Start here if you're new
what it is
Solesence makes skin-care products and active ingredients for beauty brands and life-science customers.
how it gets paid
Last year Solesence made $52M in revenue. Solesence consumer products was the main engine at $30M, or 58% of sales.
what just happened
Revenue hit $50M, with EPS at $0.02 and gross margin at 25.5%.
At a glance
B balance sheet — gets the job done, barely
55/100 earnings predictability — expect surprises
27.6x trailing p/e — priced about right
28.8% return on capital — every dollar works hard here
$0.07 fy2024 eps est
xvary composite: 48/100 — below average
What they do
Solesence makes skin-care products and active ingredients for beauty brands and life-science customers.
You are buying 98 employees across 3 Chicago-area sites. That is small enough to move fast and messy enough to matter. Patent-protected → legally guarded recipe → your brand partner does not casually swap suppliers.
How they make money
$52M
annual revenue
Solesence consumer products
$30M
15.0%
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients
$17M
15.0%
legacy advanced materials
$5M
0.0%
The products that matter
patented skincare technology
Active Stress Defense™ Platform
supports a $62.2M trailing revenue business
It is the patented base for the company's mineral-based formulations, and it sits underneath a business that produced $62.2M in trailing revenue.
core platform
manufacturing for outside brands
White-Label Skincare
23% gross margin in the latest weak quarter
This is the model that pays the bills. It produced just a 23% gross margin in Q3 2025, down from 36%, which is why the stock now trades like a turnaround.
main revenue engine
antioxidant booster formulation
Solésence Kleair™
part of the patent portfolio
It is one of the branded technologies inside a company with a $67M market cap, which tells you the market is assigning very little value to the IP until operating results improve.
watch adoption
Key numbers
240%
qtr revenue growth
Revenue growth of 240% means the company jumped from small to less small without becoming large.
25.5%
gross margin
Gross margin → money left after making the product → 25.5% means $25.50 of every $100 stayed before overhead.
27.6x
p/e ratio
P/E → price paid for $1 of profit → 27.6x says the market already expects more.
$19M
long debt
Debt → borrowed money → $19M is 22% of capital, so mistakes cost real cash.
Financial health
B
strength
- balance sheet grade B — adequate — nothing special
- risk rank 3 — safer than 50% of stocks
- price stability 5 / 100
- long-term debt $19M (22% of capital)
B — functional but not a standout on the balance sheet.
Total return vs. market
Return history isn't available for SLSN right now.
source: institutional data · return history unavailable
What just happened
beat estimates
Revenue hit $50M, with EPS at $0.02 and gross margin at 25.5%.
Revenue was up 240% vs. prior year. The market also got a cleaner balance sheet story: 98 employees, 3 sites, and $19M of long-term debt.
$50M
revenue
$0.02
eps
25.5%
gross margin
gross margin
Gross margin matters because 25.5% on $50M revenue leaves about $12.8M before running the company.
source: EDGAR filing and company earnings report, 2025
Get this snapshot in your inbox
This page, delivered free — plus weekly updates when the numbers change. plain english, no spam.
weekly updates
earnings alerts
plain english
no spam
What could go wrong
the #1 risk is gross margin staying stuck in the low-20s while brand orders weaken.
high
Revenue contraction plus margin compression
Q3 2025 revenue fell 14% from last year, and gross margin dropped to 23% from 36%. That is the worst combination for a small manufacturer: fewer sales and less profit per sale.
A business with $62.2M in trailing revenue and a 1.7% net margin does not have much room for another hit like that.
med
Turnaround execution under new leadership
Former CEO/CFO Jess Jankowski retired in November 2025. Kevin Cureton stepped in during September 2025, which means you are underwriting a turnaround before seeing proof that it works.
If execution slips, the market stops paying even a recovery multiple for the stock.
med
Narrow moat in a customer-controlled channel
The company has patents, but the consumer loyalty belongs to outside brands. If those brands switch suppliers or order less, the IP does not fully protect the revenue line.
That makes top-line stability more fragile than the word patent usually implies.
low
Valuation still assumes some rebound
The stock trades at 94.5x trailing earnings. That is a rich multiple for a business whose latest quarter showed shrinking sales and collapsing gross margin.
If earnings stay thin, the multiple can compress even if the share price already looks beaten up.
At $62.2M in trailing revenue, 1.7% net margin, and 23% gross margin in the latest weak quarter, this turnaround does not have much cushion.
source: institutional data · regulatory filings · risk analysis
Pay attention to
metric
gross margin back toward 30%
Management needs to show the latest 23% gross margin was temporary. If it cannot get back near 30%, the recovery story gets a lot harder to believe.
calendar
Q1 2026 earnings report
The next estimated date is May 4, 2026. You want to see whether sales stop shrinking from last year and whether margins stabilize.
trend
brand partnership momentum
The new VP of Brand Partnerships is a tell. More customer wins would support the idea that demand, not just pricing, can improve from here.
risk
another quarter below 25% gross margin
That would suggest the problem is structural, not transitional. For a stock already down 89% from its high, that matters more than any management slogan.
Analyst rankings
earnings predictability
55 / 100
The numbers are uneven. In human-speak, analysts do not trust this business to deliver smooth quarters.
risk rank
3
Middle-of-the-pack risk. Not the most dangerous stock on the board, but far from a safe harbor.
price stability
5 / 100
This stock does not trade like a stable compounder. It trades like a small-cap turnaround with something to prove.
source: institutional data
Institutional activity
institutional ownership data for SLSN is being compiled.
source: institutional data
Price targets
3-5 year target range
n/a
n/a
$2
current price
n/a
target midpoint · n/a from current
Want the deeper analysis?
The full deep dive: dcf model, scenario analysis, competitive moat breakdown, and quarterly tracking — everything on this page, taken further.
see plans from $5/moThe deep dive