Is Dr. Squatch Still Worth It After the Unilever Acquisition?

In June 2025, Unilever announced it had signed an agreement to acquire Dr. Squatch. The reported price: $1.5 billion. The seller: Summit Partners, the growth equity firm that had held a majority stake in Dr. Squatch since 2022.

If you've been a Dr. Squatch customer because you wanted a natural, independent alternative to the corporate soap brands — that's a reasonable thing to stop and think about.

What Actually Happened

Dr. Squatch was founded in 2013 by Jack Haldrup in California. It started as a small handmade soap company, grew rapidly on the back of viral marketing and genuinely decent products, and by 2024 had reportedly cleared $400 million in annual revenue. That kind of growth trajectory attracts attention from large consumer goods companies, and Unilever came calling.

Unilever isn't a neutral acquirer. It's one of the largest consumer goods corporations on the planet. Its personal care portfolio includes Dove, Axe, and Vaseline — the very brands that Dr. Squatch built its identity in opposition to. The pitch from Unilever was international expansion and scale. The official announcement is here.

This isn't unprecedented. Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club in 2016 for $1 billion — another scrappy, anti-establishment brand built on authenticity and irreverence. Dollar Shave Club's market share has declined significantly since that acquisition. It's not a perfect parallel, but it's worth knowing the history.

What Dr. Squatch's Own Customers Are Saying

The reaction on Reddit — where Dr. Squatch built a lot of its grassroots community — was not warm. Customers commented things like "Adios, Squatch, it was fun while it lasted" and predicted higher prices with a drop in quality. That's not analysis, it's gut reaction. But gut reactions from loyal customers usually reflect something real about why they were loyal in the first place.

The concern isn't irrational. When a brand built on "we're not them" gets acquired by "them," the positioning becomes complicated at best and incoherent at worst. Dr. Squatch's entire value proposition was being the natural, independent alternative to corporate soap. Unilever also owns Dove and Axe. Those two facts now coexist in the same company.

Will the Formula Change?

No one outside Unilever knows the answer to that yet. Large acquirers often leave formulas alone initially — the last thing you want to do is alienate the customer base you just paid $1.5 billion for. But over time, cost optimization is a standard part of how corporate acquisitions generate returns. Ingredient substitutions, manufacturing changes, supplier consolidations — these tend to happen gradually, quietly, and without press releases.

It's also worth noting that Dr. Squatch's ingredient transparency was already a question mark before the acquisition. Their use of "fragrance" on ingredient labels rather than specific essential oils raised eyebrows among people paying close attention. Whether Unilever's ownership improves, maintains, or degrades that is genuinely unknown right now.

What "Independent" Actually Means — and Why It Matters

Independence isn't just a feel-good label. For a soap company, it has real implications for how decisions get made.

An independent founder makes decisions about ingredients based on what they believe in and what they'd put on their own family's skin. An independent company doesn't have shareholders expecting margin expansion. It doesn't have a parent company with $60 billion in revenue that needs to find efficiencies across its portfolio.

Wild Timber is still independent. It was founded because our son has dealt with severe eczema for 18 years — that's not a backstory, it's the reason every formulation decision gets made the way it does. We haven't been acquired. We don't answer to Summit Partners or Unilever or anyone else. The people making decisions about what goes in the soap are the same people using it.

That matters more in 2026 than it did in 2020, when Dr. Squatch was still the scrappy upstart. The landscape shifted. Wild Timber is now what Dr. Squatch used to be.

A Direct Comparison

If you're reconsidering Dr. Squatch and looking for a real alternative, here's where Wild Timber stands:

Ingredients: Cold process soap made with saponified oils of olive, coconut, and avocado. Essential oils only — listed by name, not hidden behind "fragrance." No synthetic dyes, sulfates, parabens, or EDTA.

Process: Cold process, cured a minimum of six weeks. Not rushed, not manufactured at scale.

Price: $8 for a 5oz bar — same price range as Dr. Squatch, often less.

Ownership: Independent. Family-founded. Not for sale.

If what originally drew you to Dr. Squatch was the idea of a natural soap made by people who actually gave a damn — that's still available. It just has a different name now. See the full Wild Timber lineup here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Unilever buy Dr. Squatch?

Yes. Unilever announced the acquisition of Dr. Squatch in June 2025. The reported purchase price was $1.5 billion. Dr. Squatch was previously owned by growth equity firm Summit Partners, which had held a majority stake since 2022.

Is Dr. Squatch still independent?

No. Dr. Squatch is now a subsidiary of Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods corporations. Unilever also owns Dove, Axe, Vaseline, and hundreds of other personal care and household brands.

Will Dr. Squatch's formula change after the Unilever acquisition?

That's unknown. Unilever hasn't announced formula changes, and large acquirers typically maintain formulas initially to protect brand equity. Whether changes happen over time — as they did with Dollar Shave Club — remains to be seen. Anyone who cares about this should keep an eye on ingredient labels going forward.

What's a good independent alternative to Dr. Squatch?

Wild Timber Soap Company. Same price point, cold process manufacturing, essential oils only, plain-language ingredient labels, still independent. Start here.