Beauty’s enjoying a great retail holiday, according to recent data from The NPD Group. Weekly sales of makeup, skincare and fragrance in the U.S. have been consistently strong since NPD began tracking the 2017 holiday season in early November.
 
While the first week of November started out slow, with a 3% gain for beauty, week 2 experienced a 15% increase and weeks 3 and 4 have seen beauty sales really take off, posting the strongest gains of all the industries NPD is tracking this holiday.
 
Here are some highlights:
 
—Beauty’s growth is being driven by makeup, followed by skincare. Fragrance continues to lag this holiday. In fact, skincare gift sets contributed more volume during Thanksgiving/Black Friday week than fragrance gift sets. This is notable in that holiday represents much less to total skincare sales than to total fragrance sales.
 
—In fragrance, home ancillary sets, which feature home scents like candles and reed diffusers, are performing well.
 
—Lipgloss and false eyelashes – two beauty staples when glamming it up – are hot items.
 
—Thanksgiving/Black Friday week, beauty sales grew +17%, led by makeup, followed by skincare and then fragrance.
 
—Cyber Week, beauty sales grew +9%—makeup sets and skincare sets are growing gangbusters.