Professional Beauty

Rebound and Resilience

One of the key takeaways from COVID-19 is the importance of professional beauty services. All three sectors – professional hair care, skin care, and nail care realized good if not strong recovery*, fueled in part by pent up demand and a return to socialization. In fact, the US, mainland China, and four other major country markets for professional hair care achieved full recovery in 2021. Even more impressive, the professional skin care sectors exceeded all expectations and is on a phenomenal growth tear projected at near double-digit levels per year over the next several years. What’s driving this growth: rising consumer acceptance of aesthetic procedures, both surgical and nonsurgical, particularly those offered by medical practitioners, as well as spas and beauty institutes. The current health and positive outlook for this sector bodes well for industry participants.

While the well-established salon hair care sector has experienced bounce back, albeit not at the rate of professional skin care, innovations such as bond builders (i.e., the Olaplex “effect’) have created a new category and in this case a significant and impressive new competitor. One of the most important developments impacting the salon hair care sector is that business for consumer take-home products is shifting away from salons to both retail stores and ecommerce, and significant growth of independent stylists is also creating shift in demand for products for service provision. Inflation, particularly if prolonged, will temper salon hair care and the professional nail care sector as well.

*Source: Kline Professional Beauty reports; reference to total global sales.