Beauty Brands: Who Owns Who?

I was curious about who owns who in the beauty brand world (and particularly interested in who is an independent brand – not owned by a big conglomerate), but I couldn’t find a definitive list. So, I thought I’d put one together myself. This information is based off of each brand’s website.

L’oreal USA  may be the biggest brand of all. The L’oreal group includes the following brands, as well as a lot more. You can see all of their brands on their website.

  • Lancôme
  • Giorgio Armani Beauty
  • Yves Saint Laurent Beauté
  • Kiehl’s
  • Shu Uemura
  • Clarisonic
  • Urban Decay
  • La Roche-Posay
  • L’Oréal Paris (this is the drugstore L’oreal)
  • Garnier
  • Maybelline New York
  • Essie
  • The Body Shop
  • Vichy

LVMH is another huge conglomerate. They own the following brands, and you can see more on their website.

  • Givenchy
  • Dior
  • Guerlain
  • Sephora (Note that this includes Marc Jacobs beauty, Ardency Inn, Kat von D, Hello Kitty, & Charlotte Ronsen. Sephora used to own Tarina Tarantino but no longer does.)
  • Benefit
  • Fresh
  • Make Up For Ever

And the third really big one is Estee Lauder, who owns the following brands (again, more -->here -->).

  • Estee Lauder
  • MAC
  • Bobbi Brown
  • Prescriptives
  • La Mer
  • Jo Malone
  • Tom Ford
  • Smashbox
  • Aerin
  • Clinique
  • Origins

Shiseido is also a huge company. Their US brands include the following, but they also have several Asia-exclusive brands – you can see all of them here.

  • Shiseido
  • NARS
  • Bare Esentuals / Buxom
  • Cle de Peau

Proctor & Gamble is HUGE. They have a ton of brands, but only a few beauty brands: P&G own:

  • Covergirl
  • Olay
  • SK-II
  • Dolce & Gabbana Beauty

And the final big one is Coty. All brands are listed here, and they include

  • New York Color (aka NYC)
  • OPI
  • Rimmel
  • Sally Hansen
  • CK One Color
  • philosophy

It’s worth noting that Asia also has several big beauty companies that have smaller sub-brands.  However, I’m less familiar with those companies, so I won’t discuss them here.

Now we are getting to slightly smaller companies, though still owning several brands.

Markwins owns

  • Wet n Wild
  • Black Radiance
  • Physician’s Formula
  • The Color Workshop

I thought Revlon was giant, but seems to only own the following:

  • Revlon (of course)
  • Almay
  • Sinful Colors

American International Industries owns a lot of smaller brands (see them here), including:

  • Ardell
  • China Glaze
  • Seche

And finally, as far as I can tell, the following brands are independent – please note that this is difficult to verify, so I’m not completely sure this list is accurate.

  • Gorgeous Cosmetics
  • It Cosmetics
  • Tarte
  • Hourglass Cosmetics
  • Too Faced
  • Stila (which was previously an Estee Lauder brand, but was sold)
  • Josie Maran
  •  OCC
  • NYX
  • Ellis Faas
  • LORAC

Please let me know if any of this isn’t accurate! If there’s a brand you’re wondering about, please ask & I’ll try to track it down.

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  • Icequeen81

    And how does this work with their Animal testing status?

    • I’m not completely sure – it’s really complicated because some brands do animal testing only outside of the US, some parent companies have some brands that do animal testing & some that don’t, etc. I’d check the Leaping Bunny website or ask Catherine at Buying Cruelty-Free – I bet she knows.

      • Icequeen81

        Thank you I fallow her site. yeah it is hard to know who does or who does not. Loreal has testing policies, that can make their brands below them maybe as guilty, But have heard Urban decay doesn’t

  • Mysty Nyckel

    Wow great post! A lot of those I was not aware of! 🙂 Interesting about Revlon too. FTR I love L’Oreal, because I looooove Lancome. LOL.

  • This is wonderful, thank you! I think it’s great to try and keep these connections in mind when shopping for makeup.

  • Holy cow! I seriously did not know this. Thank you for this post!

  • this is such an informative post! i didn’t realize l’oreal owns maybelline too. they practically have a huge monopoly over the drugstore with those two brands alone.

  • Blaise

    There’s also American International Industries who own China Glaze, Seche, Salon Perfect, Ardell, etc.

  • amber raaf

    oh my.. so enlightening! I think it’s crazy that coty owns all those drugstore fragrances, and also Philosophy ones too. Thanks for the post!

  • Kadie Lee

    Does Revlon still own Sinful Colors, or has that ship sailed?

  • MakeUp NonSolo

    I love this post! It is really clear!

  • Jeannie

    Revlon also owns Sinful Colors.

  • Hannah Ripley

    Ooh really interesting! I knew L’Oreal and Estee Lauder were two of the biggest game players – It’s always weird to know that L’Oreal owns YSL, not the other way around as a lot of people would assume. I’d be curious to know who owns Clarins as they’re my absolute favourite brand! xx

  • DonnaJ

    Johnson and Johnson owns Neutrogena. I don’t know if they own any other cosmetic companies though.

  • Thank you so much, I love to hear that the blog is helpful!

    And I will edit to the post to add D&G Beauty – really good to know. Thank you!

  • I have no idea about the F21 cosmetics, I’d like to know that too.

  • amy

    I don’t know if this is relevant to you as you’re in the US but the Wertheirmer family who owns Chanel also owns Bourjois and consequently UNE.

  • AMAZING info!! Thanks! Im happy to know that a lot of my favorite brand are in the last category 🙂