Last week I published an overview of the sales performance of the beauty division of major listed beauty groups in H1 2026 which grew an average of 4.7% YoY on a weighted constant-currency basis. As average YoY growth accelerated 0.9pts between Q1 and Q2 from 4.2% to 5.1% I wanted to do a more specific focus on the quarterly trend evolution by group. Overall, the picture is mixed with half of the group seeing an acceleration in growth and half seeing a decrease.
In the top 5, Unilever, Estée Lauder and Beiersdorf all saw meaningful acceleration with Unilever being driven by haircare, Estée Lauder by skincare (from 0% organic growth in calendar Q1 26 to 7% in calendar Q2 26) and Asia Pacific (from -1% in organic decrease in calendar Q1 26 to 9% in calendar Q2 26) while Beiersdorf saw massive improvement for La Prairie (from -14.9% in organic decrease in Q1 26 to +2.2% growth in Q2 26). L’Oréal was relatively steady with growth in Q2 26 being 0.4pts lower than in Q1 26 with a deceleration of growth in professional haircare (from +13.1% in Q1 26 to 11.1% in Q2 26) while growth decelerated 3pts at P&G notably due to skincare which went from high single digits growth in calendar Q1 26 to being flat in Q2 26.
Shiseido and Coty saw some early signs of a sales recovery. Shiseido saw a 5.1pts acceleration between Q1 26 and Q2 26 returning to growth driven by improvements at Clé de Peau (from -2% in Q1 26 to +6% in Q2 26) the Shiseido brand (from -4% in Q1 26 to -1% in Q2 26) and fragrance (from -9% in Q1 26 to +12% in Q2 26) while geographically Japan, APAC and Americas all returned to growth. Coty is still declining 1% YoY in calendar Q2 26 but saw an acceleration of 6.1pts versus the last quarter with prestige beauty going from a -5% organic YoY decrease in Q1 26 to a -0.5% decrease in Q2 26 and mass going from a -10% decrease to a -3% decrease.
AmorePacific saw a 10.6pts acceleration between quarters driven by a boom of its global business with reported sales in Americas growing 56.5% in Q2 26 vs. 11.2% in Q1 26 and sales in Europe from 16.4% to 63.3% while LG H&H saw a 16pts acceleration driven by improving domestic growth and acceleration in North America. However, the acceleration for AmorePacific and LG H&H has to be put in perspective and cannot be compared with other players directly as both groups sales growth is reported with no constant FX growth provided and both groups will have benefited from a weaker won.
Finally, it is worth mentioning Hermès which had the biggest deceleration between quarter going from a flat Q1 26 to a 9.5% YoY decrease in Q2 26 despite new launches like its first foundation.
