By Dean Butt
Co-Founder & CEO, APPLE & BEARS
Walk through a department store beauty hall, browse an online marketplace or scroll through a social-media feed and the beauty industry can appear almost infinitely diverse.
Thousands of brands compete for attention. There are luxury houses, celebrity brands, independent businesses, heritage names, specialist skincare companies and new digital-first brands appearing almost every day.
To the consumer, it can look like one of the most open and competitive industries in the world.
But look behind the label and a more complicated question emerges:
Where does power actually sit across the beauty value chain?
Is it with the brand whose name appears on the bottle? The company that owns the intellectual property? The licence holder? The scientists developing new ingredients? The manufacturer producing the finished product? The retailer controlling shelf space? The influencer creating demand? The algorithm deciding what consumers see?
Or has genuine power finally shifted towards the consumer?
I don't think there is one answer.
The beauty industry is not controlled by a single group. Instead, influence is distributed across a network of businesses, technologies and platforms — and that distribution of power is changing rapidly.
For independent brands, that change could be one of the most important developments in the industry.
The Consolidation Paradox: Ownership Versus Independent Growth
There is no question that significant parts of the global beauty industry are concentrated within large multi-brand groups.
These companies can have enormous advantages in research and development, manufacturing relationships, distribution, retail access, marketing and capital.
Yet something interesting is happening alongside that concentration.
According to NIQ's Indie Beauty Boom report, independent beauty brands grew 22.3% year-on-year, compared with 6.1% for conglomerates. NIQ puts annual indie beauty sales at approximately $40 billion globally and reports that 70% of all indie beauty sales occur online.
That creates a fascinating paradox.
If the largest companies possess so much infrastructure, why are independent brands capable of growing so quickly?
The answer is not necessarily that consumers are abandoning large companies.
It may instead be that the barriers to building a relationship with consumers have changed.
A small brand no longer necessarily needs to convince a department-store buyer before it can reach an audience. It can build a website, sell directly, communicate through social platforms, work with creators, collect customer feedback and develop a community around its products.
Digital commerce has not removed competition.
But it has changed who gets the opportunity to compete.
For independent businesses, that is significant.
So Where Does the Power Actually Sit?
To understand the modern beauty industry, it is useful to stop thinking about the "brand" as a single entity.
Beauty products move through a chain of different forms of expertise and control:
| Stage | Who Influences It |
|---|---|
| R&D and science | Corporate laboratories, scientists, ingredient companies, universities and specialist research organisations |
| Formulation and production | Brand teams, laboratories and manufacturing partners |
| Licensing and brand rights | Intellectual-property owners and licence holders |
| Distribution | Retailers, distributors, logistics providers and marketplaces |
| Discovery | Search engines, social platforms, creators and increasingly AI |
| Purchase | The consumer, influenced by the digital environment surrounding the decision |
No single participant necessarily controls the entire journey.
That matters because the traditional idea of a beauty brand as the sole source of innovation, production and influence is increasingly outdated.
Who Actually Creates the Next Beauty Trend?
This may be one of the most interesting questions in the industry.
When a new beauty trend appears, where did it really begin?
- Was it created by a brand?
- Did a manufacturer already have the formulation capability?
- Did an ingredient supplier develop the technology years earlier?
- Did consumers start using a product differently?
- Did a creator make the trend visible?
- Or did an algorithm identify an emerging behaviour and amplify it?
The answer can be all of these.
Beauty innovation is increasingly collaborative.
Ingredient companies can develop new actives and materials. Specialist laboratories can work on textures and delivery systems. Universities and scientific institutions can contribute research. Manufacturers can develop production capabilities. Brands can identify consumer needs and translate them into products. Creators can accelerate awareness.
The consumer then provides perhaps the most important signal of all: whether anyone actually wants the result.
That makes the modern beauty trend less of a straight line and more of a feedback loop.
Science influences products. Products influence consumers. Consumers influence data. Data influences brands. Brands influence creators. Creators influence consumers again.
The next trend may therefore be less "invented" by one organisation than created collectively by the ecosystem.
R&D: Who Owns the Innovation?
It is tempting to imagine innovation beginning inside a brand laboratory and ending with a product on a shelf.
Reality is more complicated.
A major beauty company may have substantial internal research capabilities. At the same time, it can work with universities, technology companies, ingredient suppliers and specialist research organisations.
Smaller brands can operate differently.
An independent brand may not have the financial resources to maintain a huge internal scientific organisation, but it can work closely with specialist suppliers, laboratories and manufacturers. The advantage can be speed and proximity: fewer layers between the product idea, the people developing it and the consumer buying it.
The important question is therefore not simply who owns the laboratory?
It is: who is capable of turning scientific or manufacturing knowledge into something that genuinely improves the consumer's experience?
That distinction matters.
Innovation is not valuable simply because it is new. It is valuable when it solves a problem.
The Licensing Question
Licensing introduces another layer of complexity.
A famous fashion house, celebrity or lifestyle brand can enter cosmetics without necessarily owning every part of the product-development and manufacturing infrastructure itself.
The intellectual property may belong to one organisation. The licence may be held by another. Product development may involve another specialist. Manufacturing may be undertaken elsewhere. Distribution may sit with another commercial partner.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this model. Licensing can allow brands to enter new categories, create products for consumers and generate significant commercial value.
But it raises an interesting question:
When a beauty brand is licensed, where does responsibility for the product actually sit?
Who decides the formulation? Who chooses the ingredients? Who determines the packaging? Who controls manufacturing standards? Who is responsible for the consumer experience? And ultimately, who has the final say when commercial objectives and product decisions collide?
These questions are becoming increasingly relevant as major brands expand across categories and as intellectual property becomes an increasingly important part of the beauty business.
The name on the bottle may be familiar. But the organisation responsible for making what is inside it may be much less visible to the consumer.
Beauty Tech: Progress or Marketing Gimmick?
Technology is now moving into almost every part of beauty.
AI-powered product discovery, virtual try-ons, digital diagnostics, connected devices, personalised recommendations and increasingly sophisticated formulation technologies are changing how products are developed and sold.
This is not simply speculation about the future.
Industry announcements demonstrate how deeply AI is integrating into infrastructure.
L'Oréal's strategic partnership with OpenAI covers AI-powered consumer journeys and AI-powered applications spanning research, science and marketing. L'Oréal also says it is working with OpenAI to strengthen product discovery within ChatGPT and is using OpenAI technology in research and science applications.
L'Oréal's collaboration with NVIDIA integrates NVIDIA ALCHEMI into L'Oréal's research and innovation ecosystem. L'Oréal says the technology uses computational chemistry and machine learning to predict molecular interactions, simulate ingredient performance and accelerate new formulation discovery.
The scale of this investment tells us something important: beauty technology is no longer a side project. It is becoming part of the industry's core infrastructure.
But as someone involved directly in product development and UK manufacturing, I think we should still ask a simple question:
Does the technology make the product better, or does it simply make the marketing story more impressive?
There is a meaningful difference.
Technology that improves formulation stability, ingredient performance, manufacturing precision, product accessibility or environmental efficiency has a clear purpose.
Technology that helps a consumer understand what may suit their needs can also be valuable.
But technology should not automatically receive a free pass simply because it is new.
A sophisticated digital experience cannot compensate for a poorly made product. An algorithm cannot turn an ineffective formulation into an effective one. And a connected device is not necessarily an innovation simply because it connects to an app.
Technology should have to earn its place in beauty. Its value should ultimately be measured by what it improves.
Has Power Really Moved to the Consumer?
For decades, the traditional beauty journey was relatively straightforward:
Manufacturer → Brand → Retailer → Consumer
There were gatekeepers at almost every stage. Retail buyers controlled access to physical shelf space. Brands controlled marketing. Manufacturers controlled production capability. Consumers largely chose from what had already made it through the system.
That model has changed. Today the journey can look more like:
Science → Brand → Digital Platform → Creator → Consumer → Data → Brand
And the consumer can interact with almost every part of that loop.
A new independent brand can potentially reach a customer without ever securing a traditional retail listing. A creator can make a product visible to millions of people without the brand having a conventional advertising campaign. A consumer can publish a review that reaches a global audience. Search engines can direct demand towards a product. And increasingly, AI systems can influence how consumers discover and compare products.
That sounds like power has moved to the consumer.
But there is a problem with that conclusion.
The consumer may have more choice than ever, but choice is only as powerful as the range of options that the consumer is shown.
The old gatekeeper was the department-store buyer. The new gatekeeper may be the algorithm.
The Algorithm Is Becoming Part of the Beauty Supply Chain
Search engines, social platforms, marketplaces and AI systems increasingly influence what consumers discover.
That means visibility itself has become a form of infrastructure.
A product can exist. It can be well made. It can be competitively priced. It can have satisfied customers. But if consumers cannot find it, it may struggle to compete.
This creates an unusual situation for independent brands.
The barriers to entering the market have fallen. The barriers to being discovered have not. In fact, they may simply have changed.
The beauty industry used to compete for shelf space. Today it also competes for search visibility, social attention, creator recommendations and algorithmic relevance.
That changes the definition of marketing. It also changes the definition of power.
The consumer makes the final choice, but the platform increasingly influences the options the consumer gets to see.
That is why the question is not whether the consumer has gained power. Clearly, they have.
The more interesting question is: who now controls the environment in which that choice takes place?
Where Does the Independent Brand Fit?
This is where I believe independent brands have a genuine opportunity.
Not because independence automatically makes a company better. It doesn't.
Small companies can make poor decisions. Large companies can make excellent ones. Independence is not a guarantee of quality, sustainability or integrity.
But independence can provide something extremely valuable: proximity.
Proximity to the product. Proximity to suppliers. Proximity to manufacturing. Proximity to customers. And proximity to decision-making.
At APPLE & BEARS, our experience of developing products and manufacturing and filling them in the UK has reinforced how important those relationships can be.
We work with a supply chain that includes UK manufacturing and packaging businesses, while also recognising that some specialist components currently need to be sourced internationally.
That reality is important. Being independent does not mean pretending that every part of a product has to come from one country. It means understanding the decisions being made and being accountable for them.
The same principle applies to product development. An independent brand does not have to reject technology, external expertise or specialist manufacturing. It can choose what is useful.
That, to me, is the difference between being independent and simply being small.
The Future Beauty Brand May Be Smaller — But More Connected
The beauty industry is unlikely to become less competitive. If anything, it is becoming more complex.
Large groups continue to possess enormous advantages in capital, R&D, distribution, retail relationships and global reach. Independent brands, meanwhile, can move quickly, communicate directly with consumers and respond to emerging demand.
Manufacturers possess increasingly sophisticated capabilities. Ingredient companies are developing new materials and actives. Technology companies are becoming involved in formulation, discovery and commerce. Creators can influence demand almost overnight. And AI is beginning to sit between the consumer and the product itself.
The result is not a beauty industry in which one group controls everything. It is an industry in which different groups control different parts of the journey.
That may actually be healthier for innovation.
So Who Really Controls Beauty?
Perhaps the answer is that nobody does.
- The brand controls its identity.
- The manufacturer controls its production capability.
- The scientist controls knowledge.
- The ingredient supplier controls specialist inputs.
- The licence holder controls certain commercial rights.
- The retailer controls access to its customers.
- The platform controls visibility.
- The creator controls attention.
- And the consumer controls the final purchase.
But even that final decision is increasingly influenced by the systems surrounding it.
That is why I think the most important question for the beauty industry is no longer simply:
"Who owns the brand?"
It is:
"Who controls the decisions that determine what consumers see, what products get made, what trends become popular and what happens next?"
For independent brands, there is both a challenge and an opportunity in that question.
The challenge is that the infrastructure around beauty is becoming more sophisticated and, in some areas, more concentrated. The opportunity is that consumers have never had more ways to discover something different.
The independent brand does not need to control the whole industry. It needs to control the things that matter: the quality of its products, the decisions it makes, the relationships it builds and the promises it makes to its customers.
And perhaps that is where the future of independent beauty lies.
Not in trying to become a smaller version of a multinational. Not in adopting every new technology simply because the industry is excited about it. And not in pretending that consumers have complete control.
Instead, it may lie in being close enough to the product and the customer to understand what actually matters — and independent enough to act on it.
The beauty industry is changing who has influence. The real question is whether that influence will ultimately create better beauty products, or simply better ways of selling them.
