Protocol Weekly: Last Week in Beauty (March 30 – April 6, 2026)

Protocol Weekly is our standing look at the stories moving the beauty industry forward — and sometimes, backward. Every week, we track what matters: the deals, the science, the money, and what it means for the products you actually buy.

Here's what happened March 30 through April 6.

Beiersdorf Launches a €100 Million Skin Care Innovation Fund

Beiersdorf — the company behind Nivea, Eucerin, and La Prairie — launched its second corporate venture fund this week, committing €100 million to early- and growth-stage startups in biotech, AI, sustainability, and digital health for skin. The fund is double the size of its 2020 predecessor and targets initial checks of €0.5 to €5 million, with longevity science and AI-enabled actives discovery flagged as primary investment themes.

This is not a goodwill gesture toward the startup ecosystem. It's a structural admission. Internal R&D pipelines at legacy conglomerates operate on timelines that don't match where the science is moving. Acquiring early-stage access to biotech innovation — before it matures into a competing brand — is the more capital-efficient path. Beiersdorf's existing portfolio includes S-Biomedic, a skin microbiome company it later acquired outright. Beiersdorf posted ~€9.9 billion in FY2025 revenue, and the fund represents a meaningful commitment to ensuring its next formulation generation doesn't get outpaced.

WNBA Star Lexie Hull Launches Forta Cosmetics

Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull and co-founder Sarah Guller debuted Forta Cosmetics this week after more than two years of development. The brand launched with a single product: a $25 sweatproof setting spray formulated for 16-hour hold across athletic performance conditions. Guller's background is in consumer investing at TCG and Summit Partners — the brand's business logic reflects it.

What's different here from most athlete beauty launches: the product was built backward from an actual gap. Female athletes have limited options for makeup that survives competition conditions. Forta launched by seeding to 30 professional athletes across multiple sports through the Faves platform, not through traditional retail or influencer channels. Caitlin Clark publicly reacted to the announcement, extending the story's reach well outside beauty media.

Forta donates 1% of revenue to youth sports access programs and has stated Sephora as a distribution goal. The formula's clinical claims are unverified at this stage — that's always the question with a single-SKU launch. But the founding architecture is more credible than most athlete-founded beauty, and the consumer insight is sharper.

K-Beauty Exports Hit a Record $3.1 Billion in Q1 2026

South Korea's cosmetics exports reached an all-time quarterly high of $3.1 billion in Q1 2026, up 19% year-over-year. March alone surged 29.3% to $1.19 billion. The more significant data point: the United States displaced China as Korea's largest single beauty export market, at $620 million — a 40.9% year-over-year increase — while China declined 9.6% to $470 million.

This is happening while Korean goods face U.S. tariffs exceeding 25%. Consumer demand for Korean skincare formulations in the American market is, at least so far, durable enough to absorb the additional cost. Skincare drove $2.43 billion of the total quarterly figure — the category's dominance over makeup continues to compound.

The question for the rest of 2026 is how brands handle pricing as cost pressures accumulate. Products absorbing both ingredient cost increases and tariff exposure have two options: raise prices visibly, or reformulate quietly at the same price. The industry's track record on that choice is not encouraging for consumers.

BASF Raised Prices Up to 30% on Care Chemicals, Effective April 1

BASF makes the raw ingredients that go into almost every beauty product — the cleansing agents, moisturizing bases, and preservative systems that brands purchase before they can formulate anything. Effective April 1, they raised prices up to 30% across the Americas and Europe, citing energy costs, raw material volatility, and tariff-driven supply disruptions.

The increases compound on top of tariff-driven cost pressure already hitting imported finished goods. Brands are now being squeezed from both sides simultaneously — higher input costs on one end, and a consumer who has a ceiling on what she'll pay on the other. The industry's historic response to this kind of margin pressure is quiet reformulation: same price, reduced active concentrations, no announcement. That's precisely the kind of change the Protocol framework exists to catch.

Stride Consumer Partners Invests in Neuromodulator Chain Peachy

Stride Consumer Partners — whose portfolio includes Patrick Ta Beauty, First Aid Beauty, and an early Drybar position — announced a minority investment in Peachy this week. Peachy is a neuromodulator-focused aesthetics chain that posted 60%+ revenue growth year-over-year and now operates 15 studios across six U.S. cities. The brand has raised $29 million in total capital, with Houston next in its expansion pipeline.