How Indie Beauty Brands Are Dealing with Tariffs, Economic Uncertainty

Call it indie beauty’s big reset. 

Six months into President Trump’s tariff policy free-for-all, and even further into a period of mounting business costs across the board, independent beauty brands are at an inflection point. 

Manufacturing, shipping and customer acquisition costs are all on the upswing. The direct-to-consumer boom of the late 2010s has tempered. Soaring, early-pandemic demand for skin care products, too, has moderated. And tariff policies continue to shift in unpredictable ways that leave many founders unsure of whether to pivot their supply chain or wait things out, and how long they even have to decide. 

For many players, the current climate signifies a far more challenging one, even, than the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a global supply chain crisis led to ingredient and packaging shortages, makeup sales dipped and retail was ailing. 

“During COVID-19, if you could at least secure your inventory amidst the supply chain crisis — you were good,” said Liah Yoo, founder of skin care brand KraveBeauty. “Consumer demand was there; a lot of people were investing in skin and hair for the first time, and it was also a time when a lot of consumers were looking to support small, indie, minority-owned brands.” 

She added: “But in 2025, consumer behavior has shifted a little bit. There have been price increases, there’s job insecurity — people are becoming more conservative with their disposable income.”  

Though indie beauty brands have consistently grown at a faster clip than conglomerates in recent years — data from NIQ shows indie beauty grew 22.6 percent in sales versus last year, far outpacing beauty conglomerates’ 5.5 percent growth — they’re also more challenged by these ongoing circumstances, whose full effects remain to be seen. 

“The impact of [the trade environment] is going to be much more visible in 2026 numbers — we’re still not entirely seeing it in the 2025 numbers because many brands purchased their inventory for the year before tariffs went into effect,” said Rich Gersten, cofounder of True Beauty Ventures, which backs brands like Sofie Pavitt Face, Crown Affair and Vacation. 

Still, early impacts of the volatile environment can be seen. 

In recent months, a host of indie brands have shuttered, among them Ami Colé, Youthforia, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Good.clean.goop, and body care brand Sknmuse, which was sold at Nordstrom. In September, Toronto-based Nudestix was acquired by an undisclosed U.S.-based private group, with the brand acknowledging that the move “coincided with temporary operational shifts, including limited marketing activity, challenged inventory buys and team restructure.”

Experts say more brand closures and distressed acquisitions are potentially on the horizon. 

“We’re getting ready for difficult times,” said Jose Penalba, chief executive officer at beauty distributor Amerikas, adding that between hiking operational costs and pressure from trendy, affordable K-beauty brands coming Stateside, “most brands are struggling to grow right now.” 

Raising funds to help with these additional costs isn’t necessarily feasible right now, either. 

“Indie beauty brands need more capital to be successful today, but also, the bar has never been higher for brands to be able to fundraise,” said Cristina Nuñez, cofounder of True Beauty Ventures. Even though the beauty M&A market has picked up this year, it’s primarily blockbuster deals the market is seeing — Rhode and Medik8’s respective $1 billion acquisitions, Touchland’s $880 million sale to Church & Dwight — aren’t realistic for most brands, but also, more modest cash infusions don’t feel feasible for some brands right now, either. 

“Gone are the days when top-line growth alone got you funded. And if you do raise, you can’t just bank on raising again — you have to be very smart, and very efficient about how you invest that capital,” said Nuñez

Indeed, efficiency seems to be the mission of the moment for brands looking to come out on the other side of the current environment better for it. 

“Founders and teams who are resourceful during this time — whether their biggest concern is tariffs or something else — those are the brands that will emerge stronger from this reset, who will inspire confidence in investors and build foundations that will serve them in the long run,” continued Nuñez. 

It’s a task that is easier said than done, but one that brands are taking creative stabs at — which for some has meant pivoting operations, and for others has meant finding ways to double down on their core, with the through line being that everyone is trying to control what they can, even if that’s not much. 

“We’re essentially at the mercy of the government’s whim to raise or lower tariffs,” said Nick Jain, who cofounded the clean period care brand August alongside Nadya Okamoto. August primarily manufactures its products in China, which at one point was slammed with tariffs exceeding 100 percent, though the U.S. and China have since extended a tariff truce until November. 

“That 100-plus-percent rate made it effectively impossible to import product,” said Jain, adding that August, which sells at Target, took measures to begin setting up a backup manufacturing operation in Germany shortly after Trump won the election. “That protects us in the event that tariffs go back up to 100 percent, but fundamentally, we’re still spending more on each box of product that we produce than we were last year.” 

The brand is absorbing these additional costs and has “no plans” to increase prices for now, but it also has no plans to bring its manufacturing to the U.S. — which has been the key aim of Trump’s tariff mandates — because it can’t. 

“For one, moving manufacturing is something that should take multiple years to set up properly and ensure quality, but also, for categories like ours, manufacturing is regulated. It’s not like you can purchase some machinery and start making tampons in your garage tomorrow — it needs to be FDA-approved, and major conglomerates like Procter & Gamble, Edgewell and Kimberly-Clark have purchased many of the FDA-approved facilities in the U.S.”

Ranavat, the Ayurvedic-inspired hair and skin care brand sold at Sephora, has similarly found itself between a rock and a hard place given that most of its operations happen in India, which now faces a 50 percent tariff on imports to the U.S.

“Our manufacturing, sourcing, everything is tied to India. That’s what makes us different. It’s impossible for us to pivot to [conducting these operations] elsewhere, because that would go against the reason I started the brand,” said founder Michelle Ranavat, adding that certain ingredients, like the brand’s hero saffron, are not available in the U.S., in any case. 

On the plus side, the founder’s long-standing relationships with the farmers and manufacturers  Ranavat partners with in India have meant that, “when we have to say, ‘hey, we have to get a lot more tight on cost,’ or, ‘we have to be a little more scrappy’ — they’re willing to have that conversation with us, because they want the business, too,” she said. 

For brands like Dieux and Live Tinted, leaning into existing strengths on the innovation front has become even more of a priority.

“With operations being a mess, having too high of a stock keeping unit count can hurt a business,” said Dieux cofounder Charlotte Palermino. “We’re focusing on our core products versus getting into a cycle of newness.”

Live Tinted president Amanda Domaleczny echoed the sentiment. “We’re focusing on being more narrow and deep in the categories that are ownable to us, rather than taking risks on new categories that might be more of a test-and-learn — we cut some products out of our launch roadmap for this year and next to mitigate some risk.”

The brand, which sells at Ulta Beauty, implemented price increases over the summer and will do so again at the top of 2026, though Domaleczny said these increases are consistent with a pricing strategy the brand implemented in 2023 to “ensure that we’re fairly positioned within the prestige landscape across different sizes,” with some of the shifts that have been implemented including price decreases. 

Other brands immediately upped prices by $1 or $2 on select products in the spring when tariffs were first announced, while some continue to take a wait-and-see approach. 

“We’re seeing how this all impacts our bottom line by the end of the year, so that going into 2026 we can make a more informed decision based on the landed cost of all of our skus,” said Yoo. 

It’s also entirely possible that brands who have already upped prices will have to do so again soon, said Penalba. “For brands that already raised prices 5 percent, the question is how long can they maintain that? They may likely have to increase prices again next year by another 5 or 6 percent.” 

For August, increasing prices is a “last resort,” said Jain, adding that the work the brand has done to quickly set up alternate manufacturing options has been key in the event that the landscape becomes more unpredictable from here. 

“Some brands don’t have the ability to absorb costs or move their manufacturing, and that’s a sad reality because consumers want access to indie brands at their local retailers,” said Jain. 

Added Gersten: “At the end of the day, indie brands always take share from legacy brands, and legacy brands always acquire those indie brands because they need to grow. I think when you look back at this time, it will be an exceptional time to deploy capital into brands as investors — uncertainty creates buying opportunities that wouldn’t normally exist, especially in fraught times.”