According to beauty market research conducted by The NPD Group, a market research company, during the first ten months of 2011, (January to October), total prestige make-up dollar sales in US department stores were $2.8bn, an increase of eight percent compared to the same time last year.
Units also grew five percent with almost 117 million units sold. NPD states that October was the tenth month of dollar growth and the ninth month of unit growth for the year.
The market was given a huge help by the total nail care segment as it saw a 59 percent sales boost on 2011.
Market on the up
Total Eye and the All Other Color segment clocked double digit increases also (ten percent), whilst Total Sets, Total Lip, and Total Face, up nine, eight and seven respectively.
“In make-up, while neutral tones and face products led in the past, across countries we see strong gains in color categories of lip and nail color and a new focus on eye shadow and eye definition with growth in eye pencil and brow products,” said Karen Grant, vice president and senior global industry analyst.
“In make-up, the joy of color is seen with more than half of the top 25 new products (and 7 of the top 10) being from an eye or lip category.”
It continues trends noted earlier this year as sales are back above the pre-recession levels seen in 2008 with color cosmetics and nail care leading the way.
The trend continues…
The researcher’s findings in the first half of 2011, stated that make-up sales had surpassed pre-recession levels for the first half of 2008, which is the point when the market began to shrink under economic pressures.
And the trend has continued as the color cosmetics and nail care have seen bumper increases in sales continue.
The big winners in the Face segment were concealer and foundation, while Eyes showed dramatic increases in the eye shadow, eye brow, and mascara categories, according to NPD.
The report shows that in Lip, it was lip color that stole the dollars away from lip gloss and liner, outperforming the category’s dollar performance of 8 percent, with an increase of 12 percent.