City of Industry, CA
www.markwinsbeauty.com
Sales: $540 million

Sales: $540 million (estimated).

Sales soared 35% last year. Leading brands under the Markwins Beauty Brand umbrella have been busy rolling out trendy and collaborative products like Pump, an “ath” inspired range at Wet n Wild, Physicians Formula’s Butter Collection Palette with Casey Holmes (which sold out in no time), and a Lip Smacker’s Crayola mashup. Channeling a popular brand is nothing new for Lip Smacker (a brand created by Bonne Bell, which Markwins acquired in 2015); countless teens have donned Lip Smacker lip glosses since the mid 1970s.

City of Industry, CA
www.markwinsbeauty.com

Sales: $398 million (estimated).

Markwins’ bread and butter is mass beauty, a category that’s starving for attention these days as women shop online and opt for indie brands. The company hopes to get back on track with Lorac Cosmetics, a professional beauty brand it acquired last month for an undisclosed price.

“Lorac is the original professional makeup artistry brand, and Markwins is excited to add its unique market-positioning to our expanding brand portfolio,” said Stefano Curti, global president of Markwins. “With Lorac, Markwins enters the prestige channel with an iconic Hollywood mainstay—expert products created under the intuition of makeup legend Carol Shaw, resulting in technologies that compel even the sharpest of beauty enthusiasts’ critical eye.”

Lorac Cosmetics was founded two decades ago by Shaw after she saw the need to develop products that wouldn’t irritate her celebrity clients’ sensitive skin. Her line of professional formulations are said to contain skin-friendly ingredients. Shaw will continue to work with Markwins as lead consultant on the brand.

According to Markwins, the acquisition of Lorac, which it calls a prestige consumer brand, rounds out its strategic portfolio of non-competing lines, which include masstige brand Physicians Formula, entry point brand Wet n Wild, ethnic brand Black Radiance, and youth brand Lip Smacker.

“Markwins’ expanding success is simple at its core: we respect that different people have different needs. Whether culturally or economically, we understand that we need to satisfy the global consumer by continuing to acquire and develop disparate brands—one brand can’t conquer the world,” said Markwins CEO Eric Chen. “With Lorac, we’re thrilled to add its distinct Hollywood heritage and celebrity status. I have always had a bias toward California, and Lorac is yet another embodiment of the California beauty spirit.”

City of Industry, CA
909-595-8898
www.markwinsbeauty.com

Sales: $403 million (estimated).

Privately held Markwins Beauty Brands, founded by Eric Chen more than 30 years ago, reaches consumers of all ages, ethnicities, economic statuses, and skin tones through a series of skin care and beauty brands that include Wet ‘n’ Wild, Physicians Formula, The Color Workshop, Black Radiance, Bonne Belle and Lip Smacker. All told, the company has a presence in 50,000 retail outlets including department, specialty, mass, drug, and food stores in more than 60 countries, spanning six continents.

Less than a year after appointing a new COO, Markwins hired a new staffer to take over these responsibilities. Michael Shaw joined the organization in May as global COO to lead all areas of operations, information, finance, and planning, aligning operations, IT, manufacturing and finance globally. Prior to this appointment, Shaw served as CEO and solution delivery lead at Aptis Consulting Group where he used his expertise to manage mergers and acquisitions, finance and technology projects, and improvement opportunities.

This spring, Markwins’ iconic Lip Smacker brand announced a campaign to crowdsource its next flavor. The brand asked fans to submit their suggestion with flavor name, three key ingredients and descriptors to its Instagram page. The winning flavor will be made into a Lip Smacker lip balm and sold exclusively on the brand’s website, with credit to the creator.