Welcome in, today is Tuesday, July twenty-first, and we begin with Coty, and what its business looks like now that Gucci Beauty is on the way out. We've followed Coty's early exit from its flagship Gucci Beauty licence, and Reuters now reports on what the group looks like without it. Returning the licence to Kering in mid-2027, before it moves to L'Oréal, will cost Coty roughly one hundred and fifteen million dollars in annual adjusted earnings. That is about fifteen percent of total profit, according to Barclays estimates cited by Reuters. It sets up a rough fiscal 2028 for interim chief executive Markus Strobel, the Procter and Gamble veteran who took the job in January, at a company whose shares have slid around eighty percent since early 2024. The counterweight is what Coty does with the cash. It plans to begin cutting net debt, which sits near two point nine billion dollars, and to concentrate on prestige fragrance. Coty had long known the licence was due to expire, and has been signing new names, Swarovski, Etro and Marni among them, relaunching Marc Jacobs makeup, and repositioning CoverGirl toward older, wealthier shoppers. Analysts quoted by Reuters argue the company is less dependent on Gucci than the market is pricing in. Industry reaction runs along similar lines, framing the exit as disciplined licensing execution, though a recurring concern is that licensed revenue is temporary by nature, which puts the weight on whether Coty can build owned-brand momentum in its place. For now, the flagship is leaving, and the portfolio has to carry the show. Staying with Korean beauty. Yesterday we reported its acceleration in the United States. Fresh data from the consumer intelligence firm NielsenIQ now sizes the global picture, and the numbers are steep. In a report titled K-Beauty Goes Global, NIQ says Korean beauty value sales climbed fifty-three percent year over year, and one hundred and thirty-one percent over two years. That gives brands and buyers a benchmark for how fast the category is scaling, and how much competitive pressure it is putting on incumbents. NIQ frames the shift as more than a sales story. According to the firm, Korean beauty is reshaping consumer expectations, compressing innovation cycles, and redefining competitive dynamics across the global market. Where yesterday's read centered on store openings and physical retail, this one points at how the category is discovered. Industry reaction attributes much of the acceleration to a structural change in beauty discovery, with social-commerce platforms now outperforming traditional retail channels. If that holds, some in the trade read the growth as an architectural shift in how beauty is bought, rather than a passing wave of novelty. The two-year figure is the one to sit with. A one hundred and thirty-one percent rise in value sales over that span is the kind of move that resets share assumptions, and forces Western houses to decide whether to partner, acquire, or build against it. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Louis Vuitton is pushing further into luxury beauty, unveiling a four-hundred-dollar Beauty Sharpener alongside a new LV Crayon range of lip pencils, per Cosmetics Business. Estée Lauder is contacting current and former employees after their data was compromised through a vulnerability in Oracle's software, an attack Computer Weekly links to the Cl0p ransomware gang. The European Union has fined AliExpress five hundred and fifty million euros for allowing sales of illegal products, including unsafe cosmetics and toys, per Premium Beauty News. It is the bloc's second marketplace penalty this month. Cosmetics Business asks whether beauty's refill push is actually working, reporting that cost, availability and convenience still sit between stated consumer interest and any lasting change in behavior. The robotic-manicure company 10Beauty has raised twenty-three and a half million dollars, in a round led by Story Ventures, taking total funding past seventy million, according to Premium Beauty News. And finally, Cosmetics Business asks whether Superdrug owner AS Watson is delaying its rumored thirty-billion-dollar London listing, a plan that surfaced in January and remains unconfirmed.