How are fashion and beauty faring in 2025?
If Circana’s presentation at the WWD Global Fashion & Beauty Summit is any indication, it’s a bit of a mixed bag — though beauty, Circana senior vice president Larissa Jensen’s specialty, is more resilient.
“Our agenda is to cover high-level global beauty results,” Jensen said, with a focus on North America, South America, Europe and China. “Beauty has been growing for the past four years, and this is unprecedented.”
Jensen noted that prestige beauty is growing faster in North America and Europe than the mass channel in the industry, and that in South America, the mass market dominates. “But overall, prestige is where a lot of the growth has been coming from in the beauty industry, even though the mass market is bigger,” she said.
In North America, prestige beauty is up 7 percent, which is actually a deceleration from the prior year. In South America, it varies a bit more by country. “There’s very, very strong growth there,” Jensen said. “In Argentina, there’s triple-digit growth, but inflation is driving a lot of that.”
Well-being, as it turns out, is universal in its resonance. “It plays out across the beauty industry in each category,” Jensen said. “Fragrance is very important in Europe, and China has a much bigger skin care market.”
Smaller pieces of the pie are actually growing faster than larger ones. “Hair is where a lot of the growth is happening,” she said.
The rise in well-being has also created a new type of consumer behavior. “Around the world, the consumer has very high levels of stress, and this is no matter where you are. It’s given rise to something we’ve been calling ‘the joy economy.’ Beauty is a big piece of that, but there are other industries that can participate in the joy economy as well.”
Seventy-eight percent of consumers in the U.S., Jensen said, practice self care; 77 percent are focusing on social and mental well-being. Half of consumers practice skin care as part of a broader wellness routine, in addition to using fragrance and hair products.
“There’s the tangible, physical well-being categories like sun care and skin care,” Jensen said. “Then there’s the ‘mental wellness’ categories like fragrance and makeup.”
Sun protection is driving sales in Europe — 65 percent of consumers there look for products with SPF — while self tanning is taking off in Latin America. In the U.S., chemical sunscreens make up more sales, while mineral sunscreens are growing faster.
In China, dermatological brands are growing faster than traditional prestige ones in antiaging moisturizers and eye care, despite broader softness in that market, Jensen said.
Though fragrance is booming globally, Jensen still sees opportunities in new formats and juices, such as alcohol-free formats. “In Europe, we’re watching the skinification of fragrance,” she said.
In makeup, the traditional pillars of the category — lip color and face foundation — have lower growth than emerging ones. “What’s driving growth here are things like tinted moisturizers, lip balms, oils, not the traditional products,” Jensen said.
Globally, “75 percent of women say they would prefer to feel good over looking good,” Jensen said. “As an industry, it’s about how we can make that connection with her that can help to bring and continue the resilience we’ve seen over time.”
Across fashion and beauty in the U.S., beauty grew 4 percent in the last 12 months to reach $121 billion. Fragrance is the strongest performer, albeit the smallest, and slowdowns in skin and makeup are driving the overall deceleration. “Apparel is about double the size of beauty, but it’s down 2 percent,” Jensen said.
Jensen attributed that decline to consumer sentiment. “About half of consumers in the U.S. expect tariffs are going to impact their spending in 2025, and this is going to affect every industry, but for apparel it’s a more important dynamic to watch,” she said. “Two-thirds of U.S. consumers reported they would trade down, delay or skip apparel purchases if tariffs increase their prices.”