Discover the most recent and relevant industry news and insights for beauty professionals, to help you excel in your job interviews, promotion conversations or simply to perform better in the workplace by increasing your market awareness and emulating market leaders.
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Key articles and need-to-know insights for marketing professionals today:
1. Beauty’s Slowdown Goes Global
In the third quarter of 2024, LVMH’s perfumes and cosmetics revenue grew by 3 percent, its lowest quarterly growth this year and lower than its 9 percent growth rate in the same quarter of last year. At L’Oréal, third-quarter sales rose by 3.4 percent, a slower increase than just over 11 percent in the same quarter last year as well as its lowest quarterly growth rate this year. Estée Lauder Companies, which has seen two consecutive years of declining sales, has seen its Americas net sales go from positive to negative; net sales grew 1 percent in the 2024 fiscal year, but its most recent fiscal first quarter saw a 2 percent decrease.
Even the category’s biggest winners aren’t growing as quickly as they previously were. On E.l.f. Beauty’s earnings call earlier this month, the company announced 40 percent growth for the most recent quarter, but chief executive Tarang Amin still said that “consumers are being more choiceful with their spending.”
2. Every Fashion Label Wants a Beauty Brand. Is There Room for All of Them?
This year has seen luxury fashion labels enter beauty in rapid succession. Balmain dropped a new fragrance collection in August and has makeup on the way, while Celine launched its Celine Beauté makeup in October and Prada Beauty’s just over one-year-old makeup and skincare line made its US debut in January. The pipeline for 2025 is even more packed, with Miu Miu’s coming makeup debut, the comeback of Marc Jacobs Beauty and Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen’s return to fine fragrance.
Now, as the luxury fashion sector faces a spending slowdown, beauty is providing a bright spot for growth even as other categories decline. While Kering’s luxury brands saw a 27 percent decline in wholesale sales in the third quarter of 2024, beauty, eyewear and royalties grew. LVMH also reported that beauty and selective retailing, which includes Sephora, were the only categories that did not decline that quarter. More than that, it’s a chance to win over entry-level customers who have been turned off by price increases.
3. Inside the Search for the Next Cerave
As Cerave has showed, a no-frills and accessible image can be a foundation for virality. In recent years, the L’Oréal-owned skincare brand has gone from an unexciting line distributed mainly in dermatologist’s offices to a billion-dollar brand, thanks to a combination of smart branding and tapping into the burgeoning popularity of professionally recommended skincare — plus a handful of viral stunts. Cerave was able to leverage the endorsements of its pre-existing dermatologist network and establish the brand’s scientific credibility while mobilising a growing cohort of “medfluencer” creators.
This playbook is easily replicable for other mass brands, who have the opportunity to bask in Cerave’s “halo effect” — but execution is key. […] The sweet spot for mass brands wanting to go the way of Cerave is to appeal widely and authoritatively. But this requires a careful calibration of marketing, product development and pricing strategies — as well as timing — to ensure they hit the right note.
4. TikTok’s Hit Korean Sunscreen Brand Makes Big US Push
Search for “sunscreen” on TikTok, and one name is bound to come up: Beauty of Joseon. A seven-year-old skincare brand based in Seoul, the label is featured in 16 of the top 20 videos about sunscreen on the platform; the hashtag for the brand name has 1.7 billion views. Beauty of Joseon has been on an upward climb: it grew revenue from just $83,000 in 2020 to $116.7 million in 2023, and estimates it will reach $250 million this year, exceeding the forecasts of top M&A targets like Summer Fridays, Merit, and Kosas.
That’s despite the fact that the UV filters in its hero product, the Relief Sun: Rice + Probiotics sunscreen, are not approved by the US FDA and it is not available at any major US beauty retailer. But last week, Beauty of Joseon cemented its US presence with its first pop-up in the country in Los Angeles, which ran Nov. 8 to 16. In 2025, it plans to enter a major US retailer. Up until now, it’s only been available through online channels, small boutiques and discount retailers, prompting a wave of counterfeits to flood Amazon and TikTok Shop.
5. How Big Box Retailers Won Over Premium Beauty Brands
In the US, big box retailers like Target and Walmart have steadily been premiumising their beauty offerings through shop-in-shops, updated assortments and improved merchandising. For example, Target’s beauty category has almost doubled since 2019, securing buzzy launches like Blake Lively’s hair care line Blake Brown and L’Oréal’s new hair colour tool Colorsonic, while its shop-in-shop partnership with Ulta Beauty has brought in more than 70 prestige brands like hair care line Ouai and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty.
Their efforts have paid off, evidenced by the growing number of indie brands that are choosing to enter wholesale through a big box partnership. British skincare maker Byoma picked Target for their US debut, tween-friendly line Bubble chose to work with Walmart while trendy acne care line Starface has grown its presence in both chains.
6. Amazon Questioned by Congress Over Growing TikTok Relationship
Representatives from Amazon were called to Capitol Hill for a closed-door meeting with a key House committee earlier this fall to answer questions about the retail giant’s deepening relationship with the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok. The Committee, which seeks to address perceived threats posed by China’s government, was concerned that a leading American company central to the economy had partnered with a Chinese-owned company on the verge of being banned over national security concerns.
Amazon had long been one of TikTok’s top advertisers in the US, but some industry insiders saw the recent partnership as a calculated move to make it harder for the US to ban TikTok. Amazon has similar deals with other social media companies, including Meta Platforms Inc. and Pinterest Inc. At the same time, another arm of its business — Amazon Web Services — has contracts with the Department of Defense, National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency.
7. Stéphane de La Faverie Named CEO of Estée Lauder Companies
Stéphane de La Faverie will succeed Fabrizo Freda on Jan. 1 2025 as chief executive and president of Estée Lauder Companies, the company confirmed in October. De La Faverie has been with Estée Lauder Companies for over 13 years, serving in various leadership roles, mostly recently as executive group president, a role he held for two years. Before joining the company in 2011, he served as a senior vice president at L’Oréal. Additionally, William P. Lauder will step down from his current role as executive chairman, but remain chair of the board of directors.
It puts to bed years of speculation. After Estée Lauder’s stock price began a continued slide in 2022, analysts began to question Freda’s leadership, which quickly led to questions over who would succeed him in the top executive role. Its stock is down more than 35 percent since the start of the year; its 2025 forecast, announced in August, missed analyst expectations again.
In partnership with Jane Lauder, the chief data officer who announced on Monday she would step down from her role and was thought to also be in contention for the top job, de La Faverie has been leading the Estée Lauder’s “profit growth and recovery plan” since 2023, designed to reboot the company’s flagging performance, with a focus on rebuilding core brand equity and improving its performance in Asia, a stubborn drag on its results.
8. The Business of Beauty Haul of Fame: Is “The Substance” Real?
This month, regenerative aesthetics is getting lots of play through Radiesse, an injectable manufactured by Merz Aesthetics making a big press push this quarter in America and Asia. The injectable “biostimulant” claims to trick older skin into rebooting its collagen and elastin production, plumping deeper wrinkles and folds in the face and the tops of the hands.
Is Radiesse the same synthetic jolt seen in the bio-horror movie “The Substance?” Hardly. But the idea that the fountain of youth is actually an $800 syringe is certainly part of the IRL brand’s promise. […] We’ve all heard the rumours about that beautiful (and relatively young!) beauty mogul who supposedly mainlines human growth hormone to stay gorgeous. We’ve also heard facts about how clean water, nourishing food, ample sleep and exercise do more for the body than any secret injection. And that’s exactly why regenerative aesthetics and biomimetic ingredients are trending today.
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