The CPG Beauty Trends to Get Ahead of in 2023

For CPG leaders, the name of the game is growth — and data-driven intelligence is essential when it comes to growing brands.

CPG organizations need forward-looking and comprehensive data to spot emerging trends — and get in front of them before they go mainstream. Identifying trends early will help them build a competitive advantage and stay one step ahead of the competition.

We get that spotting trends before they peak is no easy task. It requires taking the time to aggregate data from multiple sources, identifying the competitors that are threatening your shelf space, and understanding consumers’ purchase criteria – the things they look for when shopping for any particular item. This can put a major strain on company resources.

Helio is a single platform that can provide forward-looking CPG intelligence and predictive analytics. It pulls metrics from 1.5 million+ brands and 200+ data sources, providing organizations with the most comprehensive data on emerging brands and trends so that they can innovate, grow, and scale through new product development, acquisition, and more.

Emerging brands, sun care, and sexual health lead the way with YoY growth

Helio tracks 200,000 beauty brands spanning fourteen categories, from Hair Care to Sexual Health, giving us the current landscape and key beauty trends to watch out for in 2023.

Insight #1: Helio shows that Hair Care, Personal Care, Skin Care, and Makeup recorded the highest brand count across all fourteen categories. Hair Care and Personal Care comprise a little over 50% of all brand count across all beauty categories.

Insight #2: Smaller CPG brands are leading the way in terms of brand count. Cosmetic package goods brands with revenues of less than $250k comprise over 50% of each of the top categories.

Insight #3: Sun Care and Sexual Health have recorded the highest growth for offline sales and online traffic, while Dental Hygiene has slowed down in both channels.

Insight #4: Baby and Personal Care, Sexual Health, and Sun Care are seeing year–on–year growth in offline sales and online traffic. There’s also a potential shift from online to offline for Baby and Personal Care as COVID-related concerns ease and consumers get back out there.

Insight #5: Body, Wash, Soap, and Deodorant — while showing signs of a slowdown in offline channels — are gaining traction in online traffic. They have the highest online traffic growth percentage over the last year among all beauty categories.

The potential for growth in essential oils remains strong offline. However, online remains to be a less important — almost immaterial — channel for this category.

Makeup to keep gaining in popularity over the next 12 months, followed by skin care, personal care, and nail care

According to the Helio Growth Predictor (HGP) score, makeup brands lead the way when it comes to future growth.

HGP is a proprietary model that integrates over 100 performance metrics over the next 12 months across Helio’s distribution, online web, social media, reviews, and sales data. HGP score predicts future sales; the closer a brand is to 1, the more likely it is for breakout success.

Based on the graph below, Skin Care, Personal Care, Nail Care, and Fragrances are also poised for growth in 2022-23, following Makeup with over 0.50 in HGP score.

Insight #1: Looking at reviews, consumers consider ease of use a top-of-mind factor in purchasing a Makeup product. This is their primary Key Purchase Criteria. They also prioritize the following:

Value for money

Longevity

Sheerness

Consistency

Packaging

Moisturizing effects

Most beauty brands meet consumer needs for packaging, ease of use, and sheerness. They also have room to improve on value for money, consistency, and providing moisturizing effects.

Skin, Foundation, Lipstick, and Rouge are top product attributes for beauty and cosmetics

What about trending product attributes in beauty? At a high level, “attributes” are the characteristics or qualities that help define a product, and in the case of makeup, they may describe the type of product, the subcategory that product belongs to, etc.

Insight #1: Helio shows the top five trending attributes in makeup to be the following:

1- Rouge

2- Eye palette

3- Foundation sticks

4- Brow pencils

Insight #2: Digging deeper into Key Purchase Criteria, the most recognized attributes based on brands’ social following include:

1- Foundation

2- Lipstick and Lip Products

3- Skin and Skin Care

4- Mascara

5- Nail

Spotlight on the top beauty brands that are going full steam ahead

So, given all the above, which beauty brands are poised for growth over the next 12 months? Helio predicts that the following are the top brands that are gaining traction in terms of growth and HGP score:

Luna Magic

This Afro-Latina-owned brand features high-performance ingredients and bold flavors for its shadow palettes, lip gloss, and eyebrow pencils. It's found in WMT and Target.

P/Y/T Beauty

This safe, cruelty-free, and vegan brand offers palettes for all skin tones, neatly presented in upcycled packaging. It's available in Target, Ulta, and CVS.

Moira

Moira is another cruelty-free and vegan makeup brand that boasts waterproof and long-lasting eye shadows, creams, and various facial, lip, and skincare collections. It's currently using HEB distribution.

Glam Lip Gloss

Made from 100% recyclable packaging and functional ingredients, this D2C brand offers face, eye, lip, personal care, and color palettes.

Tower 28 Beauty

This female-founded beauty brand is perfect for consumers with sensitive skin looking for dermatology-tested products and 100% clean ingredients. Its vegan lip jellies, tinted sunscreen foundations, and facial sprays are available in Sephora.

Stay ahead of the curve with Helio

The beauty industry constantly evolves, with new trends and package goods emerging all the time. As we move into 2023, it’s critical that CPG leaders keep an eye on emerging trends will be interesting to see which trends continue to dominate the cosmetics industry.

Keep an eye on Helio for insights and analyses on the latest beauty trends so that you can stay ahead of the curve.

To learn more about Helio or get in touch, visit heliodata.com.