Dollar Shave Club Buys Truly Beauty in First Acquisition

dollar shave club dtc m&a truly beauty Sep 02, 2026

Dollar Shave Club, the Durham, North Carolina-based grooming brand that helped popularize direct-to-consumer razor subscriptions, has acquired Los Angeles-based Truly Beauty, a body care and beauty brand with a large Gen Z following and a strong retail and social-commerce business.

The Sept. 1 deal is Dollar Shave Club's first acquisition and the first step in its plan to build a broader portfolio of personal care and beauty brands. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Truly is not a small add-on. The company reportedly surpassed $100 million in sales and was highly profitable in 2025, according to Beauty Independent. It sells through major retailers including Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Target and Boots, as well as online. Truly also works with more than 100,000 affiliates and has sold more than 1.5 million units through TikTok.

That gives Dollar Shave Club something very different from the business it originally built.

Dollar Shave Club started in 2011 with razors delivered by subscription. Unilever acquired the company for a reported $1 billion in 2016. Private equity firm Nexus Capital Management took control in 2023, with Unilever retaining a 35% minority stake.

Since then, Dollar Shave Club CEO Larry Bodner has been candid about what he believes went wrong under Unilever, including a loss of the brand's original voice and slower innovation.

Dollar Shave Club has since been rebuilding the brand and expanding beyond its traditional men's shaving business. It launched a women's line earlier this year. Bodner told Beauty Independent that the line sold out during its first month and exceeded internal forecasts for subscriber growth.

The Truly acquisition takes that expansion further.

Shared Operations, Separate Brands

Dollar Shave Club says the two brands will keep their own identities, voices and customers.

Truly will continue operating under its own name, with its own voice and community. There will be no Dollar Shave Club membership attached to Truly, and the company says it does not plan to push Truly customers into a Club subscription.

Behind the scenes, more will be shared.

Supply chain and inventory systems will begin integrating immediately. The companies also plan to share marketing, strategy and creative capabilities.

Dollar Shave Club brings experience in customer marketing, retention, inventory planning and fulfillment. Truly brings faster product development, social-commerce expertise and broad retail distribution.

Some of that expertise will flow back to Dollar Shave Club. Bodner told Beauty Independent that the company sees an opportunity to use Truly's social-selling capabilities to help grow the Dollar Shave Club brand.

What customers see will stay different.

Dollar Shave Club describes its core offer around value, convenience and routine purchases. Truly is positioned as a mass-premium brand built more around discovery, experience and self-expression.

Dollar Shave Club says this structure will become a blueprint for future acquisitions as it builds a larger personal care portfolio.

Insider Take

Dollar Shave Club has been on the other side of this equation.

Its own CEO has criticized what happened after Unilever acquired the company, arguing that the brand lost some of its personality and innovation slowed.

That history makes the Truly strategy more interesting.

Dollar Shave Club says it will combine supply chain, inventory and other operating capabilities while protecting the brand, customer and buying experience that made Truly successful.

Now it has to prove it can do both.

For subscription operators, there is a useful question here well beyond M&A:

What should you share because it creates scale, and what should stay separate because the customer values the difference?

A subscription operation can build valuable capabilities in customer marketing, fulfillment and retention. Those capabilities can support another brand even when that brand does not need the same subscription, pricing structure or customer journey.

With Truly, Dollar Shave Club is betting that it can share the systems behind the brands without making the brands themselves look alike.

That is the part of this acquisition worth watching.

Dollar Shave Club Buys Truly Beauty in First Acquisition

Dollar Shave Club, the Durham, North Carolina-based grooming brand that helped popularize direct-to-consumer razor subscriptions, has acquired Los Angeles-based Truly Beauty, a body care and beauty brand with a large Gen Z following and a strong retail and social-commerce business.

Shared Operations, Separate Brands

Insider Take

Sources

Reported by: