Does Beauty Ever Go Out Of Fashion?
In the early 2000s, to explain trends in consumer spending during recessions, Estee Lauder’s chairman Leonard Lauder coined a “lipstick index”. It tracks the sale of lipsticks in a given period and is seen to be inversely correlated with the state of the economy. When the economy underperforms, sales of lipsticks shoot up.
Even in economic recessions, lipsticks are a small luxury that women can still afford without too much guilt. So when they want to treat themselves, they buy lipsticks instead of more expensive items such as bags and shoes. Neat, isn’t it?
The surprising trend though is that, during the recent pandemic, this index hasn’t held up! Lipstick sales are at an all-time low. Why? Now that your mask hides your lips and nobody can see what colour they are, women no longer want to spend on lipsticks.
How, then, are we making pampering ourselves? Skincare and mascara! Women are more likely to have the leisure to establish and follow a skincare routine while being hunkered down at home. What used to be commute time is now Rosehip oil time! Likewise, mascara is now a lot more important because all anyone can see of our faces are our eyes.
So, is it time to replace the lipstick index with the mascara index? Or the moisturiser index? Business economists and beauty industry analysts may want to argue all they want. The bottom line is that beauty never goes out of fashion. Even in the worst of times that our planet will probably face in this generation, women (and in many parts of the world, men too) would always care how they look. Perhaps, the insight here is not that lipsticks or mascara or moisturisers are evergreen products for a company’s revenue. Perhaps, the insight is that the beauty industry as a whole is evergreen. And that is why how we define beauty as a society is of paramount importance.
