From Clinical Skincare to Founder-Led Makeup Platforms
Founder-led and celebrity beauty brands are makeup and skincare companies shaped directly by high-profile creators, influencers, or famous founders, whose personalities and audiences drive product development, marketing, and long-term brand strategy for investors and conglomerates. Waldencast’s offloading of Obagi Medical to focus on Milk Makeup shows how this model is reshaping beauty M&A strategy. The company will sell Obagi Medical to private equity firm Bridgepoint for USD 460 million (approx. RM2.1 billion), leaving Waldencast fully centered on Milk Makeup’s color cosmetics and skin care. After a strategic review announced in August 2025, the board concluded that simplifying the portfolio would “enable a sharper strategic focus on Milk Makeup, a brand with significant global growth potential.” As a result, Waldencast is moving away from a dermatology-led platform toward a streamlined, founder-driven brand with strong consumer recognition.
Why Celebrity Beauty Brands Outperform Legacy Dermatology Lines
Recent moves across the industry show that celebrity beauty brands and founder-led makeup companies often deliver stronger commercial performance and loyalty than traditional dermatology ranges. In the Sunday Business celebrity roundup, celebrities are shown driving expansion, investment and cross-category collaborations, from Bella Hadid’s Ôrəbella growth funding to Kendall Jenner’s 818 Tequila partnering with Salt & Stone. These brands convert fame into communities that follow founders across launches, making them attractive acquisition targets. Traditional clinical brands, like Obagi Medical, offer credibility with physicians and patients, but they lack the same cultural momentum and social storytelling that fuel everyday makeup purchases. By concentrating on Milk Makeup expansion instead of a mixed portfolio, Waldencast is betting that cultural relevance, social buzz and founder-led narratives will generate better growth than a more clinical, professional-focused dermatology business.
The Waldencast–Milk Makeup Case: A Focused Growth Bet
Waldencast was formed as a SPAC in 2021 and acquired both Obagi Medical and Milk Makeup in 2022, creating a combined company worth USD 1.2 billion (approx. RM5.5 billion). After selling Obagi Japan trademark rights for USD 82.5 million (approx. RM377 million) and refinancing debt to strengthen its balance sheet, the group has now agreed to sell Obagi Medical and Novaestiq to Bridgepoint. When the deal closes, Waldencast plans to repay all outstanding senior term loans and channel resources into Milk Makeup. Executive Chairman Felipe Dutra said the transaction “meaningfully strengthens the company’s balance sheet and enables a sharper strategic focus on Milk Makeup.” With co-founder Mazdack Rassi back at the helm, Milk Makeup is positioned as a single-brand platform with clearer storytelling, faster innovation and a cleaner path to global scale than a diversified, clinically anchored portfolio.
Founder Involvement, Celebrity Influence and Higher Valuations
The shift toward celebrity beauty brands is part of a wider re-rating of what drives value in beauty. Founder involvement and celebrity partnerships help raise valuations by supplying built-in audiences, vivid brand identities and agile marketing. Waldencast’s own founders, Michel Brousset and Hind Sebti, will leave to lead Obagi Medical with Bridgepoint, while Milk’s president and co-founder Mazdack Rassi remains in charge of Milk Makeup. This mirrors broader industry practice: Bella Hadid bringing in a new CEO for Ôrəbella, or Claudia Schiffer joining Healf as both investor and ambassador, shows how talent is now tied to governance, not only campaigns. As conglomerates refine their beauty M&A strategy, they are favoring brands where founders still shape the narrative, believing this drives more engaged consumers, more resilient communities and greater long-term pricing power.
Portfolio Consolidation and the Future of Beauty M&A Strategy
Waldencast’s decision to become a one-brand company centered on Milk Makeup reflects a broader industry logic: fewer, stronger brands anchored in culture rather than many scattered clinical labels. Celebrity beauty brands and founder-led makeup companies sit at the intersection of entertainment, lifestyle and social media, bringing continual storytelling that is hard for purely clinical, ingredient-first brands to match. At the same time, global ambassador deals—from Zoe Saldaña at Lancôme to JENNIE at Vaseline—show that large groups see fame as a long-term strategic asset, not a short-term endorsement. For acquirers, this means future M&A will likely chase brands with active founders, influencer equity stakes and cross-category potential. Milk Makeup expansion under Waldencast becomes a test case for how far a focused, culturally fluent brand can go when given the full attention of a listed beauty platform.
