Is beauty’s hot streak cooling off?
First-quarter data from Circana indicates that prestige beauty sales were flat year-over-year for the time period, following years of growth. The mass market grew in dollar sales by 3 percent, driven by price increases, said Larissa Jensen, Circana’s global beauty industry adviser.
Some of that behavior, though, was confined to the top of the year, Jensen said. “January was one of the coldest months on record,” she said. “Brick-and-mortar was the most challenged channel in prestige, and it represents about 70 percent of sales. We did not see that play out in the mass market because you have retailers where people go to on a needs basis,” such as drug and grocery stores.
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“That said, in prestige, if you look at the trajectory, things improved in February and everything went positive in March,” Jensen continued.
Pointing to consumer data gathered by Circana, Jensen also noted that 84 percent of consumers are concerned about a recession and product price increase, while 47 percent expect tariffs to impact their spend.
“In prestige, we’ve talked about the lipstick index, or the beauty index — you treat yourself when you feel down,” she said. “It’s possible that we’re starting to feel a consumer pullback, but what I find optimistic in prestige is the consumer group increasing their spend is the higher-income shopper, who make up the majority of sales in that market. The bigger piece of the pie is healthy.”
Fragrance was still the top-performing category across channels, growing 4 percent in prestige and 8 percent in the mass market. Though high-priced concentrations and luxury products drove growth, lower-priced items like travel sizes and sets jumped 45 percent, which Jensen attributed to lower prices.
In prestige, makeup declined 1 percent in dollar sales, given challenges in key segments like face and eye. Lip oils and balms grew, as did stick eye shadow and foundation formats, just not to the degree to offset broader headwinds, Jensen said. Lip remained flat.
Skin care saw consumers focus on lower-priced items such as body and sun care products, which resulted in a dollar sales decline of 3 percent, though units across the category grew 1 percent.
Prestige benefited from hair, which Jensen attributed 4 percent growth to the strength in salon brands. Styling products, for example, swelled 12 percent. “Salon brands are a much smaller piece of the mass market, but the mass market for hair is obviously huge,” she said. “I am bullish on the growth of the category but more so on prestige.”
