Top Makeup & Cosmetic Trends (September 2023)

Consumers are increasingly able to avoid embarrassment. We can now get drugs online without facing a doctor, work out online without being seen in the gym, and ask someone out online without leaving our house.

Meanwhile, terms like "gym anxiety" have exploded in popularity with over 9B views on TikTok: gyms are a wide open space with lots of mirrors and many opportunities to do the wrong thing, or simply to get unwanted attention.

Tanning is the latest place some consumers are feeling more anxious. They don’t want to get caught at a tanning salon because some increasingly see it as “cheating” and unhealthy. In fact, the U.S. government also doesn’t want consumers going to tanning salons. Similar to cigarettes, the U.S. government instituted a 10% tax on all tanning salon revenue as a result of the health ties to cancer, partly as a way to discourage usage.

There’s also increasing concern about being seen at tanning salons, as more and more beauty salons try to post photos of their clients on their social media pages. Thousands of threads on Reddit and other forums center around how salons increasingly take photos of clients, for marketing purposes, without asking. Others offer a discount in exchange for letting them take before and after photos.

Home tanning solutions are consequently on the rise and bronzing drops, a cosmetics that’s like a temporary facial tan, are surging in popularity and sales.

Mascara sales are declining as younger brands that cannot climb over the high hurdle to produce the product are launching overlapping products in an attempt to get their share of the global eyelash market.

At $8.1B in 2017 sales, the mascara category is the largest in beauty and represents 4% of spend. Despite the huge opportunity, R&D to create mascara is extremely expensive and time consuming, well beyond the capability of new companies. Glossier took 3.5 years to launch their mascara product, taking 248 formulations to get it right. Even Kylie Cosmetics, one of the fastest growing beauty brands in history, took four years to launch their first mascara product.

Rather than avoiding eyelashes altogether, younger brands are pushing products like lash lifts, lash tinting, and the better-known lash extensions.

With lash lifts, the eyelashes are set curled up for 10 minutes. The glue is then removed and the eyelashes stay bent upward for up to 6 weeks, removing the friction for consumers who would otherwise apply mascara every day as part of their morning routine. They also can achieve a natural look by avoiding product in their eyelashes.

As with any industry, changes in consumer behavior create new product opportunities - searches for "oil free mascara" (compatible with lash extensions) are also gradually growing.

The rising interest in becoming a lash technician in beauty salons (a "lash tech") highlights that, as with any trend, there comes a full range of related businesses that can rise out of it.

When, for example, Americans started getting into yoga en masse years ago, savvy entrepreneurs could get into the market by dropshipping yoga mats, selling yoga e-books, or launching certification programs for yoga instructors, among countless other businesses.

With interest in eyelash treatments such as lash lifts, lash tints, and lash extensions soaring 32% year-over-year within the beauty industry, new companies are stepping up to provide these services, creating more demand for lash techs — and certification classes — in the process. This expansion is also helped by the fact that the category's main competitor, mascara, is difficult and expensive to produce, prompting some younger cosmetics brands to avoid it entirely.

The decline of mascara and growth of eyelash treatments and false lashes can be largely traced back to social media, where long, flawless lashes are the norm among beauty influencers and celebrities. To achieve the same look (and avoid the mess of mascara), consumers are willing to pay upwards of $100 per month for professional lash extensions. When they do, they also become walking billboards for the service, potentially inspiring friends and followers to try it themselves, further fueling interest in the category and more opportunities for a variety of associated businesses.

A look at Alibaba shows an interesting trend: Because the supply chain and tooling for many of the components is similar for lash fans and other fan products, many overseas manufacturers simply pivoted their resources and started pitching their new lash fans to an entirely new audience of beauty salons and aficionados.

Consumer products often go through a phase where they're driven by new technological possibilities, followed by a phase where the main driver is price discrimination. Mini fridges then beauty fridges, jigsaws then massage guns, zero carb bread then keto bread, among others.

And as new lash fan sellers enter the market, a clever pricing strategy is becoming more popular. In many Asian cultures, 8 is a particularly lucky number and a number of top selling lash fans are priced at $8.88 as a way to market to this audience. This works because 42% of salons in the US are owned by Asian immigrants, especially from Vietnam and China.

Lash fans are small, handheld fans used in salons and at home to speed up the drying process for nails, lashes, and other cosmetics. Historically, handheld fans in general were powered by AA batteries. As Lithium-Ion batteries have gotten smaller and cheaper—and as smartphones have made USB chargers ubiquitous—handheld fans switched to the new battery technology. This doesn't just make the fan slightly more affordable and easier to use; it actually changes who captures the economics of usage. If a fan uses replaceable batteries, high usage means more revenue for Duracell and Energizer. But when the fan's battery is rechargeable, high usage wears the battery out, so the fan has to be replaced, meaning that the recurring revenue accrues to the manufacturer.