What Can We All Learn From The Future of Beauty?
Agility over legacy, science over storytelling, and beauty beyond the surface - all in this newsletter and PSFK's new report!
Following on from the automotive and retail reports that we have already published in 2025, we’ve now released a snapshot of the beauty sector. A link to view the full report is at the end of this email and available for 1 week to paid subscribers of this newsletter.
With all its chaos and constant reinvention, the beauty industry serves as a masterclass in adaptation—a case study in how consumer behavior, innovation, and cultural shifts intersect in real time.
A look at its recent history reveals how major players misread signals, reacted too slowly, or over-invested in trends that never took off, leaving gaps that a new wave of entrants swiftly filled.
Just this week, Stéphane de La Faverie, CEO, The Estée Lauder Companies, said on their earnings call, “We lost our agility... We did not capitalize on the higher growth opportunities quickly enough in channels, markets, media and prestige price tiers, nor fuel new consumer acquisition aggressively enough.”
While some brands chased metaverse and crypto hype, others took a more pragmatic approach, leveraging off-the-shelf tech and social platforms to build direct connections with consumers—delivering exactly what beauty audiences wanted in the moment. The most successful players today aren’t just fast; they’re agile.
As the market shifts toward wellness, skincare, and longevity, these brands reposition overnight, launch new formulations at unmatched speed, and stay up all night anticipating the next evolution. For large corporations, the challenge has been different. The innovation dilemma forces them to buy their way back into relevance, but acquisition alone isn’t enough. Consumers aren’t just buying a product; they’re buying into cultural alignment, trust, and community—things that big brands struggle to replicate.
And while “purpose-driven” messaging has been the go-to strategy for the past decade, the reality is that consumers today are increasingly skeptical of corporate virtue-signaling.
By the time we release our next beauty report, some of today’s trends will have splintered, evolved, or disappeared entirely. That’s what makes beauty one of the most fascinating and instructive industries to study. We hope this newsletter and the report provides insights that inspire fresh ideas, challenge assumptions, and help you navigate what’s next.
So What’s Driving The Beauty Market?
A mix of long simmering themes and new issues are driving the momentum of change in the beauty sector. The drivers include a decades long move for mainstream retailers to shift upmarket, a more recent focus on sustainability, and the impact of diet drugs on how the consumer looks and feels.
In this section of our full report, we examine eight pivotal drivers that are altering the landscape of the industry. These drivers not only influence current market dynamics but also pave the way for future developments and strategic decision.
What Trends Should We React To?
The beauty industry is constantly evolving, driven by shifting consumer expectations, cultural movements, and technological advances. The trends in this report provide a snapshot of what’s shaping beauty right now, influencing everything from product development to branding, retail, and customer experience. Rather than fixed predictions, these trends are starting points for innovation. Use them to challenge assumptions, explore new directions, and spark unexpected ideas—whether in product design, storytelling, or how beauty is discovered and experienced.
What trends are you tracking in this space? Join the discussion in our Group Chat.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The drivers, trends and additional insights in our report have been provided to inspire innovation in beauty - whether that’s in the product, the customer experience or brand. To show how, here are a few ideas we detailed in the report based on the research:
A summary report can be found and downloaded via the PSFK channel on LinkedIn. A link to view the full report can be found below or it can be purchased on the PSFK website (includes F2F or virtual presentation of the report).