How Did Beauty Perform During the Third Quarter of 2026?

by · WWD
Skin care sales are up in both the mass and prestige markets.Виктория Попова - stock.adobe.com

Beauty is holding rank as a top-two industry by growth across U.S. retail, new data shows.

According to Circana, prestige beauty sales through the third quarter of 2026 reached $25.5 billion, up 5 percent year-over-year, while mass beauty grew 7 percent to $57.4 billion.

In prestige, skin care and hair care were tied as top growth categories — both rose 7 percent in dollar sales — though skin care units grew double digits, making skin the biggest category by overall gains.

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“Prestige skin care is bringing in the most volume of any [prestige] categories,” said Larissa Jensen, global beauty industry adviser for Circana, adding that the growth is in part due to 2025 having been a softer year for skin care, which made the category poised for a comeback, and increasing interest in devices and K-beauty treatments and serums. (Case in point, even though K-beauty brands comprise just 8 percent of the $2.6 billion prestige antiaging market, they represent 40 percent of the gains in the category, Jensen said).

Elsewhere in prestige, fragrance sales rose 5 percent and makeup grew 3 percent, with the latter mainly driven by demand for complexion products like concealer, blush and bronzer, and a return to growth for lip color and eye shadow products, indicating a return to more expressive beauty looks.

In the mass market, fragrance grew 15 percent, skin care grew nearly 8 percent, hair grew 6 percent and makeup grew just over 4 percent.

“Mass fragrance is a smaller piece of the pie, and it’s much easier for smaller areas of the market to post big growth numbers,” said Jensen, adding that prestige fragrances make up 85 percent of all U.S. fragrance sales, and that as affordable fragrances boom, so are ultraexpensive fragrances on the opposite side of the price spectrum. “Luxury fragrances are a smaller piece of prestige, but they are outpacing total prestige.”

Recent Circana research shows that roughly one-third of consumers say they wear fragrances daily, an increase of five points versus last year. One-third of consumers also report plans to buy a beauty product as a holiday gift.

“The groups that are most likely to buy beauty products as holiday gifts include Gen Z and Millennials; households earning more than $150,000 a year, and households with kids — close to 50 percent of households with kids said they are going to be buying beauty products as a holiday gift,” Jensen said, adding that Circana anticipates fragrance, prestige skin care and gift sets to be popular gifting items this season.