Beauty Reaches Heightened Importance for Personal and Planet Wellness

Beauty has taken on a new level of significance to people all around the world, evolving into a form of self-care and value practicing, not just an act of self-expression. Recent work from Kantar found that half of global respondents say feeling confident motivates them a great deal when trying to look their best, with looking healthy and improving their mental state close behind at 47%. Setting a good example, expressing individuality, and feeling a sense of control are also strong motivators for over one-third of global consumers. This sense of control also extends into environmental and inclusive attitudes with consumers around the globe wanting more information on brands’ environmental practices.

This shift to beauty as a door to personal wellbeing and planet action is accompanied by a dynamic shakeup of the types of brands, products, and people who are engaging in beauty. Messages and campaigns that are breaking through with customers are fun, personal, and create a feeling of accessibility, and the brands and products that consumers are gravitating to have a strong understanding of social values and actively practice and promote those product benefits whether that be around client impact or via inclusive marketing. There has also been a rise of men who are embracing beauty trends from skin care to make up.

To help marketers and brands better understand this brave new world of beauty, Kantar’s latest report analyzes its GLOBAL MONITOR database and leverages its proprietary DX Analytics social and digital analysis tools to spotlight not just what consumers think but how they are putting into practice these mindset shifts: impact of social, embracing conscious beauty, and the influence of men in makeup.

The Impact of Social Media

There’s hardly any industry that hasn’t been impacted by social media, but the role of social is outsized in the beauty category. According to Kantar DX Analytics analysis, beauty brands led by celebrities now capture 10% of total branded search in the category, whereas just four years ago, celebrity brands accounted for only 2.5% of branded search in Beauty. Share of interest has quadrupled since then.

With so many celebrity-led brands in the category, consumers are increasingly selective about “real brands” with genuinely great products, while redefining who they consider viable and trustworthy houses in the space.

Part of the reason these celebrity-led brands are doing so well is the personas and subsequent fan bases that are driving this popularity but equally important is how these brands use social media to create viral attention for their breakout products. The importance of social is clear and brands that are smart are making it easy for consumers to find “as seen on TikTok” products via their homepages and in their owned properties.

But it’s not enough to have the right “vibe”. While the celebrity at the head has a platform that can drive earned media, social virality, and therefore discovery, the products need to be great for the brand to maintain its audience.

Embracing Conscious Beauty

This “need to feel good” mentality is accompanied by a rise in conscious beauty, both in terms of clean girl aesthetics and climate friendly products that are given the “clean beauty” stamp of approval. This rise of embracing what’s natural both in terms of beauty looks and products can be clearly seen in product innovations as well. Beauty brands are beginning to focus on explaining the science behind their products and are infusing ingredients typically seen in skin care to beauty products like foundation, blush, and mascara.

Consumers around the world have heightened their expectations for companies and brands to be transparent about their impact on the environment. This shift stems from growing health concerns post-pandemic, the desire for sustainability, the dynamic corporate responsibility movement, and advances in tracking (i.e., blockchain). The result: consumers are increasingly holding companies accountable for their environmental practices, leading to a greater emphasis on eco-friendly approaches throughout supply chains, and transparency around those actions.

Another signal of this shift to “better for myself, better for the planet” can be seen with skincare and makeup brands beginning to roll out replacement fill models for people’s favorite and long-standing products allowing them to reduce plastic waste.

Men in Makeup

There’s also been an increase of men getting involved in self-care via beauty and personal wellness. Kantar data finds that nearly half of men (41%) feel that paying attention to your appearance is extremely or very important to them. And this is intensified when looking at Gen-Z as a whole, with 55% of Gen-Z (men and women) feeling that it’s important to pay attention to your appearance compared to 42% of the global average.

With more men coming to the table, brands are taking note and incorporating more gender diversity into their marketing. ‘Michael CeraVe for CeraVe’ is a perfect example of this and the impact is clear, given that the campaign was awarded nine Lions at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. The skincare brand was able to broaden its audience by engaging men while maintaining its strong appeal to its primarily female consumer base. This creative strategy hinged on a fun play of words given the similarity of the brand’s name and that of the chosen actor. Selecting a male celebrity not typically associated with self-care was a bold move within the category, and a signal of the brand infusing fun and surprise and delight into its brand ethos. Rather than simply showcasing self-care, Michael Cera delivered an authentic and witty performance that resonated with the U.S. audience, earning widespread appreciation and driving impressive results.

Beauty is never boring and nor should it be. But in the era of constant change and breakneck evolution, understanding the big dynamics at play will be the key to navigating these nuances for brand growth. To learn more about how Kantar insights can help fuel your brands performance or to access the full learnings highlighted in this article, reach out to us here: https://www.kantar.com/north-america/contact/na-contact-us.

About the research:

Kantar Spotlight on Beauty Trends is based on research from Kantar GLOBAL MONITOR and DX Analytics.

Kantar’s Global MONITOR provides syndicated consumer insights, foresights and strategy for the global marketplace via survey data, trends, topical deep dives, thought leadership and consultative support across 28 markets worldwide.

Kantar DX Analytics uses cutting edge AI tools to gather and mine consumer demand signals from search and social datasets. Kantar leveraged this tool to understand trends in Beauty demand, including fundamental consumer attitudes from our global omnibus survey data and deep product demand trends we mined from over 1 billion Google searches over the past 4 years.

Beauty Reaches Heightened Importance for Personal and Planet Wellness

2025 February, 12 & 13