Bloomberg Businessweek (December 2025)

Год выпуска: December, 2025

Автор: Bloomberg Businessweek

Жанр: Бизнес

Издательство: «Bloomberg Businessweek»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 100

The Beauty Economy

Beauty has been breaking women’s budgets—and sometimes their bones—for thousands of years: Women in ancient Egypt mixed crocodile dung and sour milk into a skin-smoothing face mask; in Elizabethan England, they squeezed themselves into disfiguring corsets and covered their bodies in (toxic) lead paint to get an alabaster glow; Chinese courtiers bound their feet to keep them child-size; Greek women would affix ox hair onto their faces, at times with needles (risking infection), to achieve the ideal unibrow.

As absurd and harrowing as these practices might sound, they made perfect economic sense: For centuries, women were largely excluded from the formal economy, and investing in beauty was one of the few ways a woman could control her financial destiny (in other words, lure a wealthy man). As long as the unibrow didn’t kill her first.

Across centuries, continents and cultures, women’s relationship with beauty has always been something of a paradox, serving as both a tax and a source of power. It’s also proven to be a pretty bulletproof business (page 25). Even as women gained footing in the formal economy, investing in beauty only grew. (Suffragettes were famous for their red lipstick.) Stranger still, when times are lean and people start cutting back, beauty sales often see a bump.

This phenomenon, known as the “lipstick effect,” gained notoriety when Leonard Lauder noticed sales at his makeup empire, Estée Lauder Cos., ticking up during economic downturns. Until recently, the prevailing theories suggested that when the economy was unstable, women would invest in their looks to attract a man or—the slightly less rage-inducing explanation—gussy up for job interviews.

“Oh, I was bothered by this,” says University of California economist Yasemin Dildar. “Not just because it’s sexist, but I believed it wasn’t true.” In 2020, she and a colleague dug into the lipstick effect, examining consumer data from the Great Recession. Dildar found that single women, during downturns, didn’t spend more on beauty than their cuffed counterparts (a little less, in fact) and that job seekers did not outspend employed women. Instead, the bump in beauty buying corresponded with cutbacks in spending on pricier items, such as clothing and jewelry. The lipstick uptick, it turned out, “had nothing to do with mating or beauty. It was a substitution,” Dildar says. “Just a simple treat.” Somewhere along the way, the beauty business had transformed from providing tools to help bait a high-earning mate to offering a budget-friendly vehicle for selfcare. “I do it,” Dildar says with a laugh. “When I’m stressed out, I buy eyeshadow palettes. I think I have like six of them.”

Right now the lipstick indicator is flashing red. Evan Sheehan, consumer products lead for Deloitte, says consumer spending is dropping for the first time in years, but beauty sales are going strong. “People are looking for something that will provide some relaxation and comfort,” he says. Especially striking: Very young women have started outspending older generations. Teenagers are quickly becoming some of beauty’s biggest customers. “It’s definitely social media,” says Kyla Scanlon, a bestselling author and influencer. “The beauty obsession is a real consequence of the digital economy.”

During the pandemic, Scanlon started making explainer videos about the economy. Her smart, accessible content attracted millions of followers, and while most viewer comments were about economics, some, inevitably, were about her looks. “People tell me, ‘You look tired,’ or ‘You look sad.’” Scanlon’s personal style is natural and casual; in her videos, she’s typically in a T-shirt and rarely wears makeup. Still, the comments roll in. “At one point I cut off all my hair, and all of these people wrote to me, like, ‘You shouldn’t have done that! I liked it better long.’”

It’s a strange conundrum for Scanlon. She’s spoken at the White House and the Federal Reserve and at conferences all over the world about the importance of economic education, and yet, she spends a lot of time worrying about how she looks. Being constantly visible and appealing to young scrollers is at the core of her business. “I think about aging all the time,” she says. “Which is nuts. I’m 28. But I’m just always afraid people are going to not pay attention anymore, and they’re going to go find somebody else.”

When someone’s “Get Ready With Me” video can attract an audience of millions, it’s not surprising women’s—and men’s— relationship with beauty is reaching a new intensity: From lip filler to Korean skin care to baby Botox (for those who don’t yet have wrinkles) to the quixotic quest for “glass skin,” young consumers are spending big on beauty. As they grow older and wealthier, beauty is poised to profit.

In times of economic uncertainty, dropping $40 on lipstick might seem foolish, but historically speaking, it’s one of the most fail-safe investments a woman can make—whether you’re ensnaring the viscount, fighting for your rights, chasing likes or just cheering yourself up after a hard day at work. We may have swapped crocodile dung for salmon sperm (yes, this is a real TikTok trend), but beauty remains women’s oldest and most reliable economic frenemy.

Remarks

• The changing economics of beauty
• In Context
• US employers are no longer hoarding workers
• Even Santa’s elves can’t deliver KPop Demon Hunters toys
• The most influential up-and-coming AI startups
• Giving cash to the world’s poor isn’t a long-term strategy
• Private credit jitters are just that, for now
• A Walk With: Sharon Price John of Build-A-Bear

Beauty

• Looking good is a $450 billion industry
• Dyson tackles hairstyling as an engineering problem
• Ulta grows by giving strip malls a glow-up
• AbbVie tries to keep Botox’s sales from drooping
• Makeup can have a masculine side too
• OneSkin sits where beauty meets biohacking
• Can’t get that viral serum? MCo has a “dupe” for you

Next-generation nuclear companies have risky plans to muscle their way past regulators

More people than ever use AI. Some end up in very dark places

A 3D-printed gun bringing the ethos of the Second Amendment to the rest of the world

Pursuits

• One person’s collection may be their heirs’ burden
• Here are tips for sorting through all that stuff
• Great holiday gifts, from brooches to vermouth
• What’s on business leaders’ reading lists?

Exit Strategy

• You’ll have to team up to solve this word puzzle

скачать журнал: Bloomberg Businessweek (December 2025)