Once owned by a consumer goods giant, Dollar Shave Club is looking to build a beauty and personal care portfolio of its own, acquiring viral body care brand Truly Beauty as the first step in what it envisions as a multi-brand personal care platform.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Dollar Shave Club, which private equity firm Nexus Capital Management took control of from Unilever in 2023, and Truly bring distinct strengths to the combination. Dollar Shave Club is a direct-to-consumer subscription machine; Truly has cultivated social selling prowess. Dollar Shave Club believes it can apply Truly’s social selling expertise to its own brand to propel incremental growth while protecting higher-margin channels.

Truly partners with 100,000-plus affiliates and has sold over 1.5 million units on TikTok. Last year, it disclosed that 10% to 15% of its revenues were generated on the platform. All told, the brand had surpassed $100 million in sales and was highly profitable in 2025, according to sources familiar with the business.

Truly has expanded beyond screens to stores, with a presence at Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Target, CVS, Boots and TJX. The brand sells more than 80 products and sets across shaving, body care, skincare and fragrance, with individual products generally priced from $14 to $59. Shaving products figure prominently among its bestsellers, including its $32 Glazed Donut Luxury Shave Butter and $33 Soft Serve After Shave Oil.

Amassing a portfolio of consumer brands isn’t new territory for Larry Bodner, who became CEO of Dollar Shave Club in 2023 following the Unilever divestiture and a four-year run as CEO of Bulletproof 360. Before leading Bulletproof 360 and Dollar Shave Club, he co-founded and served as CFO of Advent International-backed Sovos Brands, which assembled a portfolio through acquisitions including Rao’s Specialty Foods and Michael Angelo’s Gourmet Foods. Campbell Soup Co. acquired Sovos Brands for about $2.7 billion in 2024. Prior to Sovos Brands, as CFO of Big Heart Pet Brands, Bodner helped grow the company’s portfolio through M&A and lead its $6 billion sale to J.M. Smucker in 2015.

Bodner isn’t setting a target for how many acquisitions Dollar Shave Club will make. He says, “We evaluate our potential targets on an ongoing basis, but every opportunity must serve a clear purpose: strengthening our overall personal care platform and accelerating our long-term growth.”

Founder Maxx Appelman launched Truly Organics in 2018 after previously founding lubricant business Honey Care Products. With colorful, playful products, the body care brand quickly gained retail traction, but it hit a major setback in 2019 when the Federal Trade Commission charged it with deceptively marketing products as organic and vegan.

Truly and Appelman agreed to pay $1.76 million to settle the case, and the brand dropped “Organics” from its name. In 2024, Appelman told Forbes that a $2 million investment kept the business afloat in the wake of the FTC settlement, arriving just as Truly was entering Ulta.

Dollar Shave Club’s acquisition of Truly follows its expansion into women’s shaving products in April. The company enters the transaction profitable and having returned to top-line growth, with the women’s line contributing to its performance, according to Bodner.

“When we launched our DSC women’s line earlier this year, it sold out in the first month and blew past our internal forecasts for subscriber growth,” says Bodner. “Serving female consumers is not a wild guess for us because we already proved they want our products. Acquiring Truly allows us to really build directly on that validated momentum and continue building a multi-brand personal care platform with partners that are relevant to our brand message and audience.”

Dollar Shave Club launched in 2011 as a challenger to legacy shaving giants. After raising more than $160 million in funding, Unilever bought it for a reported $1 billion in 2016 at the height of the DTC boom. The brand subsequently struggled, with Bodner telling The Drum last year that Unilever had “neutered the vibe and fun” that defined Dollar Shave Club and that innovation had slowed under its ownership. Nexus Capital Management acquired a 65% controlling stake for an undisclosed amount in 2023, and Unilever retained the remaining 35%.