It was an eventful year for the beauty industry, with a handful of surprising blockbuster deals shaking up the landscape: L’Oréal paid close to $5 billion for Kering’s House of Creed (along with 50-year beauty licenses for Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and Gucci), while E.l.f. Beauty acquired Rhode in a deal valued at up to $1 billion. Meanwhile, it was pretty quiet at The Estée Lauder Companies, at least compared to the previous year, as newish C.E.O. Stéphane de La Faverie started to see some early signs of success with his sweeping “Profit Recovery and Growth Plan.” The industry also mourned the loss of Leonard Lauder, the ever-elegant Estée Lauder heir and shrewd architect of the company’s M&A strategy, who died in June.