As far as trends are concerned, skincare is taking center stage at the dawn of the new year, driven by an ever growing interest in naturally fresh, luminous skin. The idea is no longer to conceal imperfections, but to enhance skin’s natural beauty.
Influencers and beauty content creators seem to be (re)discovering the art of skincare, and now swear only by makeup removers, cleansers, serums, exfoliants, masks, moisturizers and other products designed to care for the skin. In the launches from major cosmetics brands or on social networks, the emphasis today is clearly on skincare: there are countless techniques and hacks designed to help people get a fresh, luminous, yet natural complexion.
The boom in hybrid products
According to a report published by Circana last July, more than half of American makeup users (53%) are looking for hybrid makeup and skincare products, up six points on the previous year. This could involve nourishig skin while evening out skin tone with tinted serums and CC creams, moisturizing lips while coloring them with tinted lip balms, smoothing fine lines with anti-aging creams that are also tinted, or nourishing lashes while lengthening them with mascaras enriched with various active ingredients. These hybrid, or two-in-one skincare products have seen unprecedented growth in recent months. On TikTok — a hotbed of beauty trends — the hashtag #hybridskincare has already generated over eight million views, and that’s just the beginning.
Beyond the time-saving benefits of these products, these new beauty routines reflect a desire to take care of skin without ditching makeup completely. And this inevitably brings Korean skincare, often based on dual-purpose concepts, firmly back into the spotlight. This is supported by a report by the Fresha platform, which says that Google searches for “Korean skincare” rose to an all-time high over the past five years, by 258% [1]. On TikTok, the #koreanskincare has notched up over 7.5 billion views, further demonstrating the popularity of such products.
Optimizing beauty routines
Today, the crave for ’perfect’ skin is reflected in a surge in beauty trends that that focus on this coveted fresh, luminous, but not overdone look. According to data provided by Fresha, searches for products designed to achieve a ’glass skin’ effect, characterized by a naturally fresh, dewy complexion, have increased by 202% over the last five years, while the aesthetic has accumulated over four billion views on TikTok. In the same vein, online searches for ’glowy skin’ have soared by 178% globally in the last seven days, driven by internationally renowned influencers including Hailey Bieber, with a hashtag nearing four billion views on TikTok.
All these trends — which are converging towards lighter, more natural makeup, without ditching it completely — seem to fall under the banner of the “clean girl,” the queen of fresh, natural aesthetics, originating sometime in 2022. It’s a phenomenon that has slowly taken hold, and which now seems destined to last and to shake up certain beauty habits.
“The ‘clean girl’ aesthetic is here to stay and is gaining more and more popularity due to its healthy glowing skin look. With celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Hailey Bieber joining in on the trend, fans are also feeling influenced to also achieve the look,” commented a spokesperson for Fresha.
The trend is also seen in the ’high maintenance to be low maintenance’ routine, which is based on undergoing demanding and costly treatments from time to time in order to limit the time spent in the bathroom each morning. Add to that a strong interest in foods and supplements designed to nourish the skin from within, as well as in practices designed to enhance well-being, and we’re well on the way to a whole a new vision of beauty, based on a holistic approach encompassing aesthetics, as well as physicality and mental well-being.
