Olive & June bills itself as a best friend for all things nails, and that brand is now poised to bring that excitement to new owners at Helen of Troy. Helen of Troy announced it will acquire Olive & June in a deal valued at $240 million.

The companies see the deal as a potential booster for Helen of Troy’s online sales.

Helen of Troy is No. 163 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American ecommerce retailers by annual online sales. Digital Commerce 360 projects Helen of Troy’s online sales in 2024 will reach $573.86 million.

Helen of Troy web sales by year

Helen of Troy’s Olive & June acquisition

“We could not be more excited to add Olive & June to our portfolio of leading brands, and we welcome its passionate associates and visionary leadership team to the Helen of Troy family,” said Noel M. Geoffroy, the CEO at Helen of Troy, in a released statement. “We believe Olive & June is an excellent fit with Helen of Troy both strategically and financially.”

Olive & June’s founder, Sarah Gibson Tuttle, was equally effusive.

“I could not be more thrilled to lead this next chapter of growth for the brand,” Tuttle stated. “Together, we will continue to innovate, inspire, and deliver on our promise to be the go-to at-home nail solution for everyone, everywhere.”

Other highlights of the acquisition cited by the company include:

• Plans to employ a “stand-alone but supported” operating model that retains the management team, including Tuttle, and leverages Helen of Troy’s complementary capabilities and scale to accelerate Olive & June’s growth.
• Intent to update Helen of Troy’s outlook for fiscal 2025 to include the incremental impact of Olive & June in conjunction with the third quarter earnings release on Jan. 9, 2025.

Company histories

Olive & June started in 2013 as a single salon catering to nails in upscale Beverly Hills, California. Founder Sarah Gibson Tuttle spent 10 years working as an equity sales trader at JP Morgan & Morgan Stanley in New York City before deciding to shift gears and open a nail salon. The salon proved popular but when the pandemic arrived, shuttering salons, the brand pivoted to DIY at-home nail care, largely selling online.

Meanwhile, Helen of Troy began in 1956 in El Paso as a storefront selling wigs. The company has its operational headquarters in El Paso and a corporate office in Bermuda.

Helen of Troy’s portfolio includes health and beauty brands like Vick’s, Braun, Revlon and Honeywell. The company has been battling declining sales this year, and in Q2, net sales fell 3.5% year over year to $474.2 million. That followed a 12% drop in Q1. The acquisition of Olive & June brings a growth category into the fold that could boost the bottom line.

What Olive & June means for Helen of Troy’s digital sales

Company leaders, in a post-announcement presentation to investors, cited benefits they believe the purchase brings to the company when it comes to ecommerce. The presentation noted that digitally savvy customers drive new interest in the category.

Helen of Troy cited other benefits to ecommerce that the acquisition will bring, among them:

• Strengthening and complementing Helen of Troy’s reach to an appealing, digitally driven consumer base, over-indexing with Gen Z and Millennials.
• Bringing digital engagement expertise that can enhance Helen of Troy’s digital reach and expertise.

Helen of Troy maintains separate websites for each of its brands, and ecommerce is conducted separately on the various sites. Likewise, Olive & June will also maintain its current individualized web presence.

Do you rank in our databases? 

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.