a digitally-driven, multi-brand powerhouse exemplifies how China’s new beauty empires combine data-driven insight, agile brand management, and strategic sequencing to scale domestically and prepare for global expansion.