Whatever happens in the 2024 U.S. election, beauty executives believe the category will be resilient to any changes in consumer spending.
Some categories, such as apparel, expect to see a dip in spending due to uncertainty surrounding the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, but based on its experience of past election cycles, the beauty industry expects to remain resilient.
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Sue Nabi, chief executive officer of Coty, whose brands include Covergirl, Lancaster, Kylie Cosmetics and numerous fragrance licenses, believes the beauty industry’s strength lies in the fact that it is a fundamental need and a fundamental driver of people looking better and feeling better.
“We believe this industry is very different from the consumer goods industry and it’s very different from the luxury goods industry. It has the advantages of both without sometimes the vulnerabilities that we can see here and there,” she said. “It’s really a sweet spot that beauty is operating in, and this sweet spot is about well-being, health, dermatology, but also desirability rituals. All these dimensions are one-of-a-kind in the beauty industry. This is totally immune from any kind of political color. It’s about looking better and is going to be the case for the next million years.”
Tarang Amin, E.l.f. Beauty CEO, told WWD he hadn’t seen an election year impact beauty sales. E.l.f. recently surpassed the significant $1 billion in sales milestone with its affordably priced products.
“We’re only 20 years old, so I can only talk about a few cycles, but we’ve always seen strong results in election years, and we’ve seen strong results in non-election years. So for us, we just keep executing. The great thing about our category is it’s not dependent on what’s going on in terms of the election or anything else coming there, so we remain very bullish on our prospects going forward,” Amin said.
Michel Brousset, founder and CEO of Waldencast, parent company to Milk Makeup and Obagi, added that historically, U.S. elections have had little impact on beauty sales.
“There’s been really zero impact in terms of presidential changes. The beauty of beauty is the resiliency, the constant growth and performance of the category. I don’t think whether Harris wins, or Trump wins, people are going to fundamentally use or not use beauty products. It is completely unaffected by it.”