Welcome back, today is Wednesday, August twelfth, and we begin with Circana's first-half read on beauty, reported by WWD Beauty. Circana's first-half read on the beauty market, reported by WWD Beauty, puts a channel crossover on the record. Online has overtaken brick-and-mortar as the top channel for prestige skin care. That is the finding, and it carries a date on it, which is what makes it usable. Brands and retailers arguing over shelf space, media weight and distribution terms for the back half now have a benchmark rather than an impression. The same reporting also flags that shifts are underway in mass makeup, without, in what we have seen so far, specifying their direction or their size. Two cautions on how far to carry this. What we have is Circana's read as reported, not the underlying tables, so the growth rates, the width of the online lead and the period-on-period comparison are not in front of us. And a crossover in channel rank is not the same as a decline in stores. That account describes which channel leads, not a retreat from physical retail. For anyone building a prestige skin care plan, the practical question the finding raises is whether online now gets treated as the default primary channel in assortment and inventory decisions, rather than as the growth channel bolted onto a store-first base. Also today, where the affordable treat spend lands is an assortment and marketing question, and Cosmetics Business argues the answer has changed. Alessandro Carrara makes the case that the lipstick effect, long the trade's bellwether for small indulgences under pressure, has been displaced in twenty twenty-six by fragrance. That argument is built around Jean Madar, director and co-founder of Interparfums, who says the fragrance market has hit a new stride, and it sets out how the company is capitalising on that. The fuller version of the piece sits behind the outlet's subscription. Industry reaction leans more toward format than category. A recurring line in the channel is that perfumed balms, milks, mists and waxes are the fast-moving textures, and typically cheaper than an eau de parfum, which some in the trade read as the trade-down instinct moving inside fragrance rather than being replaced by it. A more sceptical thread notes that recent quarterly numbers from one listed fragrance group came in short of expectations even with sales still growing. Separately, Natura and Company posted second-quarter net profit of thirty-five million Brazilian reais, down eighty-two percent from one hundred and ninety-six million in the same quarter last year, according to Premium Beauty News. That account also puts the result below Citi's forecast, which had projected one hundred and thirty-seven million reais. It is the profit line under the top-line picture we reported yesterday from the company's own summary, and a miss against a published analyst number is the kind of gap that colours how the next set of guidance gets received. Cosmetics Business frames the quarter the same way, reporting that the group's performance in Hispanic markets did not offset the pressure on its business in Brazil. Read together, those accounts place the shortfall in the home market rather than across the region, and that is the distinction to carry for anyone modelling Latin American beauty demand from here. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Cosmetics Business argues Korean hair care is K-beauty's next breakout category, with Julia Wray pointing to multi-step scalp and hair routines as the format doing the exporting. South Korean group APR reported its highest-ever quarter in the second quarter, with cosmetics revenue up one hundred and eighty-six percent on international expansion, per Global Cosmetics News. And finally, e.l.f. Beauty's sales rose thirty-six percent, with Rhode's new range delivering twenty-seven million dollars in direct-to-consumer sales in a single day, Cosmetics Business reports.