The Short Answer
e.l.f. Beauty is generally halal as a core cosmetics and skincare business, but its current quantitative screen fails the examined total-assets debt limits. The company sells beauty products rather than an inherently prohibited financial or entertainment service. The fiscal 2026 filing also shows substantially higher debt after the rhode acquisition, so the old “low debt” conclusion should not be carried forward.
This is a reproducible research screen, not a fatwa or investment recommendation. Scholars and screening providers can differ on debt definitions, denominator choice, ingredient questions, marketing context and purification treatment.
Current quantitative Sharia screen
Based on 10-K figures for the period ended 2026-03-31; calculated 2026-07-13.
841.676 / 2,394.158
289.685 / 2,394.158
464.329 / 2,394.158
6.93 / 1,636.472
- Financial
- Fails
- Overall
- Fails
Interest-bearing debt is 35.16% of total assets, above the examined 33.333% limit. Liquidity is 12.10%, receivables plus cash are 19.39% and disclosed interest income is 0.42%; the debt result drives the financial failure.
- Financial
- Fails
- Overall
- Fails
Interest-bearing debt is 35.16% of total assets, above the examined 33.33% limit. Liquidity and receivables-plus-cash are below the examined total-assets limits, but the debt result fails the financial screen.
- Financial
- Fails
- Overall
- Fails
Interest-bearing debt is 35.16% of total assets, above the examined 33% limit. Identifiable liquidity is 12.10%, below the examined Malaysia limit. This is a calculation against SAC ratios, not an official SAC classification of a U.S.-listed security.
- Financial
- Not calculated
- Overall
- Not calculated
A properly licensed and reproducible historical market-cap series is not stored.
Business-activity disclosure
e.l.f. Beauty is a multi-brand beauty company selling cosmetics and skin-care products under e.l.f. Cosmetics, e.l.f. SKIN, rhode, Naturium and Well People. Cosmetics and personal-care products are generally permissible, subject to ingredient, use-context and marketing questions.
Limitation: The Form 10-K reports consolidated beauty-product sales and brand names but does not allocate revenue by ingredient, product use, advertising depiction or other category that would produce a reproducible prohibited-revenue numerator.
Purification
The filing discloses 6.930 of interest income, or approximately 0.42% of annual net sales, but this record does not prescribe a fixed purification amount because scholarly treatment of the income line and the unavailable product-level business numerator is not universal.
Inputs, assumptions and primary sources
- Interest-bearing debt uses total gross debt of 841.676, consisting of the 256.676 revolving line and 585.000 term loan reported at March 31, 2026; the 2.328 debt-issuance-cost deduction is not used to understate the debt input.
- Cash and cash equivalents use 289.685. The filing describes cash and money-market funds but does not report a separate marketable-securities balance, so interest-bearing securities are set to zero rather than inferred.
- Receivables use the reported net accounts-receivable balance of 174.644. The filing separately describes sales-adjustment reserves and trade receivables but does not provide a different screen-specific subtotal.
- Annual revenue uses net sales of 1,636.472 for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026.
- The filing separately reports 6.930 of interest income within the interest-expense note; this is 0.42% of annual net sales. No fixed purification amount is prescribed from that line alone.
- The filing describes five beauty brands and broad product categories but does not provide a reproducible prohibited-revenue numerator by ingredient, product use or marketing context.
This is a reproducible financial screen, not a fatwa. A failed total-assets screen can coexist with a pass under a market-cap methodology. ZakatInvest keeps the qualitative assessment separate so numerical thresholds do not erase material context.
Current quantitative screen
The calculations above use e.l.f. Beauty's official filing (Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026). Amounts are in USD millions and use total assets as the denominator so the inputs can be reproduced from the filing.
- Interest-bearing debt / assets: 35.16%, using gross debt of $841.676 million: a $256.676 million revolving line and a $585.000 million term loan.
- Cash plus interest-bearing securities / assets: 12.10%, using cash and money-market funds of $289.685 million. No separate marketable-securities balance is reported.
- Receivables plus cash / assets: 19.39%, using net accounts receivable of $174.644 million.
- Interest income / revenue: 0.42%, using separately reported interest income of $6.930 million against fiscal-year net sales of $1,636.472 million.
The debt ratio is above the examined 33%–33.333% total-assets limits under FTSE Yasaar, MSCI's total-assets series and the Malaysia SAC calculation. The other reported ratios are below the examined limits. Market-cap-denominator methods are not calculated because this site does not store a licensed, reproducible historical market-cap series for the filing date.
What e.l.f. Beauty does
e.l.f. Beauty is a multi-brand beauty company offering cosmetics and skin-care products under e.l.f. Cosmetics, e.l.f. SKIN, rhode, Naturium and Well People. The filing reports $1.636 billion of fiscal 2026 net sales, with 76% from retailers and 24% from e-commerce. The rhode acquisition contributed $293.5 million of the year's net sales, so the current portfolio is broader than the legacy e.l.f.-only business described in older versions of this page.
Cosmetics and personal care are generally permissible. The quantitative screen is therefore presented separately from questions about specific ingredients, product uses and advertising practices.
Qualitative considerations
- Ingredients: e.l.f. describes its brands as vegan and cruelty-free, but those labels do not by themselves establish halal certification for every formulation. Readers who require certification should check the individual ingredient list and product source.
- Beauty marketing: campaigns can feature models, influencers and presentation choices that some Muslim investors assess more conservatively than the underlying cosmetics.
- rhode and brand mix: the acquired brand materially changed revenue composition. Do not assume the old 70/20/10 product split remains accurate; the filing does not provide that split.
- Sourcing and tariffs: most products are sourced or manufactured in China, and the filing describes tariff exposure, supply-chain disruption and inventory risks.
- Retailer concentration: Target, Walmart, Amazon and Sephora each represented at least 10% of fiscal 2026 net sales, creating customer-concentration risk unrelated to the Sharia verdict but relevant to investors.
- Interest and debt: cash is held in cash and money-market funds, while the company carries conventional revolving and term debt. The current record does not prescribe a fixed dividend-purification percentage.
How the methodologies differ
Under the FTSE Yasaar calculation reproduced here, liquidity, receivables plus cash and disclosed interest income are below the examined limits, but debt fails. The MSCI total-assets calculation also fails on debt. The Malaysia SAC calculation fails on debt while its identifiable liquidity ratio passes. These are calculations against named methods, not official index-membership claims or a universal scholarly ruling.
Bottom line
e.l.f. Beauty is presented as generally halal as a core cosmetics business, with a current financial screen failure. The main unresolved items are the debt level after the rhode acquisition, the absence of a product-level prohibited-revenue numerator and individual questions about ingredients and advertising.
If you are considering ELF, compare this evidence with the methodology and scholar you follow, monitor the next filing and avoid relying on old debt percentages, unsupported agency approvals or a fixed purification instruction that the current disclosure cannot reproduce.
The beauty business is generally permissible, while fiscal 2026 debt is above the examined total-assets limits.
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