J&J’s US beauty president Michelle Freyre will take over ELC’s Clinique business in July, succeeding Jane Lauder, who has been appointed to a new role at the company focused on driving its digital evolution.

The companies initiated voluntary recalls in May after finding evidence of microbial contamination – in Arbonne’s case, the presence of Pluralibacter gergoviae in a body wash product, and in BECCA’s, “a brownish-black material identified as a common household mold” identified on a makeup applicator.

Lauder’s business has been thrashed by COVID-19, but the firm is encouraged that its biggest growth drivers before the crisis are the same ones carrying it through.

From record organic growth to a 9% decline, The Estee Lauder Companies’ fiscal performance over the past two quarters illustrates sharply the devastating and largely unanticipated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, even for firms best-positioned to ride it out.