The global beauty sector has attracted more new entrants and capital than ever before, but billion-dollar success remains elusive: Only seven beauty brands founded in the past two decades generated more than $1 billion in sales last year. McKinsey’s Alexis Wolfer, Kristi Weaver, Sara Hudson, and their coauthors note that $70 million in sales is the first meaningful threshold at which beauty brands shift from small brands to scale-ups. Yet of the 220 brands that reached that threshold, only 60 went on to cross $250 million in sales. The brands most likely to reach the billion-dollar milestone may be those that anticipate when their winning formula is about to expire and then reformulate.
To read the article, see “Billion-dollar beauty: The odds of scaling a breakout brand,” September 24, 2026.