Online Now Leads Prestige Skin Care as U.S. Beauty Sales Climb

Prestige hair care emerged as the fastest-growing category, with sales up 11 percent versus the prior year. Skin care followed with a 9 percent increase, a sharp turnaround from a 1 percent decline a year earlier. Fragrance rose 6 percent and makeup gained 3 percent during the same period.

The acceleration in prestige skin care comes after a softer year in 2025, according to Larissa Jensen, global beauty industry adviser at Circana. She noted that natural skin care brands, which had struggled as clinical skin care boomed after the pandemic, returned to both dollar and unit sales growth in the prestige channel for the first time in years.

For the first time, e-commerce represented the largest sales channel for prestige skin care, surpassing physical stores. Jensen said the online channel has been growing faster than brick-and-mortar for some time, explaining that skin care’s complexity lends itself to digital shopping, much like prestige hair care, which already sees a significant share of sales online.

In the mass market, makeup is undergoing notable shifts. Luxury fragrances and lip liners were cited among the key growth drivers in beauty this year, though specific mass-market figures were not disclosed.

Circana’s data covers U.S. sales for the first half of 2026, reflecting continued overall gains in both mass and prestige beauty segments.