Welcome in, today is Thursday, August thirteenth, and we begin with Douglas Group, where Investing.com reports a third quarter that went the wrong way on both sales and margin. Investing.com reports Douglas Group revenue fell two percent in the third quarter, to nine hundred eighty-eight million euros, with like-for-like sales down four and a half percent. Margins moved harder. That same account puts adjusted EBITDA down nineteen point four percent, to one hundred twenty-seven point five million euros, and the margin at twelve point nine percent, against fifteen point seven a year earlier. Adjusted net income turned negative, at three point eight million euros, from a positive twenty-four point one million. A two hundred eighty basis point margin step-down at a retailer of that scale is about as direct a read on European prestige demand as this quarter offers. Per that reporting, Germany, France and the Netherlands, together sixty percent of sales, were the main source of weakness. Store sales fell two and a half percent, with like-for-like down six and a half, while e-commerce held better, off one percent. Exclusive brands grew fourteen point seven percent. Management reconfirmed full-year guidance and said it now expects no net growth in the store network, a change from earlier expansion plans. Industry reaction leans toward reading the softness as market-wide rather than company-specific, pointing to price competition, weak European consumer confidence and a faster-than-expected shift to online. Also today, a sun care ingredient move with real formulation consequences. Premium Beauty News reports BASF has launched its Tinosorb S UV filter in the United States, following FDA approval of the active, bemotrizinol, as a sunscreen ingredient. Per Cosmetics Business, the clearance allows BASF to market and sell the filter in the U.S. under its license agreement with DSM Nutritional Products, and that account describes it as a broad-spectrum filter recognised globally for photostability in advanced sunscreen formulations. The practical effect lands on formulators and brand teams. A domestic option that previously had to be reserved for European and Asian SKUs narrows the gap between a global range and its American version, which touches formulation roadmaps, claims substantiation and cost of goods across the SPF portfolio. What is on the table today is availability. Qualifying the filter into finished products, and the testing behind whatever SPF and broad-spectrum claims follow, still sits with the brand and its lab, and neither outlet reports a timeline for finished goods on shelf. Separately, an argument about where K-beauty's growth actually lives now. Personal Care Insights reports Amorepacific and LG Household and Health Care both posted double-digit profit gains for the second quarter, and reads the results as a deliberate pivot away from China rather than a cyclical bounce. Following our earlier report on Amorepacific's second-quarter numbers, that analysis adds the LG side of the ledger: operating profit up eighty-seven and a half percent, to one hundred two point eight billion won, with North American revenue up forty-seven point three percent, to two hundred five point eight billion won. Per the same reporting, that marks the first time in the company's history that North America has outsold China. The same account traces the rebalancing further back, with Amorepacific cutting China from fifty-four percent of its business in twenty nineteen to twenty-three percent by twenty twenty-four. It puts the next leg in emerging markets, citing Korean cosmetics exports to Brazil up eighty-six point four percent in the first half, to forty-three point four million dollars, according to the Korea International Trade Association, alongside CJ Olive Young placing nineteen brands into more than five hundred Sephora doors. Where that export mix settles is a route-to-market question for anyone competing for the same shelf space. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Global Cosmetics News reports Saudi Arabia's SFDA will impose new packaging and labelling requirements on cosmetics in syringe, ampoule and vial formats from January first, twenty twenty-seven. Cosmetics Business reports Allies of Skin has voluntarily recalled its The One SPF fifty Invisible Sunscreen Gel, saying it may not reliably deliver the protection stated on the label. And finally, Lush has blocked LushVibe. Per Cosmetics Business, the EUIPO upheld its opposition to Chinese company Enshi Qiqun E-Commerce's application, a challenge brought in August twenty twenty-five.