e.l.f. Beauty Spent Its Tariff Refund on Marketing, and It Paid Off
Net sales jumped 51% and Rhode is now in 19 European countries, but e.l.f.'s CFO says do not expect this spending level again.
e.l.f. Beauty posted fiscal second-quarter net sales of $520.8 million, up 51% year over year and ahead of Wall Street's $470.3 million estimate, with gross margin climbing roughly 160 basis points to 71%. The company raised full-year guidance, now expecting sales growth of 22% to 24%, up from 18% to 20%, with adjusted diluted earnings per share forecast at $3.82 to $3.86.
Behind the number: e.l.f. reinvested $52 million in one-time tariff refunds into marketing and price cuts on about 10% of its products, a deliberate push that CFO Mandy Fields said is a one-time boost, not a new baseline. Rhode, the skincare line e.l.f. acquired in August 2025, is now sold in 19 European countries through Sephora, available in under 40% of Sephora's stores so far, with roughly 75% of Rhode's social following already based outside the US.
CEO Tarang Amin said the next move is expanding e.l.f.'s hair line into more stores, following the same playbook that worked for skincare. For a company that built its name on $1 mascara wands, the bigger story here is how fast it's learned to run a European retail expansion and a tariff-refund marketing blitz in the same quarter.
Source: Reuters
Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →
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