August 2023 was the month two long-running undercurrents in beauty broke into the front page. The “Sephora teen” conversation — twelve-year-olds buying Drunk Elephant, Glow Recipe, and Sol de Janeiro at quantities that worried both parents and dermatologists — became the cultural story of mid-summer. And on August 22, E.l.f. Cosmetics announced its acquisition of Naturium for $355 million, signalling that the indie-prestige-skincare era had decisively moved from independent operation to strategic-acquisition consolidation. Around those two anchors, the wider August calendar continued: back-to-school beauty, the late-summer skincare reset, and Olaplex’s quiet recovery from a difficult year. These are the launches and ideas that defined the close of summer.
The “Sephora teen” moment
The story that dominated beauty discourse through August was the “Sephora teen” — videos of twelve-and-thirteen-year-olds with shopping carts full of Drunk Elephant, Glow Recipe, and Sol de Janeiro circulated TikTok and Reddit through the month, generating equal parts cultural commentary and dermatologist concern. Drunk Elephant became the focal brand of the conversation; its products had migrated from twenty- and thirty-something prestige skincare consumers to a much younger demographic that was over-applying actives in ways the formulas hadn’t been designed for.
The longer-term implications were significant. First, Drunk Elephant’s brand position shifted overnight from “considered prestige” to “Gen Z viral” — a trajectory that historically softens the brand’s premium positioning over time. Second, the dermatology community pushed back hard with concerns about retinol and acid use in pre-pubescent skin. Third, parents started asking different questions at the Sephora register. Whether this becomes a meaningful policy moment for prestige skincare (age-gated products, parental controls, etc.) was the question we kept circling. The early answer was no — but the cultural temperature shift was real.
E.l.f. acquires Naturium
The biggest corporate news of August landed on the 22nd: E.l.f. Beauty announced its $355 million acquisition of Naturium, Susan Yara’s indie-prestige skincare brand that had been launched in 2020 and had quickly become a Target and Amazon hero. The deal closed E.l.f.’s entry into the prestige-skincare tier and gave Naturium founder Susan Yara a meaningful liquidity event while keeping the brand operating as a semi-independent unit.
The strategic story was that E.l.f. had been searching for years for a path beyond its TikTok-driven mass-prestige cosmetics business. Naturium gave them a credible foothold in prestige skincare without having to build one from scratch. The brand had been growing 47% year-over-year, had a clean ingredient story, and Susan Yara herself had built a real personal brand that translated to organic marketing. For the indie-prestige skincare category, the deal confirmed that the consolidation moment had arrived — every $50-100 million indie skincare brand was now an acquisition target.
Back-to-school beauty
The August back-to-school calendar drove its usual product mix. CeraVe‘s Foaming Facial Cleanser and Hydrating Cleanser stayed at the top of the Target back-to-school shopping list. La Roche-Posay‘s Effaclar Adapalene Gel — over-the-counter retinoid for acne — kept its position as the dermatologist-recommended teen-acne entry point. Dyson‘s Airwrap kept growing as the high-end gift category, particularly for college-bound students whose families had budget for a meaningful upgrade.
The bigger pattern was that the back-to-school season had quietly turned into the second-biggest gifting moment of the year after Christmas. Families were spending on prestige-tier products in a way that hadn’t been culturally normal a decade earlier. The category was responding with multi-product back-to-school bundles, dedicated landing pages, and dorm-room-themed campaign creative. Sephora ran an aggressive back-to-school program through the back half of August.
Olaplex’s quiet recovery
Olaplex had had a difficult eighteen months — a stock-price collapse from its 2021 IPO peak, a series of class-action lawsuits alleging hair damage, and an aggressive growth-stage period during which competitors had eaten into its market position. August 2023 was the month the brand’s recovery efforts became visible. The No. 9 Bond Protector continued its quiet sell-through. The brand released a heavily refined version of its core No. 3 Hair Perfector with reformulated ingredients (a partial response to the lawsuits) and a more accessible price point.
The harder question for Olaplex was whether the brand could rebuild trust with its core stylist channel — the professional hairdressers who had originally driven the brand to dominance. The answer through August was a careful “maybe.” The product-level reformulations and the more transparent ingredient communication were working; the share price wasn’t yet, but the underlying business was stabilising. Stylists we spoke to had cautiously returned to recommending the line, with the No. 9 leading the way back.
Late-summer skincare reset
August is always the month we start moderating the summer routine in anticipation of cooler weather. The June-July body-care intensity (oil + treatment + lotion + SPF + self-tan) eased back as humidity dropped. The vitamin C stayed in the morning routine. Retinol moved from once-every-three-nights to twice-weekly. The heavy summer SPFs (which had been mandatory through July) were rotated for the slightly-thicker tinted formulas that would carry the routine into early fall.
The products that earned their permanent slot through summer 2023 and were definitely coming with us into fall: the Rhode Peptide Glazing Fluid as the dewy-skin daily, Supergoop‘s Unseen Sunscreen as the daily SPF, Saie‘s Glowy Super Skin as the makeup base, the K18 leave-in mask weekly, and a fresh tub of Charlotte Tilbury‘s Magic Cream waiting for the first cold morning.
August closed summer 2023 with the cultural story shifting from product trends to industry structure. The Sephora teen moment had raised real questions about how prestige skincare reaches young consumers. The E.l.f. acquisition of Naturium had confirmed that the indie-prestige consolidation moment had arrived. Olaplex was quietly rebuilding. And the everyday-product mix that we kept reaching for through summer was now ready to carry us into fall. We will see you on the first Tuesday of September.
Shop the edit
- Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Concealer — a drugstore concealer staple.
- Black Girl Sunscreen SPF 30 — a no-white-cast daily sunscreen.
- CeraVe Foaming Facial Cleanser — a back-to-routine cleanse.
- e.l.f. Instant Lift Brow Pencil — an easy everyday brow.
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