Kmart locked up 117 beauty brands in Australia. L’Oreal is bidding on Armani equity to protect a licence it already holds.

Kmart Australia has expanded its beauty range to more than 2,700 products from over 117 brands. [Retail Beauty reported on 6 November](https://retailbeauty.com.au/kmart-expands-beauty-offering-with-2700-products-and-117-global-brands/) that more than 60 percent of the range is exclusive to Kmart and Target. Korean names lead it: Medicube, Biodance, Abib and SKIN1004 among them. SHEGLAM and Essence cover make-up. Glow Hub and Colorgram arrive with Kmart and Target as their national stockists. Kmart also added lines to its own OXX label at low prices. Sheet masks start at A$2 and an eau de parfum at A$6.

Our read is that Kmart is buying the Australian K-beauty shelf rather than renting space on it. Kmart and Target are run as one business by Wesfarmers. A Korean brand that wants discount scale in Australia is choosing between that pair and the independents. Australia ranks second in the world for Korean beauty spending per person, Kmart says. It cites Future Market Insights data that reached it through a September 2025 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) report. No year is given for the spending measured. On 3 November we reported a British distributor, not the brands, winning permanent K-beauty counters in Selfridges, and said the middleman had taken the position the brands wanted. Kmart is the same move with the retailer in that chair. There is no published store count and no sales figure, and the exclusivity terms are not disclosed.

L'Occitane au Bresil, the Brazilian brand owned by L'Occitane Group, is now sold in four Brazilian cities on the country's leading food-delivery app. The app [announced the launch](https://cosmeticinnovation.com.br/loccitane-au-bresil-chega-ao-ifood-com-amostras-de-compotas-corporais-de-pudim/) on 6 November. It delivers from the brand's own shops, the same day or within minutes. In São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, people who order a sweet from selected shops may get two samples of the brand's new pudding-scented body cream with their dessert. The cream belongs to Pudimcare, a limited line inspired by Brazil's caramel custard and created with Nestlé's Moça condensed-milk brand. Its four products cost R$59.99 to R$119.99.

Our read: the app is selling the brand an audience as much as a delivery service. The samples are placed by the app's advertising arm, and they reach people who have just ordered something sweet, which is the feeling the pudding line is built on. On 10 October we reported that in India, apps delivering within minutes sold more than twice as much make-up as Amazon in July, and they sold on speed. This app adds something else: it knows what a customer is eating and can put a matching product beside it. The brand has made a habit of food-inspired lines, from a chocolate sweet in 2025 to guava paste with cheese this year. A sample in a dessert bag fits that range. We assume the brand pays for the placement, but neither company has said what it costs or how many samples are going out.

The Estee Lauder Companies (ELC) has [unveiled a platform it calls Mastering Skin Longevity](https://www.elcompanies.com/en/news-and-media/newsroom/press-releases/2026/11-06-2026-140104826). It says the platform will guide its research across ingredients, formulations and products. It was announced on 6 November at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai. The science is a set of what ELC calls Master Regulators, pathways it says act on several signs of ageing at once. It names three: sirtuins, AMPK and mTOR. The work runs at company labs in Melville, New York and in Shanghai. No study, trial or sample size is cited. Its measure, a Skin Longevity Clock, is described as a visual.

Our read is that a research direction has been dressed as a discovery, and launched where ELC most needs to look like a science company. ELC does publish. In April it put a sugar and skin study in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and a facial age model built on more than 2,800 women. It named a board of seven dermatologists then. The November board is researchers from China, Singapore and the United States, and not one of them is named. The white paper it says it unveiled is not posted. The innovation page claims 44 patents and more than 60 publications, and lists neither. On 21 September we reported that M11 Labs checked 633 skincare brands and could not verify the main claim at 47 percent of them. We said luxury pricing bought no better evidence. ELC told investors on 4 November, two days before the launch, that it wants an adjusted operating margin of 16.5 to 18.5 percent by 2030.

Schwan Cosmetics, a German company that develops and makes make-up for other brands, will open a research centre in Seoul in January to bring Korean skincare ideas into make-up. It [announced the hub](https://www.personalcaremagazine.com/story/53069/schwan-cosmetics-to-open-innovation-hub-in-south-korea) on 6 November. The Seoul team will track skincare, ingredient and beauty technology in Korea, working with local customers, suppliers and partners. Schwan says the aim is faster access to make-up with skincare benefits. The announcement says shoppers increasingly expect make-up to work like skincare, and that many of these hybrid ideas appear first in Korea.

Our read: Schwan is moving its scouting to where its customers already look for ideas. The announcement says the hard part for international brands is turning Korean ideas into products, and a supplier that sees them early can offer the make-up version first. On 2 November we reported that Front Row, an e-commerce agency, had opened a Seoul office to sell Korean brands on American marketplaces. Schwan is after something else, Korean ideas it can sell to the brands it already supplies. Late last month we reported that Korea's contract makers were so busy that container suppliers could not keep up. We assume those makers are Schwan's main competition for this work, since they sit beside the brands that start these trends. Schwan's hub is a research site, with production staying in its existing plants, so it has to win on ideas and speed. The announcement gives no headcount or budget.

Giorgio Armani's heirs favour a stock market listing over a sale to a large industry buyer, two people familiar with the matter [told Reuters](https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/exclusive-armani-heirs-favour-ipo-over-sale-industry-player/) on 5 November. They are still pursuing a minority sale. Armani died in September 2025. His will directs the heirs to sell about 15 percent 12 to 18 months after his death. A further 30 to 54.9 percent, or a listing, should follow. It names L'Oreal, LVMH and EssilorLuxottica as preferred buyers. The 15 percent should go by March 2027. Armani, L'Oreal and EssilorLuxottica declined to comment.

On 28 September we wrote that the beauty rights were already gone. L'Oreal has held the Armani fragrance licence for years. Il Sole 24 Ore puts its expiry at 2037 and the eyewear licence at 2050, so the 2050 we printed then was probably the eyewear date. Either way, equity buys no product rights. Our read is that the two licensees are bidding to defend what they rent. Reuters says L'Oreal and EssilorLuxottica are the most engaged, protecting the fragrance and eyewear deals. Armani Beauty turnover, which L'Oreal books rather than Armani, is put by analysts at about 1.5 billion euros. Armani's own 2025 revenue was 2.19 billion, the royalty included, and counting licensees' sales takes the total to about 4 billion. An equity buyer gets the royalty, not the turnover. The heirs are weighing two or more buyers. The will gives the whole 15 percent one board seat, and nobody has said how it splits. Bankers put the group at 5 to 7 billion euros.

Honasa Consumer, the Indian company behind Mamaearth, grew revenue about 36% in the July to September quarter, to 731 crore rupees. It [called this its fastest growth](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/fmcg/honasa-looks-beyond-mamaearth-as-younger-brands-grow-over-45-and-strengthen-its-beauty-portfolio/articleshow/135600613.cms) since listing. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) nearly doubled to 93 crore rupees. Its younger brands, including The Derma Co, Aqualogica and Dr Sheth's, grew more than 45%. Mamaearth grew in the high teens. Honasa also kept adding shops. It now reaches about 320,000 small traditional stores, and its sales to shoppers in store chains grew more than 40%.

On 6 October we reported Honasa's forecast: total growth in the early thirties, Mamaearth in the high teens and the younger brands around the mid-forties. Both brand forecasts held, and total growth came in a little above the range. Our read: Honasa's growth no longer depends on Mamaearth. The brand that built the business online now grows at less than half the pace of the others, and the faster brands are being pushed into shops. That push has not hurt group profit so far. EBITDA nearly doubled while revenue rose 36%, so on our numbers the margin rose to about 12.7% from about 9%. But Honasa says Mamaearth alone earns a margin in the mid-teens, which on our reading means the younger brands earn less than the group average. The October to December results, due early next year, should show whether the younger brands can keep growing above 40% and earn more at the same time.

Coty's six main prestige brands grew 5% like for like in the quarter to September. The company's sales fell 2% on that basis, or 1% as reported. Coty [reported the quarter](https://finviz.com/news/416140/coty-announces-first-quarter-fiscal-year-2027-results) on 4 November and said results beat its expectations. The six are Burberry, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Chloé and Kylie Cosmetics, and they made 73% of prestige sales. Coty blamed freight and material costs from the Middle East conflict for a lower gross margin, and it expects sales to fall again this quarter.

Our read: Coty is concentrating on six names and letting the rest of prestige shrink. It says it has "increasingly concentrated investment behind" the six. Our rough sums put the fall in its other prestige brands at about 14%. Coty still runs Gucci until L'Oréal takes the licence in July 2027, so we assume Gucci is part of that shrinking rest. On 20 August, when we covered that handover, we named Coty's other designer licences as exposed in the same way. Five of the six are licensed from the brands' owners, and Coty controls only Kylie Cosmetics, through a majority stake. So the growth now comes almost entirely from brands Coty does not own. The 40-year Marc Jacobs extension we covered on 4 November reduces that risk for one of them without removing it. The rest of the company is also in question. Coty says it will finish a review of its mass-market beauty and Brazilian businesses by the end of December.