A year of data on vitamin K1 oxide, and EU scientists still can’t name a safe dose. In one Spanish review, 17 of 20 allergy patients reacted.

Maybelline New York has rewritten its tagline for the first time in 35 years. "Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline" becomes ["Maybe. We're born with it. Maybe. It's Maybelline."](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/maybelline-new-york-reimagines-its-iconic-tagline-giving-maybe-a-new-meaning-for-a-new-era-302932458.html) It sits inside a new global platform called The Beauty of Infinite Possibility, fronted by Miley Cyrus, the brand's global ambassador since September 2025. The release says a single period turns a question into a declaration. The platform rolls out globally this month. No markets are named and no spend is given.

Our read: the old line had become a liability. The brand has dropped it. It told a woman she either had it or bought it. That is a claim about nature. A mass brand selling self-expression cannot keep making it. Sandrine Jolly, the global brand president, says the change from "she" to "we" is small in language and very meaningful, because "she" was one woman and "we" is every woman. That is the company explaining why the sentence had to go. On 30 August we wrote that Maybelline shipped a lip product four weeks before Love Island USA premiered. The ordering was the lesson: distribution first, campaign second. The words are now getting the same treatment. What the brand says is changing while the shelf, the price and the products stay where they are. The risk is plain. The brand has given up a line most people can repeat, and it does not have one they can repeat yet.

The European Union's scientific advisers on cosmetics say vitamin K1 oxide is not safe at up to 1%. The Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) adopted the [preliminary opinion](https://health.ec.europa.eu/publications/sccs-scientific-advice-safety-phytonadione-epoxide-vitamin-k1-oxide-cas-no-25486-55-9-ec-no-247-022_en) on 4 November. It cites case reports showing the ingredient can cause serious allergic skin reactions that often need medical treatment. The ingredient is used in eye contour creams, anti-ageing serums and products for redness. It replaced vitamin K1 itself, which the EU banned in cosmetics in 2009 because of skin allergies. The SCCS could not set any safe level, because nobody supplied the dose and exposure data it needed. Nor could it rule out harm to genes. Comments are open until 11 January 2027.

Our read: an EU ban is likely, and brands selling eye creams with this ingredient should start reformulating now. In a Spanish review of 20 patients allergic to cosmetics, 17 reacted to vitamin K1 oxide, all on the eyelids. Ten needed emergency care or oral steroids. The European Commission asked for safety data for a year. Companies sent some, including skin-allergy tests and a product safety report, but none of it let the SCCS set a dose it could call safe. On 24 October we reported that the same committee set limits under which two perfume ingredients could stay in cosmetics. For vitamin K1 oxide it set none. Vitamin K1 is also a medical treatment, and the SCCS warns that someone sensitized by a cream may not be able to receive it.

Glow Recipe will put its full range into 1,000 Ulta Beauty shops and on Ulta.com on 6 December. The skincare brand [announced the expansion on 10 November](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/glow-recipe-announces-retail-expansion-with-nationwide-ulta-beauty-launch-302934861.html). It calls it its first major retail expansion since its 2017 debut. Prices run from 8 to 48 dollars. The order matters. A new eye mask, whose dispenser twists to cut single patches, goes on sale on Ulta Beauty's TikTok Shop on 17 November. Ulta's shops and website get it on 6 December. Glow Recipe already sells in more than 3,000 doors worldwide, including Sephora, Cult Beauty and Mecca in Australia. The release does not say it is leaving any of them.

Our read: the retailer is buying the launch moment. The brand is paying for 1,000 doors with it. On 23 August we wrote that Ice Spice's first perfume sold on Ulta Beauty's TikTok Shop a month before it reached a shelf. The shelf had become the third act. We said the retailer was keeping the discovery moment instead of the brand's account. That was a new brand under a celebrity licence, with no customers of its own to send anywhere. Glow Recipe has nine years of its own customers, and has handed this launch to Ulta Beauty's channel anyway. What the brand gives up is real. For three weeks the only place to buy the new eye mask is the retailer's own TikTok Shop. Whoever discovers it there is Ulta Beauty's customer. Sephora has carried the brand since the start. Whether its American shelf thins after 6 December is worth checking.

Procter & Gamble has lost a challenge to the moisture claims on Unilever's Dove Deep Moisture Body Wash. On 9 November the National Advertising Division (NAD), the American advertising industry's watchdog, [found all the challenged claims supported](https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/11/09/tmt-newswire/globenewswire/national-advertising-division-found-unilevers-dove-deep-moisture-body-wash-claims-supported/2465521). P&G, which makes Olay body wash, had disputed claims that Dove moisturizes for 24 hours and nourishes the driest skin, and the product name "Deep Moisture" itself. Unilever's evidence was a study that measured skin hydration for 24 hours after a single wash. P&G sent studies of its own. NAD said P&G had not shown that Unilever's study was flawed, or that its own studies were more reliable.

Our read: one well-designed study can carry a long-lasting claim, as long as a rival cannot show it was badly run. P&G's own studies found no benefit from Dove's wash compared with plain water, Citeline, a trade publisher, reported (single-source, unverified). NAD still went with Unilever's study. A challenger therefore has to break the other side's test, and a different result is not enough. NAD treated "nourishes" as another word for "moisturizes", so the same study covered that claim too. Unilever also sent studies showing the wash leaves fatty acids in the skin's outer layer, but NAD did not need them to decide. P&G and Unilever have fought over body-wash claims before. In 2014 Unilever challenged Olay ads saying Dove Sensitive Skin dried skin out over time, and NAD told P&G to drop or change them. This time P&G brought the challenge, and lost.

Justin Boxford is leaving The Estee Lauder Companies after more than 22 years. He goes nine weeks after it created a job for him running its luxury brands. [WWD reported it on 6 November](https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/justin-boxford-exits-est-e-215257885.html), from an internal memo by chief brand officer Jane Hertzmark Hudis. It says he is going to a new opportunity. The role was created on 3 September and put La Mer, Estee Lauder, Aerin, Darphin Paris and Lab Series under him. No successor has been named. Pernilla Nyberg, who runs the UK and Ireland, is leaving too. Umair Ansari replaces her on 1 January 2027.

Our read: the structure Estee Lauder built in September now has nobody in it. Those brands need an owner most. On 28 August we wrote that the company had handed brand-building to Deciem, the business it bought, as its one team with a recent hit. September pointed the other way. The company gathered La Mer and the Estee Lauder brand under one 22-year insider. The Estee Lauder Companies is growing again, which makes losing Boxford expensive. Group sales rose 7 percent to 3.715 billion dollars in the quarter reported on 2 November, and the forecast went up. Operating income more than doubled, to 408 million dollars from 169 million, which the company credits to selling more at a better margin. Growing La Mer and the Estee Lauder brand needs someone whose job that is. Since 6 November nobody has it. Watch where the replacement comes from. An internal promotion would say the structure was right. Hiring from outside would say it was the problem.

Shiseido expects to earn more this year, although its underlying sales will fall short of plan. On 10 November the Japanese group [raised its forecast for core operating profit](https://corp.shiseido.com/en/ir/pdf/ir20261110_307.pdf) to ¥87 billion, from ¥69 billion. It made a nine-month net profit of ¥44.4 billion, after a loss a year earlier. It gave cost control, a weaker yen and one-off gains such as tariff refunds as reasons. It now expects underlying sales, which leave out currency moves and sold businesses, to grow 1% this year instead of 3%. It cut that outlook for Japan, Europe, the Americas and the rest of Asia, but not for China and travel retail, its largest business. Underlying sales grew 3% from July to September, after 2% in the second quarter and a 3% fall in the first.

Our read: Shiseido is earning more because it spends less, and shoppers have not come back as fast as it hoped. On 12 August we wrote that Shiseido's profit had nearly doubled while underlying sales stood still, and that the third quarter would show whether demand was returning. It returned a little, but not enough to keep the yearly sales plan. Shiseido says Japan's tourist market kept growing, despite fewer Chinese visitors. Its own sales to tourists fell by a mid-teens percentage in the quarter. Since 1 November tourists in Japan pay tax at the till and claim it back at the airport, as we reported on 2 November. We expect that to slow their buying further.

Cosmax, the Korean company that develops and makes products for beauty brands, had its biggest quarter yet. Sales from July to September rose 50% to 875.8 billion won, and operating profit rose 95% to 83.3 billion won, [it disclosed on 11 November](https://view.asiae.co.kr/article/2026111115171009006). Its Korean business passed 600 billion won in a quarter for the first time, up 61%. The American business grew 88% to 69.5 billion won and made an operating profit for a second quarter running. Existing American customers reordered and asked for more skincare to be developed. China sales rose 27% to 177 billion won, but that business lost 6.5 billion won.

Our read: the K-beauty boom is paying its factories more reliably than its brands. On 22 October we wrote that a stronger won was cutting profit forecasts for Korean brands that sell abroad. Analysts still expected Cosmax and Kolmar Korea, which bill mostly in won, to raise operating profit about 60%. Cosmax beat that, at 95%. APR, which owns Medicube, missed its forecast with a 68.9% rise, as we reported on 2 November. Cosmax's American business made its first quarterly operating profit in the second quarter (single-source, unverified), and has now done it twice. It still made a net loss there of 2.6 billion won. On 27 October we reported that Korean contract makers ran short of bottles and jars this year, and that small brands were the most exposed. With orders growing this fast, we expect small brands to wait longer for containers next year.