Goodbye Kim Kardashian — makeup buyers embrace the natural look
The once-booming US makeup market goes into reverse, as women embrace barely-there cosmetics
When beauty blogger-turnedentrepreneur Huda Kattan was shooting an advertising campaign for her new skincare line, she chided staff for airbrushing her to perfection.
“You took away my zits, put them back!” she recounted in a recent Instagram video. “I want photos to be as real as possible.”
Few have had their finger on the pulse of the US beauty market like Kattan, who over the past seven years has built a makeup business — Huda Beauty — valued at more than $US1 billion ($1.58b) by championing a heavily made-up look she dubbed “cake face”. That the 36-year-old has now moved into skincare reflects concerns about how the once-booming US beauty market — the world’s largest — has gone into reverse.
High-end makeup sales fell 7 per cent to US$7.6b last year, contracting for the first time in a decade, according to NPD Group. The market research firm tracks department stores and speciality retailers such as Sephora and Ulta Beauty but not massmarket outlets such as Target. In contrast, US skincare sales rose by 5 per cent to US$5.9b, outpacing makeup for the third year in a row.
This dynamic is already having repercussions for everyone, from the sector’s biggest players L’Oreal, Estee Lauder and Coty to newer independent brands such as Anastasia Beverly Hills and ColourPop Cosmetics.
Industry executives said that a shake-out is looming that will cull so-called “indie” brands and challenge established companies. Players are scrambling to adapt to an environment where the latest face mask is more coveted than a new eyeshadow palette.
“In the boom years everyone was winning in makeup, but now you’re likely to see a gap open between the winners and losers,” said Chris de Lapuente, chief executive of LVMH-owned Sephora. “We’re going to see which of the new independent brands have long-term sustainability and which end up being fads.”
While Sephora is pressing on with plans to open up to 100 stores in the US this year, skincare and haircare products — rather than makeup — will get more of the prominent display space near the front of stores.
As the US stutters, cosmetics sales have been growing at a double-digit rate in much of Asia in recent years, while Europe has been flat to slightly up.
Several reasons explain the US makeup slowdown. Industry executives and analysts said they range from aesthetic considerations to the typical cyclical swing between skincare and makeup. Many think fatigue has set in among women who simply bought too many products.
One thing is clear: the foundation-heavy look is no longer in vogue. The “contouring” technique, which involves applying several shades of product to parts of the face to subtly enhance certain features, has been replaced by a more natural look. Brought to the market by influencers such as Kim Kardashian, contouring spawned a cottage industry of make-up tutorials on YouTube and Instagram, which underpinned sales.
The change was reflected in the rise of the “VSCO girl”, a teenage fashion trend. Named after the photo-editing app VSCO, and known for a relaxed and natural look, VSCO girls favour lip gloss and facial sprays — a marked contrast to the highmaintenance Kardashian aesthetic.
Piper Jaffray’s annual survey of teens showed that last year spending on cosmetics fell to 19-year lows, down by a fifth to US$106 spent per person each year. A growing number of wealthier teens indicate they are not wearing makeup at all — up from 12 per cent to 20 per cent in the past five years.
Women are increasingly shifting their spending from makeup to skincare products such as face masks and serums, or opting for hybrid products such as tinted moisturisers that blur the lines between the categories. That has helped the big companies such as L’Oreal and Estee Lauder — which also have strong skincare offerings — weather the downturn in makeup. But it has left many independent cosmetics brands rushing to launch skincare lines, like Kylie Jenner’s brand did last year.
L’Oreal chief executive Jean-Paul Agon said in an interview that the return of a more natural look was forcing some of the indie brands it had acquired in recent years to adapt. L’Oreal’s NYX and Urban Decay were emblematic of a certain “very spectacular, visible and a bit heavy” look that was now out of favour, he added.
“Our teams in the US are working to launch new products that correspond more closely to what consumers want now.” L’Oreal’s North American sales declined 0.8 per cent last year on a like-for-like basis, ending more than a decade of consecutive yearly growth. Meanwhile in February, Estee Lauder booked US$777 million of impairment charges related to weaker performance of its makeup brands in the US, where sales fell by 5 per cent to US$4.7b in the year to June 30.
Brands that advocate a more natural look are thriving. Glossier has become among the most successful since it launched a decade ago by popularising a “skin first, makeup second” philosophy.
Ali Weiss, head of marketing at New Yorkbased Glossier, said it created its Futuredew oil-serum hybrid product to respond to women’s desires for a barely there clean look. It is “all about healthy hydration, glow and dew,” she said.
Larissa Jensen, a beauty analyst at NPD Group, predicted that future makeup sales would be driven by so-called “clean beauty” products that emphasise natural ingredients paired with more sustainable packaging and manufacturing.
Others think the depressed demand for makeup reflects a more profound shift, and that the “less is more” spirit is here to stay. In videos posted on YouTube, influencers recount their “anti-hauls” that explain what they did not buy, and discuss “editing” their massive makeup collections. .
On online chat platform Reddit, members of a group dubbed MakeupRehab post about their experience doing “no-buy” challenges in which they aim to go months or years without adding to their collections.
One blogger wrote about overcoming a Sephora “addiction” that was costing her US$4000 a year. Eventually, the desire to buy faded, she said. “I realised today . . . Each dollar I spend, each minute I take consuming makeup media is one taken from somewhere else.”
In the boom years everyone was winning in makeup, but now you’re likely to see a gap open between the winners and losers.
Chris de Lapuente, Sephora