Beauty media platform Cosmetics Business has revealed the top 5 budget beauty trends of 2025.

Insights:

• The first quarter of this year saw a shift, as mass beauty sales outpaced prestige for the first time in years.
• In the USA, Circana data revealed that mass beauty was up 3% and prestige was flat at 1% year-on-year.
• In the UK, mass beauty sales during the 52 weeks ending 27 April 2025 climbed by 17%, leaving prestige beauty in its midst with its own increase of 9%, according to data from Kantar.

Trends:

Trend 1: Tariff turmoil

• Since USA president Donald Trump announced a barrage of global tariff hikes, beauty brands, manufacturers, and consumers are looking for clarity, with an increasing rise in prices as logistics in the USA, a key market, become progressively more expensive.
• Some brands have publicly announced delayed price hikes due to come into effect over the summer, to give customers time to acclimate, and provide a safety buffer in case Trump’s tariffs change.
• The long-term consequences for the industry are unfolding, and it expects to see shifting consumer behaviours reflecting the instability of the tariff chaos.
• “Research suggests consumers in the USA are already stockpiling their favourite K-beauty products and others from abroad,” says Lisa Payne, Head of Beauty at analytics firm Stylus.

Trend 2: Beauty dupes: a new form of social status?

• Dupes have become even bigger business in 2025, as they become socially desirable purchases.
• Influencer intelligence platform WeArisma says in its Beauty 2025 State of Influence report: “They (Gen Z) see finding products for less as a new form of social status, making 'dupes' socially acceptable.”

Trend 3: The revival of fast beauty

• Underconsumption core, ‘Project Pan’ and the ‘no buy’ movement may all still be gaining traction on TikTok and beyond, but beauty is no stranger to opposing trends.
• Fast consumption also continues to flourish, particularly when it comes to buying budget and affordable beauty brands, and livestreams have become the near-perfect model for accelerating purchase volume and basket size.
• “Fast beauty on TikTok is driven by immediacy and entertainment,” says Beauty Business Brand and Product Development Specialist Sam Murton. “From my own experience, there is a distinct consumer behaviour: many shoppers will now wait for these live events and only buy during offers – often in large volume.”

Trend 4: The own-brand boom

• Retailer-owned beauty lines are fast becoming a key driver of customer loyalty, brand differentiation and growth, particularly amid current economic instability led by rising inflation and Trump’s tumultuous tariffs.
• According to intelligence platform Daash, the average price point for a prestige beauty product jumped 11% between May 2024 and May 2025.
• And in the UK, mass beauty products are also becoming more expensive: Kantar data notes that the average pack price has increased by 32% compared with five years ago.

Trend 5: Beauty minis: reinventing the impulse buy

• Miniature, travel-sized products may be diminutive in size, but they are packing a bigger punch than ever in beauty.
• Sales are soaring, selections are expanding in retail, and they are dominating checkout displays: Minis have officially entered their maxi era.
• Fiona Glen, Managing Director of beauty brand consultancy The Red Tree, says: “Retailers across the board are taking minis more seriously in terms of the assortments, the visibility and the space that they’re giving to them.“

For more information, visit cosmeticsbusiness.com.