Sales slumps could be on the horizon for mass beauty brands, data from NielsenIQ indicates.
While prestige beauty has seen double-digit year-over-year growth across categories despite economic headwinds, mass beauty’s performance tells a different story, with signs of slowdown emerging particularly in skin care sales during the year ending Sept. 10 versus the year prior.
Although prestige beauty saw a 20 percent increase in skin care sales, mainly propelled by eye creams and facial moisturizers, mass sales in the category declined by 4 percent during the same period — the first sign of a comedown following a swell in sales during the pandemic.
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“On the mass side, beauty sales are a bit more of a mixed bag, as mass consumers are more likely to be struggling with inflationary pressures,” said Anna Mayo, vice president, content and strategy, beauty, at NielsenIQ.
Mayo said there were bright spots in mass skin care, though, with spending on facial wipes and treatments rising by 15 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, the boom in prestige hair care is fueled by sales across the regimen, with hair tools, treatments and shampoos seeing respective increases of 56 percent, 49 percent and 37 percent.
While mass hair care’s growth was more muted at just 2 percent, hair accessories and straightening treatments increased 13 percent and 26 percent respecitvely in the channel.
Here, beauty categories’ year-over-year sales increases and declines in the prestige and mass sectors, per NielsenIQ, for the year ending Sept. 10 versus the year prior.
- Cosmetics and Nail
- Prestige: +39%
- Mass: +7%
- Facial Skin Care
- Prestige: +20%
- Mass -4%
- Fragrance
- Prestige: +24%
- Mass: +10%
- Hair Care
- Prestige: +39%
- Mass: +2%
- Sun Care
- Prestige: +34%
- Mass: +23%