Whenever, we go into a shop to buy a certain brand of a beauty product, never do we give a thought as to how many companies sell such branded products.
And after due research, we could find out that 182 beauty companies fall under the massive umbrellas of seven huge manufacturers of beauty products.
These seven mega-companies are Estée Lauder Companies, L’Oréal, Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Shiseido, Johnson and Johnson and Coty.
Taken together they employ thousands of people around the world and make billions of dollars in revenue every year. They are also responsible for controlling advertising and the way we all think about beauty every day.
Each of these seven companies are responsible for skin care (for both the body and face), hair care, perfume, and makeup.
Not included brands are those that only made products such as deodorant, toothpaste, suntan lotion or baby lotion
What remains is a compelling look at who controls the beauty products we’re buyingand what are the companies like.
A look-around
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Estée Lauder Companies
Estée Lauder Companies was responsible for 24 of the beauty brands on this list. Some of their holdings include the makeup and fragrances by fashion brands such as Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Tom Ford, Tommy Hilfiger, and Tory Burch each of which have their own cosmetics and/or toiletries lines.
They also have quite a few well-known beauty brands such as Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, La Mer, and MAC Cosmetics.
It is said that Estée Lauder as a whole made an estimated $11.3 billion in beauty sales in 2016.
L’Oréal
L’Oréal had the most brands on this list with a total of 39 beauty brands including major staples like Lancôme, Maybelline, Urban Decay, Garnier, Essie, and The Body Shop.
They also have very expensive skincare and haircare brands, including Pureology, La Roche-Posay, and SkinCeuticals.
In 2016, it was estimated that the company made $27.6 billion in beauty annual sales.
Unilever
Unilever has 38 total beauty sub-brands, and many of those are staples in drugstores in the US including Nexxus, Ponds, TIGI, Dove, Vaseline and Lever 2000.
Unilever also has quite a few brands popular outside the US, including Fair & Lovely, a “fairness cream” that’s marketed in India as a skin-lightening lotion for women. It’s worth noting that it has received backlash for promoting one shade of skin as better than another.
Unilever made an estimated $58.2 billion in corporate sales in the year 2016.
Procter & Gamble
Proctor & Gamble has 9 total beauty brands like Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Olay and Gillette.Thecompany made an estimated $76 billion from corporate sales in 2016.
Coty
Speaking of Coty, it has come out as a new leader in the beauty industry with 33 total brands. After acquiring many brands from Procter & Gamble, Coty now owns numerous big name products including OPI, Rimmel, Covergirl, and is behind celebrity toiletries like Katy Perry, David Beckham, and Beyoncé, among others.
In 2016, Coty made an estimated $4.3 billion in beauty sales.
Shiseido
Shiseido itself a well-known skincare brand that has about 30 other beauty brands underneath it. Some of those are also makeup brands including bare Minerals, Nars and Laura Mercier.
The vast majority are brands that might not be recognized in the US, including Japanese brands such as Majolica Majorca, Ettusais, Maquillage, and Aqua Label, which also claims to whiten skin.
The Japanese corporation made an estimated $6.3 billion in beauty sales in 2016.
Johnson and Johnson
And lastly, the last major brand we have included on this list is on the smaller side with nine beauty brands but one thing is there to ponder that what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in name recognition.
Johnson and Johnson is a bigger umbrella company that includes nine beauty brands, including Aveeno, Neutrogena, Clean and Clear, and RoC, in addition to a few others.
The company made around $7.1 billion in 2016 to be exact.
