Inc. recognizes privately owned beauty makers and suppliers

11-May-2020 - Last updated on 11-May-2020 at 19:20 GMT

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The business magazine’s second annual list of Private Titans highlights 1,000 companies across industries that were once startups but have since grown in sales, employees, valuation and other indicators so as to standout in the private sector.

3 beauty makers made the list as did several other companies that directly serve the cosmetics and personal care industry, providing ingredients, logistics, labeling technologies, and more.

Beauty brands and manufacturers on 2020 Inc. Private Titans list

Glossier, which the official Inc. list describes as an entity that “operates as a content-driven, vertically integrated beauty products company,” is perhaps the most obvious beauty maker to be recognized this year.

The direct-sales beauty company Alcora also made the Inc. Private Titans list this year. That company owns and operates 5 beauty brands: Monat, B&R Produscts, L’Eudine; and Hairgurt and Pardon, under its Project Beauty umbrella (which is something of an in-house incubator).

And Evora Worldwide, a private label beauty maker based in Florida that’s a part of a larger company called World Product Solutions, also made the 2020 Inc. list of Private Titans. Evora makes skin care, hair care, body care, sun care, supplement, and topical pain relief products in an array of formats suitable for a range of packaging and dispensing: lotion, serum, cream, continuous spray, hot fills, sticks, and more, according to the company site.

Notably, one (medical) skin care services provider made this year’s list as well. Epiphany Dermatology P.A. The Texas-based business is owned by New York-based private equity firm CI Capital Partners, has nearly 50 locations in the US, mostly in Southwest and Midwest states, and offers skin care, cancer care, and cosmetic surgery services.

2 Biotech beauty ingredient makers made the 2020 Inc. Private Titans list

Genomatica and Ginkgo Bioworks both appear on this year’s Private Titans list. And the two companies have done work with or for beauty and fragrance makers.

Genomatica uses biotechnology to make (among other things) 1,3 butylene glycol for use in cosmetics and personal care product formulations. The company debuted its first specialty chemical for the beauty industry at in-cosmetics global in 2018.

Ginkgo Bioworks is more well known in the beauty sector for its work making fragrance inputs for companies like Robertet. Most recently here on Cosmetics Design, the company made headlines for having recreated the fragrance of extinct flowers.

Packaging, labeling, and logistics providers that support the beauty industry are recognized too

Several logistics companies made the list, including Exegistics, a company headquartered in North Vernon, Indiana, that counts CVS pharmacies among its clients and offers an array of services for the consumer products industry, including subscription box fulfillment.

ID Technology is a labeling company that made the 2020 Inc. list of Private Titans. The Virginia-based company serves several industry but offers coding, labeling, and marking systems for cosmetics and personal care. According the company’s site, “ID Technology…offers a complete line of solutions used in a wide range of applications from secondary case marking to application of date and lot codes on primary packages.”

ProAmpac, another company on this year’s Inc. list makes beauty packaging, specializing in the increasingly popular pouch style with designs for single-use doses, wipes, and both zip and spout resealable pouches too.

And at Zymergen, a biology innovation company, is at work to develop a biotech strategy to recycle polyethylene plastic (known as PE). Using biotech to breakdown and repurpose plastic is certainly of interest to the beauty industry. Just last summer, L’Oréal invested in a company called Carbios to help fund the development of enzymes that can recycle polyethylene terephthalate plastic (PET).

Zymergen appear in the 1,000th spot on this year’s Inc. Private Titans list, but that’s only because the list is presented in alphabetical order. Besides it’s plastic recycling initiative, Zymergen is also hoping to get into the beauty ingredients market. According to the company site, Zymergen is working to make ingredients it describes as “new eco-friendly biopolymers [and] powerful bioactives…poised to lead a revolution in consumer care.”

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Deanna Utroske is a leading voice in the cosmetics and personal care industry as well as in the indie beauty movement. As Editor of CosmeticsDesign.com, she writes daily news about the business of beauty in the Americas region and regularly produces video interviews with cosmetics, fragrance, personal care, and packaging experts as well as with indie brand founders. Deanna Utroske was recently featured on Publishing Executive.