hese labels were trophy assets: fast‑growing, youth‑driven “It” brands that promised to bring millennials into Lauder’s orbit.​ Over the past decade, however, the very dynamics that made them hot have turned against them. The colour‑cosmetics boom cooled, K‑beauty became overcrowded, and a flood of influencer and celebrity brands eroded differentiation in retailers where Too Faced, Smashbox and Dr Jart+ once dominated the shelf. Despite hero franchises like Too Faced’s Better Than Sex mascara or Dr Jart’s Cicapair still resonating with loyalists, all three are now described internally as “underperforming,” in “varying states of distress.”​ From acquisition spree to portfolio surgery These brands also represent a specific chapter in Lauder’s growth story: the 2010s hunt for disruptive “indies” that could bolt onto a heritage portfolio anchored by Estée Lauder, MAC, Clinique and La Mer. Smashbox was acquired in 2010, Too Faced in 2016 and Dr Jart+ in two stages between 2015 and 2019 – the latter marking the group’s first full acquisition of an Asia‑based beauty brand.​ Today, Lauder is in a very different place. Net sales fell 8 per cent in 2025 to US$14.3 billion, with weakness across skincare, makeup and hair care and a major drag from travel retail. Against that backdrop, the company rolled out its “Beauty Reimagined” strategy in early 2025: a multi‑year reset focused on restoring sustainable growth and achieving a solid double‑digit operating margin through cost‑cutting, simplification, and sharper investment behind winners. Analysts note that underperforming mid‑tier brands – including Too Faced and Dr Jart+ – have become clear obstacles to that margin story.​ Through that lens, the proposed divestiture is portfolio surgery. Selling non‑core assets delivers several benefits at once: balance‑sheet breathing room, reduced management distraction, and the ability to double down on scale-brands with stronger global equity.​ The end of the 2010s “Instagram beauty” era Glamglow, another 2010s acquisition, looks like collateral damage in this reset. The brand has stripped its website back to a text page, removed e‑commerce and is directing shoppers to Amazon only. At the same time, Estée Lauder declines to clarify whether the label is being wound down or repositioned. Its footprint has already been slashed to the US with a much smaller SKU count, reinforcing the sense that Lauder is quietly exiting or radically downsizing certain “California‑cool” mask and treatment plays that flourished in the Instagram era but no longer justify full‑scale global support.​ Taken together, the moves around Smashbox, Too Faced, Dr Jart+ and Glamglow read less like isolated decisions and more like the symbolic close of a cycle: the end of the first generation of social‑media‑era acquisitions as growth engines.​ Beauty Reimagined: leaner, faster, more focused Under new CEO Stéphane de La Faverie, Beauty Reimagined is explicitly about making Estée Lauder “leaner, faster and more agile,” stripping out complexity and “unburdening” smaller brands while driving scale for the largest ones. That involves workforce reductions, a flatter structure, and heavier investments in consumer‑facing activities – innovation, media and digital – for the brands best positioned to win globally.​ Offloading three troubled labels in one sweep fits that thesis. It reduces internal complexity, sends a clear message to investors that Lauder is serious about pruning, and frees up capital for future acquisitions in categories and regions with better tailwinds. It also aligns with a more cautious, profitability‑minded read of the “lipstick effect” economy, where mid‑tier discretionary brands are feeling the squeeze between luxury and value.​ What it means for the wider beauty market For the industry, Lauder’s moves are likely to catalyse further consolidation and portfolio clean‑ups among other conglomerates, many of which face similar pressures around underperforming “acquired indies” from the last cycle.  The larger takeaway is clear. In 2026, sheer brand count is no longer a measure of strength. For Estée Lauder – and its peers – the next phase of growth will depend on fewer, sharper bets, tighter storytelling, and portfolios engineered as much for resilience as for reach.