US Prestige beauty market receives skin care boost for first time since recession
According to market research firm The NPD Group, for the first half of 2011, prestige women's and men's skin care dollar sales increased 14 and nine percent, respectively, compared to first half 2008, which was pre-recession.
Prestige make-up sales increased as well, nearly four percent, compared to pre-recessionary levels, as reported on CosmeticsDesign.com last week.
When looking at prestige skin care, every segment except for body care, helped bring the category back to meet its pre-recessionary levels, but the star category for prestige skincare was sets & kits, with 56 percent growth, compared to first half 2008.
According to the report, the sets and kits segment experienced the highest dollar growth among all the segments for the past three semi-annual periods.
Fragrance building momentum
When CosmeticsDesign spoke to Karen Grant from NPD back in June at HBA, she commented on how fragrance was seeing big growth, surprisingly leading growth in the prestige category.
However, the report states that the segment has not quite reached pre-recession levels, falling behind skin care and make-up for dollar sale, although NPD says it is building momentum as the year goes on.
"Historically, we saw fragrance purchasing follow the consumer confidence trend. When sentiments were low, so were fragrance sales,” said Grant in the latest report.
“However, the trend in fragrance appears to have shifted. While fragrance suffered the steepest declines at the start of the recession, there has been a turnaround in recent months even though consumer confidence has not yet fully recovered.”
According to Grant, consumers are gravitating to classics and new scents, as well as, high-end and niche brands, which is affecting this shift.
