E.l.f. Beauty is expecting refunds of around $55 million for tariffs, according to chief executive officer Tarang Amin, which he wants to invest back in the business, sharpening prices.
“We recently tested our Halo Glow skin tints from $18 to $14. We saw almost a 40 percent lift in that product, so we’re interested in investing some of the tariff refund into looking at even sharper price points on some of our key franchises,” he said in an interview as the company released its latest set of earnings.
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“We do believe we’ll get them in the course this year, but we’re not waiting. We’re going to take the actions that we feel we need to do. We take quite seriously our responsibility of delivering superior consumer value, and we’re going to continue on that, and hopefully the tariffs catch up.”
A spokesman confirmed that the refund is an expectation and has not been approved. It has not been factored into the company’s fiscal 2027 outlook.
In 2025, E.l.f. revealed that all prices would increase by $1 due to increased tariffs.
E.l.f. was one of a number of companies that sued the government to recoup millions of dollars for tariffs in the U.S. Court of International Trade, after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that President Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to levy double-digit tariffs was unprecedented and unsupportable by law. Subsequently, E.l.f. is facing a class action suit from consumers who want to claim those funds back because E.l.f. raised prices in the wake of tariffs.
In the meantime, E.l.f. has been working on widening its manufacturing footprint that almost used to be exclusively in China. Today, 45 percent of it is outside of China.
This came as E.l.f. surpassed Wall Street estimates on both the top and bottom lines. For the three months ended March 31, net sales increased 35 percent to $449.3 million. Wall Street had penciled in $423 million.
Adjusted diluted earnings per share were 32 cents, beating analysts’ estimates of 29 cents.
For the 12 months ended March 31, net sales increased 25 percent to $1.63 billion.
For 2027, E.l.f. is forecasting sales of between $1.83 billion and $1.87 billion, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.87 billion, and adjusted net income of between $198 million and $201 million.
Amin said: “It was another great year. This is our seventh consecutive year of net sales growth above 20 percent. We finished FY26 at 25 percent net sales growth and strength across our entire portfolio.”