How Covid-19 pandemic pushed demand for beauty products

Parul Singh, 24, is a journalism graduate from New Delhi with a sincere passion for fashion and beauty. She likes to indulge in intensive skincare, quick DIYs and beauty hacks quite often. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, she has mostly stayed indoors and spent a considerable time consuming beauty content online. The constant lockdowns gave her enough time to try the zillion beauty hacks flashing on her social media on every scroll.

“As a result of watching a bunch of beauty reels on Instagram, I also gave in to the temptations of buying some of these products online. We’re going through a tough time and I found a sense of solace in broadening my beauty regime,” Singh reasoned.

But her story isn’t one of a kind. So many of us have probably indulged in buying beauty products amid the pandemic. As Singh rightly points, “The ‘work from home’ culture has somehow pushed many people to consume and make reels. You’d want to look pretty in such videos and thus the fascination for beauty products. In fact, the rising trend of ‘no make up make-up look’ introduced various beauty products in the nude shade. It has struck a chord with people and they’re now spending on such things quite willingly.”

Beauty biz goes up

As a result, companies like Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), the owner of famous beauty brand Lakme, and Nykaa, the e-commerce giant selling beauty and wellness products, have reported spikes in cosmetics and personal care sales amid an otherwise weak economy.

According to media reports, Sanjiv Mehta, the chairman and managing director at HUL, told analysts on July 22 that the company’s premium personal care products grew at an advanced pace last quarter.

“Throughout this second wave of the pandemic, we continued to do very well many linear portfolios where the premium portion of the business grew twice as fast compared to the rest of the portfolio,” said Mehta. The company’s sales of beauty and personal care products reportedly increased 13% year over year for the quarter that ended on June 30.

Media reports have also quoted that sales of lipsticks from the Manish Malhotra Beauty line sold exclusively by MyGlamm doubled last year. While the demand in the personal care category went up by 50% since last year, the demand in the product categories has increased between 20 and 75%.

The lipstick effect and male beauty

Now this is a rather odd phenomenon and Leonard Lauder, former chairman at Estee Lauder, gave it a name. He called it the ‘lipstick effect’. It may come as a surprise that people have chosen to buy makeup and personal care products even as they postpone other expensive purchases amid the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. However, what’s exciting is a new phenomenon emerging from this consumer pattern.

While women have largely been associated with beauty and make up, a lot of credit to a spike in beauty biz can also be given to the millennial men who’ve broken several gender stereotypes related to make up. Some of the most popular social media influencers of our generation have openly endorsed the concept of ‘male beauty’.

These influencer enjoy massive fan following on platforms like Instagram and YouTube. They have promoted guy beauty on a large canvas. It has has generated a sense of familiarity and comfort for make up in the opposite gender as well.

Beauty industry is breaking barriers

All this has tremendously contributed to popularise make-up further. Besides, Singh also said that while the pandemic has definitely catalyzed the entire make up culture, this is an industry which is self sufficient.

“The current beauty trends would’ve flourished even without the pandemic. But yes the lockdown certainly gave many people the time and space to explore it. The rules of fashion have changed overtime. The gender bias has eroded and lines have blurred. Social media influencers have established themselves as rebels who challenge the traditional standards of beauty. And our generation loves it,” Singh concluded.