2026 beauty M&A predictions with industry vet Kimber Maderazzo

After a few sleepy years, beauty M&A had a gangbuster 2025, including three deals worth more than a billion each, leading many insiders to speculate on whether the momentum can continue in 2026.

“We were excited to see what we saw last year; M&A had become so dormant for a while, we were getting a little concerned,” said Kimber Maderazzo, professor of marketing at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School and former Proactiv and L’Oréal Group executive. “But I think we’ll see something different [this year].”

In 2025, E.l.f. Beauty purchased Hailey Bieber’s Rhode for $1 billion in May. Then in June, men’s care brand Dr. Squatch was acquired by Unilever for $1.5 billion, and L’Oréal Group bought clinical skin-care brand Medik-8 for approximately $1.1 billion.

“When you see big deals like that, it sends a message out to private equity that strategics are looking for big, big brands that will last over time,” Maderazzo said. “And when we look at the history [of beauty M&A], a lot of those brands [acquired in the past] didn’t.”

In this week’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack sits down with Maderazzo to discuss the new acquisition rulebook, as she sees it, what strategics are looking for today and what we can expect in 2026. 

Lebsack also taps Maderazzo to share her “2026 in and out” prediction list and an insider glimpse into the trends and topics most important to the beauty-industry-focused graduate students she teaches today.