What You Need to Know About the 2025 Tariffs and How They May Affect Your Products

At Essential Labs, we're always keeping a close eye on industry changes that might impact your business—and one of the biggest shifts in 2025 is the rollout of new U.S. tariffs on imported goods.

These tariffs, which are essentially taxes on materials and products coming into the country, are part of a broader government effort to support domestic manufacturing and respond to changing global trade dynamics. While these policies aim to strengthen the U.S. economy, they can create ripple effects in the personal care and skincare industries.

What Does This Mean for You?

You may see some price changes this year, particularly on products that include ingredients or packaging imported from countries like China, Mexico, and Canada. Items like shampoos, shaving products, deodorants, and certain cosmetics are now subject to these tariffs—which can lead to increased costs for both manufacturers and consumers.

That said, not everything is affected. Many products remain unchanged in price, especially those made with U.S.-sourced materials or imported from countries with more favorable trade agreements.

How Essential Labs Is Responding

We’re committed to minimizing the impact on our customers. Behind the scenes, we’re working closely with our supply chain partners to find alternative sourcing, manage costs, and avoid passing unnecessary expenses on to you.

Because we manufacture our skincare products right here in the U.S., using domestically sourced ingredients whenever possible, much of our catalog remains stable in both price and availability.

What Should You Watch For?

Even if a product isn’t directly impacted by tariffs, broader market shifts can influence supply and demand. For example, if prices rise on imported brands, more people may turn to U.S.-made alternatives—affecting availability and lead times. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep an eye on where your ingredients and packaging come from and consider building flexibility into your product lineup when possible.

Vendors will hold off on tariff additions until they are ready to re-stock, which makes it difficult for Essential to say up front what will be increasing, as we will only know when they restock. We do know that we will see heavy increases from China and the ingredients affected are most likely vitamins, synthetic powders such as hyaluronic acid, and we will eventually see increases on essential oils that are initially grown in China but produced elsewhere. All other countries have that 10% tariff baseline whether or not they had one to begin with. It will be an additional 10% tariff upon any already established duty for importing their goods into the United States.

Our Commitment to You

This is a moment of change, but also one of opportunity. At Essential Labs, we’re here to help you navigate these updates with clarity and confidence. Our focus remains on transparency, consistency, and delivering the high-quality skincare products your brand relies on.

As always, thank you for trusting us to be your partner in formulation and manufacturing. If you have questions about how these changes may affect a specific product or order, don’t hesitate to reach out—we’re happy to help.

Absorbing Increases & Other Tactics

Your greatest challenge is figuring out where you as a company can absorb the price increases, and when you’ll have to pass those on to your customer.

Unfortunately, you cannot rely on your manufacturer or packaging vendors to absorb their own price increases entirely, but there are several ways you can help manage your own bottom line. Potentially, you can work with your suppliers to:

• Reformulate your products to use less expensive and more readily available ingredients. For example, substituting the more affordable Amyris for the expensive Sandalwood essential oil.
• Find a new packaging supplier, potentially one outside of China to avoid the tariffs.
• Change how you create and offer samples—perhaps you can make sample sizes smaller or use less expensive sample packaging.
• Shift your distribution focus: sell more via direct-to-consumer and less of your sales mix through Amazon or distribution (you may have to manage channel conflict on this).

In our own business here at Essential Labs, we do our best to absorb those increases, however inflation is a fact of life. With the increase in demand for natural ingredients and the pressure from tariffs and trade challenges, we already know that in the coming months some ingredients are increasing dramatically. While we offset cost increases with quarterly sales, we encourage you to see where you can discount for your customers as well, while still maintaining a profitable margin.

To summarize: now is the time to restructure your offerings where possible, and inform customers. It’s a challenge that every business owner faces in a commodity-based market, and we hope this has helped you prepare better for 2025.