This holiday season, amid global concerns of rising interest rates and possible recession, many beauty companies are marketing gifts that might seem out of sync with the economic climate: extremely expensive seasonal offerings, some of which are several hundred times the price of one of their entry-level items.
Yet beauty industry insiders say they are confident that, for the people who can afford such luxuries, the strategy makes sense.
“There’s a lot of depressing things going on right now — Covid’s still here, there’s talk of recession, inflation is terrible — so consumers who have the means to do it are treating themselves, because as consumer confidence goes down, the Lipstick Index kicks in,” said Larissa Jensen, a beauty industry adviser at the marketing firm NPD, referring to an industry theory that says that shoppers buy small luxuries, like lipsticks, at times of economic instability.
