'Self-insurance' boosts functional beauty regimes

Related tags United kingdom

The market for functional skin and hair care is continuing to boom
in Europe. A recent market report highlights the UK as being the
fastest growing market for functional care products, as consumers
take to treatments that assure them of their personal appearance,
writes Simon Pitman.

According to the Datamonitor​ report, the European market for functional skincare, haircare, and vitamins, minerals and supplements (VMS) is now valued at £692 million (€986m) and still booming.

Entitled Functional Beauty Regimes, the report reveals that sales of functional personal care products in the UK are set to grow by almost a third, to £0.9 billion in 2008. The increased popularity of functional beauty regimes (FBRs) has been driven by consumers increasingly looking after looking for treatments that give 'self-insurance, the report stresses.

"As self-medication becomes more common, targeting regimes will become increasingly important as a greater number of consumers adopt regular routines to maintain their look or correct imperfections,"​ commented Lawrence Gould, Datamonitor Consumer Markets analyst and report author.

Spending on FBRs is generally greatest in north European countries. UK is Europe's third largest but fastest growing market, with sales of functional personal care products and VMS forecast to grow by almost 6 per cent year-on-year to 2008. German and French consumers take their beauty regimes seriously, but both markets are forecast to grow at slower rates - 1.8 per cent and 4.5 per cent annually respectively over the period.

Sales of functional skincare products in the UK reached £156 million in 2003, accounting for 23 per cent of total FBRs sales. Sales will outperform the level of growth seen in the overall skincare market, growing at compound annual growth rate of almost 6 per cent between 2003 and 2008, compared to only 2.7 per cent for the overall market, predict the analysts.

Functional haircare sales are considerably lower than those of functional skincare, with a total value of £109 million in 2003.

VMS products are increasingly used as part of general health and beauty maintenance. Germany and the UK are the two largest European markets for VMS, although both are dwarfed by the US$6 billion US market. The German market is now very mature, and is forecasted to decline slightly with a CAGR of -0.4 per cent over the next five years, while the UK market is forecast to grow by 6 per cent annually, to £570 million in 2008.

"Consumers focus on prevention rather than cure. While these developments are having a profound impact on the market for self-medication goods, they have proven a major driving force for beauty regimes adoption, especially of VMS regimes,"​ commented Gould.

Fear of ageing on physical appearance is also strong driver of regime uptake. Consumers wish to "look good for their age".​ Older or ageing consumers hope that functional beauty regimes will slow the effects of ageing. Traditionally such a view would have been considered only applicable to females, but increasingly males over the age of 50 are seeking to maintain appearance more.

"Players in these markets will need to reassess their strategies for targeting regimes in light of the fact that the proportion of sales accounted for by this type of purchase is increasing. By 2008, 42 per cent of skincare sales in Europe will be for use as part of functional beauty regimes,"​ concluded Gould.

Barriers to regime adoption remain though, as 42 per cent of consumers in Europe still think beauty regimes are too much of an effort, 38 per cent are skeptical about the benefits of the regimes, 31 per cent claim not to have the time and 27 per cent find the expense involved excessive.

Related topics Market Trends