Prestige under pressure — smart value beats status
Premium must earn its place in everyday moments
Prestige beauty is learning an uncomfortable truth: aspiration alone is no longer enough.
Consumers still want to feel good. They still seek tactile and emotional rewards from beauty. But they are increasingly unwilling to pay for prestige unless it delivers meaningful, contextually relevant value.
The data paints a clear picture. In China, prestige face care penetration dropped from 15.0% to 13.7% year-on-year. Mass-market face care, by contrast, grew from 70.7% to 72.7%. Prestige makeup fell too, from 12.1% to 11.1%. (A closer look at other beauty trends in China). In Brazil, beauty spend overall surged by 16.8% in 2024, but discounter channel penetration rose too, from 62.8% to 70.5%. The apparent spending boom hides an underlying value recalibration.
Premium pendulum
Even France, long a fortress for premium beauty, is shifting. Discounter share in beauty products reached 56.8% by the end of 2024. The same story echoes in Southeast Asia and Latin America, where mass-market innovations and retail channel shifts are outperforming prestige launches in consumer recall and purchase intention studies. Consumers are prioritising value and utility across all price tiers.
Consequently, premium positioning may only provide a fragile shield. Prestige brands that invest in heritage storytelling, celebrity endorsements, or abstract luxury codes without tying them to daily relevance are losing ground. If the payoff isn't obvious, some consumers are walking away, no matter the name on the bottle.
For example, a name-brand serum that ties into a specific lifestyle context may provide more relatable narrative over simple aspiration. A fragrance marketed as a calming ritual for Evening Exhale may resonate more than one encased in a marble-clad display and described only as “timeless.”
Price, prestige, and payoff
The tension within prestige is deepening. Many heritage brands still operate under the belief that higher price and lower accessibility maintain desirability. Yet consumers, especially under-40s, are redefining desirability itself. Not as exclusivity, but as resonance.
In China and Southeast Asia, where online penetration for personal care now exceeds 55%, digitally native prestige brands are gaining ground by offering targeted benefits. These include products that support skin barrier repair for healthier, more resilient skin, and hybrid formats that combine care and colour for quick results. Lip tints that hydrate while adding pigment, or bronzers that give a tanned look without sun exposure, are proving especially popular.
While prestige products have traditionally been segregated into exclusive retail environments, that dynamic is beginning to shift as online takes hold and channel preferences shift. Department store counters may still feel out of reach for some shoppers, but many prestige brands are now expanding their presence across a broader range of price tiers and platforms. This includes more accessible positioning alongside mass and masstige brands, both online and offline. Although they may not be fully present in mainstream retail, the gap is narrowing as more brands adapt to changing consumer expectations.
This behaviour reflects a broader shift toward practicality. In the Brunch Beauty space, products like Supergoop’s Glow Screen are gaining traction by doing double work, offering both sun protection and a tinted, radiant finish. As one of the first prestige facial sunscreens in the US to frame SPF as part of a visible beauty payoff, it essentially created a new category that blends function with finish.
Finding headspace
Hair care in Great Britain is a clear example. While usage is down 7% year on year overall, certain Beauty Spaces are showing more resilience. Simple Work Mode events are holding up better for hair care and present a strong opportunity, especially in anti-dandruff care, which is 10% more prevalent in this space versus total “hair events”. Once again, Sweat & Reset also stands out, with brands like Nivea and Dove Men+Care over-indexing in these post-exercise hair wash occasions. This highlights growing demand for performance-led formats that solve specific needs.
Our data from Brazil further exposes the vulnerability of prestige retail settings in isolation. Even as overall beauty spend rises, consumers are building baskets across tiers: buying a prestige serum, a mass-market SPF, and a discounter body mist. These decisions reflect practical utility rather than loyalty to price points. As this behaviour becomes more common, the Discounter channel is well placed to grow, catering to shoppers looking for accessible, value-led options.
In Britain, older consumers are increasingly pragmatic too. Usage of discounter beauty products is growing fastest among 45–65 year-olds, the same demographic traditionally considered 'premium loyalists.' This comes against a broader backdrop of discounters continuing to gain ground year-on-year. Need-states like Evening Exhale (calming after a long day) now outweigh badge loyalty in driving choices.
The lesson is clear.
Prestige brands must stop assuming that price premium can trump need state. They must redesign communications around contextual fit, explaining why the product matters at key Beauty Spaces like Work Mode, Refresh Reset, or Night Out Glow.
