Key Takeaways:Beauty M&A activity remains robust with 27 transactions in 2025 YTD, anchored by the US and Europe.Kering’s $3.8 billion Creed deal at 14x revenue, and L’Oréal’s $1 billion Medik8 deal at ~9x revenue, demonstrate that growth, science, and heritage still command high prices.New frontiers are reshaping the map, with India attracting heavy private equity and strategic investment, and South Korea consolidating its role as a CDMO powerhouse.The beauty industry has always been fertile ground for acquisitions, but the latest figures show just how central mergers & acquisitions (M&A) have become to its future. While activity has cooled slightly from the extraordinary post-pandemic surge, 2024 and 2025 data reveal a sector that remains one of the most attractive playgrounds for investors. According to DC Advisory, global beauty M&A volumes in 2022 were already 67% higher than in 2019, illustrating how the pandemic reset the industry’s value drivers and fueled consolidation.“Our outlook remains optimistic about the trajectory for deal volumes through 2025 into 2026,” Luc-Henry Rousselle, Managing Director at DC Advisory, told BeautyMatter. “We believe the factors contributing to this increase are a backlog of quality beauty assets held by private equity and venture capital firms, pending corporate divestitures, sustained consumer demand, especially among younger consumers, and strong strategic interest across regions,” he continued.Today, the activity is no longer about opportunistic scale grabs.