More than half of 2023 has passed, and the research and development of new products in 2024 is being started. So what is the trend of the beauty industry in the coming year? In which direction will the industry develop?
On August 18th, the 2023 Top 100 Cosmetics Conference, jointly organized by CBO and China Department Store Business Association, was grandly opened in Hangzhou Bodi Liyun Hotel. At the "2023 Cosmetics Department Store Retail Conference", Meng Shuping, the trend director of authoritative forecasting agency WGSN in China, shared the report "Beauty and Skin Care Trends in Spring and Summer of 2024".
△ Meng Shuping, Trend Director of △WGSN China District
"In the era of dynamic changes in consumers, if you want to understand the trend of the beauty industry, you must first understand the beauty consumers." Meng Shuping stressed.
According to the results of WGSN’s multi-dimensional investigation, it is believed that in 2024, driven by macro factors such as economic recovery, scientific and technological development and post-epidemic reconstruction, there will be six categories of consumer ideas, namely, mindfulness care, mobility, building into a state, mass power, multi-personality and breaking away from convention.
WGSN said that 2024 was a very special year after the epidemic. Because people need to rebuild psychologically and physically after the epidemic, there will be a relationship of embracing and interacting between people, that is, from individual to individual and then to subject. In this process, there has been a gathering of groups such as mindfulness, multiple personalities and breaking the routine, so this trend has emerged.
Among them, "flowing state" and "building into Tuobang" are relatively new consumption concepts at present. "Flowing state" means that consumers are constantly changing under the influence of the big environment such as economy, so the industry should constantly understand consumers to adapt to consumption changes. "Building into a Tuobang" means that consumers are becoming more and more personalized, and there will be a beautiful vision of "taking practical actions to make society enter a utopian state". For example, more and more KOC help their favorite brands to enter the public eye.
After the concept of consumption, different portraits of consumers are hidden. If we evaluate the seven dimensions of beauty consumption motivation, such as sensitivity to big brands, environmental ethics, price awareness, efficacy, convenience, social media evaluation, personalized customization and so on, they will present the following seven kinds of consumer portraits: skincare slacker, factual activist, progressive, digital expert, sensitive romantic and universalist.
The first is "streamlining skin care lazy people", who are equivalent to the wisdom of the personal care industry. They show the new moment of beauty, use intelligent beauty technology and pay attention to all forms of mindfulness care. At the same time, they also admire big brands and like fixed products with good reputation; The value of environmental ethics is very high, and the price awareness is relatively weak. "Because they know that higher prices will have better quality."
The "Factual Action School" pays more attention to efficacy and personalized customization. Their environmental moral values are relatively high, and they are generally sensitive to big names, but they pay more attention to social media evaluation. "So, you can see why there are so many young people now. When buying a brand, they will first make an inquiry on the little red book." Meng Shuping explained. In addition, the group also strives to break the old norms of the beauty industry and eliminate potential prejudice. For example, this group not only pays attention to the expectation of the younger generation of beauty products such as generation Z, but also cares about the new product trends of generation X (people in the 1970s).
The value of environmental protection morality of "Tuobangists" has reached the peak, and they advocate nature, but this group has a moderate trust in big brands and a relatively high sensitivity to social media and efficacy. The group of "digital experts" pursues the brand effect, but also the direction of imitation makeup, digital virtualization and emotional communication. They can seamlessly change between the digital world and offline life, and reshape beauty with physical digital behavior and virtual character aesthetics.
"Sensitive romantics and universalists" also pay more attention to big names and environmental awareness, as well as social and personalized customization. At the same time, I also love emotional expression, and there will be some rebellious psychology such as "I want to be younger". They attach importance to co-creation and experimental products and brands that integrate art, science and nature.
Although "universalists" are more popular, they still pay attention to environmental protection and will pay attention to convenience and effectiveness. They need to redefine the crowd. This also explains why more and more neutral makeup and transgender makeup are becoming more and more popular. This group of people pursue the democratization of beauty, reject perfection, advocate high authenticity, and think that everyone should feel beautiful, popular, cared for and concerned.
In response to these consumer portraits, WGSN predicted three directions of beauty in spring and summer of 2024.
On the basis of exploring the integration of new and old, nature and man-made, WGSN believes that one of the trend themes of the beauty industry in the coming year is "blurred". These include meta-cosmic inclusiveness, space beauty, biotechnology, DNA skin care, healing beauty, healthy journey, from seeds to skin and many other development directions.
"If you want to impress consumers with the concept of" flowing state "and" digital talent ",you can combine it with beauty cosmetics in the direction of meta-universe and space beauty, such as skin care brand Youshiyan, and use consumers’ interest in space-related product design and interstellar aesthetics to cooperate with China Aerospace Culture Bureau to design its anti-wrinkle eye cream product 2.0, which presents a very space-like packaging."
Meng Shuping said that as the real and virtual fields become more interchangeable and people don’t care much about the differences between them, in this era background, the blurred theme highlights the dazzling design, immersive world and illusory solutions. At a deeper level, the confusing theme is rooted in the reality that the world is facing unprecedented challenges and how to deal with these challenges in an alternative or even speculative way. Here, science and science fiction are in perfect harmony, because creative people and scholars explore how to use the virtual world and enter Tuobang (a more active and pragmatic utopia) to explore new solutions for the real world.
"Chengfang" is the second trend direction of the beauty industry. Through freedom of expression and passion for cross-category innovation, this theme embraces multiple personalities, breaks away from convention and challenges the beauty narrative of the past. The main development directions are: a new generation of expressionism, hangover remedy, remodeling basic models, Gothic aesthetics, meaningless age beauty, new masculinity, embarrassing beauty needs and so on.
First of all, in the happy, naughty and innovative expressionism, bold, bright and flamboyant colors are the key. Global Google trends show that in the past 12 months, the search volume of "rave makeup" has increased by 250%, among which the search volume of "glitter eye shadow" has increased by 250%.
"hangover remedy" is combined with the rich nightlife of modern young people. The products focus on quick repair and makeup to meet the needs of young consumers’ living conditions; "Remodeling basic models" is to reshape basic products such as masks and mascara according to the preferences of young consumers. "Gothic aesthetics" is based on the return of punk culture, adding a large number of personalized metals and irregular metals to products, making products more cool.
"Unnecessary Age Makeup" will break away from convention, attract millennials and Generation X, and seek expressive makeup. The data shows that by 2025, cosmetics for people over 40 will become a growth area, because older millennials and Generation X will continue to use makeup as a source of happiness and a tool for self-expression, regardless of age restrictions.
With the increase of life expectancy of the global population, people no longer regard cosmetics as the patent of young people, and older people will continue to use cosmetics. It is estimated that by 2025, the global population over 60 will double to 2.1 billion (data from WHO).
"Anju" is the third trend direction of the beauty industry.
WGSN believes that with the readjustment of values, consumers advocate the value of interdependence and the power of adaptation and recovery.
On the functional level, this direction focuses on products that satisfy our sense of happiness and security. This can be expressed in the form of healing design and health design. It can also be expressed in the form of ultra-practical items with great adaptability by using the power of color, light and emotion. Considering the portable and packable design, it can provide preparation and protection in an unpredictable world, which is not only suitable for traveling and nomadic lifestyles, but also able to cope with changing weather. Such as balanced beauty, fermented beauty, more convenient perfect dosage, quiet fragrance therapy and so on.
