The insight: US beauty shoppers are becoming more price conscious, even as overall spending continues to increase.

• Mass beauty sales rose 4% YoY in the first half of 2025, per Circana, compared with just 2% growth for prestige products.
• Ulta Beauty customers are “prudently [managing] their day-to-day spending” and closely watching prices, CEO Kecia Steelman said on the company’s Q2 earnings call.

Beauty as must-haves: The category’s resilience is due in no small part to the fact that a sizable portion of consumers consider beauty purchases non-negotiable.

• Beauty enthusiasts—whose numbers continue to increase, thanks to a surge in interest from younger consumers and men—are loath to give up their regimens, Steelman said, and remain strongly engaged.
• 27% of Gen Zers and 26% of millennials consider skincare and beauty products to be essentials, per a survey by Intuit Credit Karma.

But even enthusiasts are becoming more discriminating with their spend.

• Only 14% of US beauty buyers think that higher prices mean better quality products, according to Circana’s report, exposing the limits of brands’ pricing power after years of hikes.
• Per Circana, the fastest-growing segments in the beauty space are premium-priced mass retail brands and value-priced prestige brands, indicating that while shoppers aren’t trading down all the way, they are looking to get the most for their money.