Consumers are gearing up for travel, and are bringing their homely comforts with them.
Data from Spate demonstrates that, while search volume was still relatively nascent, searches for travel humidifiers saw 44 percent year-over-year growth in 2022.
“Education around air quality and the impact that air, hard water and even fragrance can have on your skin grew so much during the pandemic,” said Yarden Horwitz, cofounder of Spate. “Consumers are getting better at perfecting their environment so they don’t see changes [in their skin] even when traveling.”
Related Articles
This proliferating ethos could also be fueling a surge in searches for travel size hair dryers: “I think consumer needs have gotten a bit more specific and a bit more sophisticated; before, you would be OK with a hotel blow dryer, and now everyone’s using the Dyson or Dyson knockoff,” Horwitz said.
In the case of travel-size humidifiers, searches are often unaccompanied by any particular brand name (“When there’s no brand name, it’s usually an Amazon product people are buying,” said Horwitz), presenting an opportunity for a brand — or brands — to establish themselves a go-to in consumers’ burgeoning pursuit of the offering.
“Since lockdown restrictions lifted, people have just appreciated travel more than ever, and we’ve seen an uptick ever since for ‘travel’ as a related search [term],” said Horwitz, who predicts that even if mounting economic pressures cause consumers to be more discerning about product purchases, travel will not be on the chopping block for most. “People just don’t want to be locked up at home. They appreciate travel so much more and they will make it work; we saw that last summer, and we’ll see it again.”
Here, the year-over-year search growth of travel size beauty and personal care products, per Spate.
Hair: 68,800 searches, +39.6 percent
- Hair dryer: 24,200 searches, +36.5 percent
- Shampoo: 10,200 searches, +27.4 percent
- Conditioning shampoo: 9,700 searches, +27.4 percent
Makeup: 65,600 searches, +10.9 percent
- Makeup case: 9,700 searches, +21.2 percent
- Vanity mirror: 1,400 searches, +16 percent
- Makeup bag: 35,100 searches, +7.1 percent
- Makeup organizer: 1,800 searches, +5.2 percent
Fragrance: 32,900 searches, +19.4 percent
- Humidifier: 2,400 searches, +44 percent
- Perfume: 15,500 searches, +12.1 percent
- Perfume bottles: 2,400 searches, +1.5 percent
Skin care: 27,400 searches, +14.1 percent
- Sunscreen: 5,700 searches, +17.7 percent
- Sunscreen spray: 1,100 searches, +8.8 percent