Ownership files

Who really owns your “natural” products?

The brand on the bottle is not always the company that gets your money. We track 105 brands owned by 48 companies or backed by outside investors, and we open a full case file when a brand deserves one.

Find a brand in the tree ↓

The corporate family tree

18 companies own 73 of them

The same companies that make mainstream cleaners and toiletries also sell “plant-based” alternatives under other names. Owners here are as recorded in each brand review; the case files above link every fact to a source. Two longer investigations cover who owns Method and other natural cleaning brands, and the “natural” shampoo brands Unilever owns.

Unilever

17 brands

Procter & Gamble

9 brands
  • Always / Always Discreet
  • Farmacy
  • First Aid Beauty
  • Mielle Organics
  • NativeCase file
  • New Chapter
  • Tampax
  • This is L.
  • Tula

L'Oréal

6 brands
  • CeraVe (sunscreen)
  • CeraVe Baby
  • La Roche-Posay Anthelios
  • Maybelline / NYX
  • Vichy
  • Youth to the People

SC Johnson

6 brands

e.l.f. Beauty

4 brands
  • Keys Soulcare
  • Naturium
  • Rhode
  • Well People (W3LL PEOPLE)

Kenvue

4 brands
  • Aveeno
  • Aveeno Baby
  • Johnson's Baby
  • Neutrogena

Colgate-Palmolive

3 brands
  • EltaMD
  • Hello
  • Tom's of Maine

Nestlé

3 brands
  • Gerber (baby skincare)
  • Nature's Bounty
  • Solgar

Nestlé Health Science

3 brands
  • Orgain
  • Pure Encapsulations
  • Vital Proteins

Beiersdorf

2 brands
  • Aquaphor Baby
  • Coppertone

Edgewell Personal Care

2 brands
  • Banana Boat
  • Hawaiian Tropic

Essity

2 brands
  • Modibodi
  • Playtex / o.b. / Stayfree / Carefree

Essor

2 brands
  • Boka
  • Puracy

Estee Lauder

2 brands
  • Aveda
  • The Ordinary

Hain Celestial

2 brands
  • Earth's Best
  • JASON

L Catterton

2 brands
  • Merit
  • Thorne

Laboratoires Expanscience

2 brands
  • Babo Botanicals
  • Mustela

The Clorox Company

2 brands
  • Burt's Bees
  • Burt's Bees Baby

One-brand buyers

30 brands
  • bareMinerals Advent International
  • Pipette Belle Brands
  • Supergoop! Blackstone
  • Puracy Branded / Essor
  • Pacifica Beauty Brentwood Associates
  • Ilia Beauty Clarins Group
  • The Honey Pot Co. Compass Diversified
  • CoverGirl Coty
  • Blue Lizard Crown Laboratories
  • Lola Forum Brands
  • Cetaphil Baby Galderma
  • Amazing Grass Glanbia
  • Sustain Natural Grove Collaborative
  • Centrum / Emergen-C Haleon
  • Equip Foods HighPost Capital
  • Hello Bello Hildred Capital
  • Kotex / U by Kotex / Poise Kimberly-Clark
  • Physicians Formula Markwins Beauty Brands
  • Australian Gold New Sunshine, LLC
  • Transparent Labs Nutra Holdings
  • bareMinerals Orveon / Advent International
  • Nature Made / MegaFood Otsuka
  • Promix Nutrition Paine Schwartz Partners
  • Rainbow Light Piping Rock
  • Jane Iredale San Francisco Equity Partners
  • Drunk Elephant Shiseido
  • Honest Beauty The Honest Company
  • Briogeo Wella Company
  • Ancient Nutrition Wellful / Kainos Capital
  • Vega WM Partners

Investor-backed

2 brands

No parent company, but outside investors hold a stake.

  • Athletic Greens (AG1)Alpha Wave et al.
  • RitualNorwest / Founders Fund

Reading these files

What an owner tells you, and what it doesn’t

It tells you

Where your money goes

Buying an acquired brand sends revenue to its parent company. If that matters to you, the family tree above is the place to start.

It doesn’t tell you

Whether a formula changed

A sale alone does not prove a product changed. Compare the label on the exact product and size you buy.

It doesn’t tell you

Whether a product is safe

Ownership says nothing about ingredients. Our category reviews score formulas separately from who owns them.