Beauty Opinion: What's Going on with the Beauty Industry (and our relationship to it)?

I recently caught wind that one of my most relied-upon beauty brands, Glossier is in talks for coming to Sephora in early 2023. On the surface level, upon hearing this news, I am thrilled. It makes it a lot easier to shop for beauty things when you can make a one-stop shop and get items from all your favorite brands all at once-- the charm of stores like Sephora in the first place, but as I reflect on it more, I wonder if this move, while auspicious in theory speaks to a larger truth about the evolution of the beauty industry.

If you do some digging on Glossier, there are rumors buzzing about that the brand is starting to fall off its luminary pedestal. This comes in the wake of among other things the brand letting go of roughly 30 % of its staff in 2022, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and other restructuring moves as its reasons. Perhaps the move to Sephora is a last-stitch effort on Glossier's part to cement their place among beauty brands and to gain and maintain customers that are not as apt as they once were to travel to Glossier's official site (practically their only outlet for commerce since the brand's inception) to buy just their products, whereas other brands that also feature their lines in big box beauty stores offer themselves to be conveniently a part of a one-stop shop. However there is also the speculation (and in my view, a truthful one) that Glossier is maybe losing its appeal as the trendy, effortless, polished-without-too-much-polishing, no makeup-makeup icon that defined millennial cosmetic bags. But in addition to the natural ebb and flow of beauty hype, this also may speak to broader issues for the beauty industry that go far beyond Glossier or any one company in general.

Essentially, I feel as beauty consumers we are growing up. Certainly the 2020-pandemic changed the world in innumerable ways and, along with it, the beauty machine as a whole (and not just in terms of companies' bottom lines). It profoundly affected people's lifestyles (ie with financial uncertainty for some and also the common adjustments to a work-at-home lifestyle that ended up being a permanent shift for so many) and economic stability. And though the world, thankfully, is slowly re-finding normalcy once again, normalcy has largely been redefined, And in reference to the beauty industry, this redefined normal has maybe been seen as a changing of people's priorities. Perhaps beauty products-- or having so many of them-- just doesn't hold the same appeal as it once did to consumers. I even sense in my own self a greater reluctance to spend as much money on beauty products as I used to before the pandemic and have taken more to rebuying old favorite items as opposed to always looking on to the next new thing to be the star to outshine anything in my current collection. Instead, my focus has been much more on saving money, acquiring less, and truly diving into appreciating what I have in the moment as opposed to staking out my next purchase. There has also been much more of a focus in personal development, physical wellness, and attentions to my creative work within me during this time. Basically, much less energy and brainpower has been dedicated to my (genuine) love of aesthetics and placed on exploring other things. And given the times we've faced and the news of various brands we've seen either close or announce big changes to their business plan or scale over these last few years, I wonder, first, if I am not alone here, and second, if this is also not showing up in brands' pocketbooks and making them stretch, scrape, and scramble for ways to stay not only successful but also in existence.

There is also a chance that this shift in priority is not emblematic so much to our individual or collective situations so much as it is just a byproduct of maturity among those of us 20-35-ish-year-olds who remember the old school days of beauty YouTube and blogging where people filmed on their phones exclusively and the the term "influencer" was not yet a thing. Perhaps this huge slice of the beauty-buying pie has had to retool their focus and resources to more utilitarian things or concerns in such a way that the ability or even the wish to devote such interest to or within the beauty industry has gone by the wayside. Buying beauty products pales in importance to paying bills, supporting one's family, saving for a home, retirement, or other goals, etc. My thought, though, (and honestly, my hope) is that while this might all be true, it might also be speaking to a larger evolution of us nurturing our deeper and truer and more holistic selves. I see this somewhat with the continued rise of the body positivity movement, a greater attention to healthy eating, more conscientious consumer habits on the whole (whatever ways that manifests for someone), deepening religious or spiritual practice or taking up mindfulness exercises or journaling, and so on and so forth. And I have to say I could not be happier about it. This is not to say I wish to see the beauty world entirely obliterated. Not at all. But are we having a broader, deeper wakeup call that we are all responding to, whether we realize it or not?