What Was Beauty in 2024?

How is it December? The year has passed in the blink of a bleph-lifted eye. Or maybe I’ve lost all concept of time since women aren’t allowed to exist in the temporal dimension anymore. Either way, I thought I might mark the months gone by with a look back at my 2024 beauty trend forecast, which commenters called “depressing,” “disgusting,” “nauseating,” and “bone-chilling” at the time of publishing (December 2023). And it was! But it was also, unfortunately, accurate.

Ahead, The Review of Beauty’s review of beauty in 2024.

“FRAGRANCE, LIPS, and EYES will be the beauty industry’s focus areas for 2024, thanks to their exploitable associations with inner wellbeing: FRAGRANCE has a scientific claim to the brain via the limbic system; LIPS represent the life-sustaining functions of breath, communication, consumption (also an erogenous zone); EYES are the ‘windows to the soul’ and the site of recent surgical innovation.”

All of the above! Perfume sales surged in both prestige and niche categories this year. “Outfit of the day” posts on social media (#ootd) were replaced by “scent of the day” posts (#sotd), screenshots from perfume forum Fragrantica.com functioned as faceless selfies, and Charlotte Tilbury released a line of “emotion-boosting” scents with names like Calm Bliss and More Sex. Jean Madar, chairman and CEO of InterParfums Inc, told Bloomberg that fragrance is popular because it speaks to a person’s “core identity.” (All of which I addressed in a column on the topic for the Guardian in April.) In September, Demi Rawling told Glossy she founded the Sniff app to “capitalize off of the fact that the perfume community [is] like a cult.” The fragrance boom transcended gender (teen boys are driving it) and species (Dolce & Gabbana launched a perfume for dogs), and the global sector is worth an estimated $68.9 billion today. (In terms of per capita revenue, that means every person on the planet contributed $8.74 in 2024.) The Financial Times even wondered if the “perfume effect” might be the new “lipstick effect” — the well-studied consumer tendency to spend money on cosmetics during economic downturns — although the lip care category was one of the biggest in beauty this year, too. It saw double-digit growth in the first half of 2024, with new offerings from brands like Scarlett Johansson’s The Outset (tagline: “The Start Of You”), U Beauty (“a lip gloss that makes you want to make out”), and countless others claiming their products could enhance customers’ lives beyond the bounds of their lips. As far as eyes, the focus for 2024 wasn’t on cosmetics so much as cosmetic surgery. Blepharoplasty, or the “eye lift”, remains one of the most-requested beauty procedures in America (“it’s unbelievable how much brighter it can make someone look”) and a $12,000 surgery to change the color of your eyes is now trending (“it’s something that could make you happier”).

“As the continued influence of COSMETIC OZEMPIC discourages the consumption of food and depletes bodies of necessary fats, the beauty industry will encourage people to compensate — psychologically, physically — with beauty products and procedures. OZEMPIC will become the new BOTOX, and debates about its non-medical use will center around a skewed definition of ‘feeling good’ (by way of looking ‘good’) and autonomy. Exercising aesthetic autonomy will diminish the urge to fight for bodily autonomy — just as bodily autonomy appears on the ballot of the American Presidential election.”

Exactly this. Six months after my prediction, Business of Fashion covered “The Start-Ups Turning Ozempic Into the Next Botox.” A month later, Bloomberg reported that “The Ozempic Boom Is Turning Into a Gold Mine for Plastic Surgeons.” In October, TikTokers rebranded the quest for thinness as “self-care.” Today — post-reelection of President Donald Trump and his far-right agenda— “our politics are back to projecting thin, pale, weak bodies” as the ideal, said Tressie McMillan Cottom in the New York Times.

“The VAGINAL COSMETICS market will expand. A new NIPPLE COSMETICS category will emerge (perhaps for post-surgery care after breast lifts, breast reductions, and [small] implants). A line of ASSHOLE BEAUTY products may even end up in Sephora?”

Maybe my most prescient prophecy of all. In January 2024 — mere days after forecasting the emergence of a butthole beauty category — I was the victim of a targeted ad from hair removal company Nood, which continues to follow me around the internet asking, “Want a hairless asshole?” Not long after, the industry delivered the Megababe Bidet Bar (a bar soap for butts), Hole Serum from a brand called ASSET, wipes from a brand called MyBum, anal Botox, mirrors that attach to the back of your toilet seat, Butt Stuff cream, and TikToks about using PanOxyl to bleach one’s hole. The vaginal cosmetics market grew as well, thanks to increased demand for labiaplasty (rates of which have gone up by over 250% since 2012), revisional labiaplasty (a technique developed to fix botched labiaplasties, of which there are many), and labia puffing (AKA, lip filler for your other lips). The onslaught of ass- and vag-related products and procedures was enough that this newsletter’s first-ever live event — The Hole Debate, which took place in NYC in October — was entirely dedicated to the subject of hole beautification. (And while nipple cosmetics didn’t materialize per se, Glossier did release a range of lip liner in eight “nipple-matched” shades in June…)

“Innovation is dead; replication will reign. Following a year of DUPES, most NEW PRODUCTS WILL AIM TO EVOKE OTHER PRODUCTS, in the style of ‘Falscara’ (false lashes to recreate the look of mascara) or ‘Botox in a bottle’ (moisturizer to recreate the look of Botox), ‘Lip Flip Treatment Balm’ (a lip balm to recreate the look of a Botox lip flip), or the ‘shine therapy straightening iron’ (a tool to recreate the look of hair oil). Human features will not factor into inspiration.”

A small sampling of the press releases I received throughout 2024: Dermalogica Phyto Nature Lifting Eye Cream was advertised as a “bleph in a bottle”, Superegg (Infinite) Layers Lip Care was advertised as “topical lip filler”, and Fraxel laser treatment was advertised as both the “facelift of laser surgery” and “the no-makeup makeup look” (in other words, no-makeup makeup with no makeup). Words mean nothing! This feels less like a 2024-specific trend and more like the new normal in beauty: You gua sha to to look like you got Botox and Botox to look like you got a face lift and a get a face lift to look like you got sober and get sober to clear your skin and blah blah blah.

“SCALP RETINOL.”

Scalp retinol, a little. I should’ve been more precise here; what we saw in 2024 was a more general anti-agification of the hair and scalp space, with a heavy focus on supplements, serums, and surgeries to counteract hair loss. “This is where skincare and Botox was maybe 10 or 12 years ago on the precipice of being this thing that deserves specialization as a brand,” Michael Pollak, founder of Great Many and former chief brand officer of Heyday, told Beauty Independent in August.

wrote a great overview of the hair growth boom in August as well.

“MENOPAUSE PLASTIC SURGERY will follow the MENOPAUSE COSMETICS boom of 2023, further 1) positioning menopause (specifically) and bodily changes (generally) as obstacles on the quest to remain THE REAL YOU and 2) framing menopause as a medical catastrophe to be reversed rather than a mundane (if challenging) life event one must move through.”

This wasn’t a particularly unique prediction — plenty of plastic surgeons hyped their newly-created Menopause Makeover packages in late 2023 — but it did indeed manifest. The bundle typically includes some combination of “breast reductions or breast lifts; liposuction or lipo sculpting in the abdomen, butt, and/or thighs; tummy tucks for excess skin; facelifts; brow lifts; lower and upper eyelid blepharoplasty; brachioplasty (aka arm lifts); and thigh lifts,” all of which rose in popularity this year. But I think the attitude I mentioned above manifested as well. Many insist these cosmetic modifications mean women are “embracing this new stage of life.” Absurd! (As I said: Words mean nothing.)

“INDIVIDUALIZED TREATMENTS will turn the body into a site of EXTRACTIVE COSMETIC CAPITALISM. Aesthetic doctors will remove patients’ own FAT, STEM CELLS, and BLOOD for use in plumping procedures, tailor-made moisturizers, plasma hair growth injections, etc.”

This was already happening, and is still happening, and will happen more in 2025 — particularly with stem cells, as Trump’s pick for Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claims the FDA has been “suppressing” stem cell technology. He will be in charge of the FDA come January and plans to deregulate it.

“The ANTI-AGING sector will continue to broaden its reach.”

Yes, of course, boring, predictable, this one was a gimme. In 2024, anti-aging further solidified into both a tween hobby and a tech-bro quest for immortality (under the umbrella of “longevity”) and extended to teeth, hair, hands, holes, etc.

“Skincare packaging and marketing will become more KID-FRIENDLY in order to increase its appeal to children and further infantilize the industry’s core customers (grown women).”

The Great Skinfantilization. “Kids have always wanted to play with Mom’s makeup, but now Mom’s makeup looks straight out of Fisher-Price,” wrote Jane Song (

) for Dirt in July 2024, detailing the rise of cutesy, childish products in the adult cosmetics space. And in one of the crazier industry controversies of the year, beauty brand Glowery claimed its oddly-shaped packaging wasn’t ripped off from artist Helle Mardahl (it clearly was) but designed by the founder’s three-year-old child.

Overall? As spot-on as a star-shaped pimple patch.