The appetite for beauty products — skin and hair care, makeup and fragrance — seems to be insatiable.
Global sales in the beauty and personal care market are expected to hit $693.9 billion this year, exploding to $1.18 trillion by 2033, according to Grand View Research, a market research and consulting company in San Francisco.
And breaking the numbers down even more: If estimates of 2026 spending on skin care and on fragrance were divided among the world’s population of more than 8.3 billion people, each person’s outlay would be $26.45 on skin care and $7.17 on fragrance, according to Statista, a data platform in Germany.
The thrill of discovering something new is what enhances the allure of beauty products today, said Rachel Eichen, the vice president, division merchandise manager of beauty at Nordstrom. (In September the store began selling Victoria Beckham’s latest fragrance, Hotel Portofino Extrait de Parfum, with its notes of wild fig, saffron, black amber and pinot noir, at $320 for 50 milliliters/1.7 fluid ounces.)
Beauty products are an easy way to express oneself, Ms. Eichen said, noting, “No matter who you are or what level of beauty that you’re buying into, you can get something that really brings you joy.”
So we asked five stylish people from Paris to Michigan what they are buying now and what makes them feel good.
Arina Pouzoullic
Ms. Pouzoullic, who lives in Paris, is the founder and curator of Second Petale, a vintage and contemporary jewelry gallery.
Recently Ms. Pouzoullic, 58, added Shiseido Vital Perfection Uplifting and Firming Advanced Cream ($146 for 50 milliliters/1.7 ounces) and its Vital Perfection Overnight Firming Treatment (about $180 for 50 milliliters/1.7 ounces) to her daily routine. “With my age now, I try to focus and buy performance products that is exactly what my skin needs to do,” she said.
She also has been experimenting with color, snapping up a Sisley Phyto-Rouge Shine 12 lipstick in Sheer Cocoa ($73 for 3 grams/0.1 ounce) while browsing in a local Sephora. Why that product? “It’s not sticky,” she said, and she liked what the color “looked like on me.” She recently had been pairing the shade with her beige Celine shorts and other wardrobe items.
She also has replenished her stock of Yves Saint Laurent’s Volume Effet Faux Cils (False Lash Effect) Mascara in High Density Black ($34 for 7 grams/0.25 ounce), which she has used for about 20 years. “It doesn’t make the lashes chunky,” she said. “It basically looks natural yet intense,” and lasts well into the evening.
Jouw Wijnsma
Mr. Wijnsma, who lives in Heiloo, a town northwest of Amsterdam, is a senior organizational adviser on team building for the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets. He also is the co-founder of Steinbeisser, which holds what it calls “experimental gastronomy” dinners in different locations, such as the May event scheduled at the Goetheanum convention center in Dornach, Switzerland.
Fragrance is what Mr. Wijnsma calls his guilty pleasure: He has 11 bottles displayed on his wardrobe shelf at home.
Case in point: Perfumer H’s Smoke Eau de Parfum ($370 for 100 milliliters/3.4 fluid ounces), which Mr. Wijnsma, 45, said he bought for its “heavy, smoky” scent and its handblown glass bottles (“They are beautiful,” he said).
He buys most of his beauty products from the multibrand store Skins in Amsterdam’s Canal District, as it offers samples that he can bring home. But he also buys items online, including the hair gel Oway Quick Glue ($50 for 100 milliliters/3.4 fluid ounces), which he bought on the brand’s website in August after searching for an organic product that would hold his hair throughout the day. “This product even has biodynamic ingredients that’s even better than organic,” he said, so it is “healthy for my skin and for my hair.”
To better moisturize his skin, Mr. Wijnsma recently has been adding Pai Rosehip Bioregenerate Rejuvenating Overnight Face Oil ($54 for 30 milliliters/1 fluid ounce) to his trusted The Grey 3 in 1 Face Cream ($95 for 50 milliliters/1.7 fluid ounces). After checking online reviews of the oil, he bought it at Cosmania, an online store based in the Netherlands.
Noor Marei
Ms. Marei is a digital marketing specialist for cleaning and restoration brands at the Belfor Franchise Group in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“Growing up, my mom never really let me wear makeup,” said Ms. Marei, 25. “Even now that I’m older and I have more freedom, I feel like that I don’t really need it as skin care goes a long way, so I don’t really need foundation and concealer and stuff like that.”
She limits her makeup to Lancôme’s Monsieur Big Volumizing Mascara in Black ($30 for 10 milliliters/0.3 ounce) and Summer Fridays Lip Butter Balm in Cherry ($24 for 15 grams/0.5 ounce). And for the past four years, she has groomed her eyebrows with NYX’s The Brow Glue Instant Brow Styler ($10 for 5 grams/0.18 ounce) as, she said, she has “bushy eyebrows which don’t lie down.” Now, she added, she brushes the wand “in one direction and they stay put.”
Her latest skin care haul from a local Sephora was the Inkey List’s Bio-Active Ceramide Repairing and Plumping Moisturizer ($22 for 50 milliliters/1.7 ounces) and the Inkey List’s Caffeine Eye Cream ($14 for 15 milliliters/0.5 ounce) as, she said, her mother uses the brand and “it’s pretty affordable.” She chose the creams as she “was on the phone with my friend” in New York, she said, “and we were pushing each other to buy stuff.”
Hector Maclean
Mr. Maclean is a fashion designer in London whose bespoke outfits have been worn by Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Ashley Graham and others.
Mr. Maclean, 36, uses what he describes as unconventional beauty products, including a Kryolan TV Paint Stick ($32.50 for 25 grams/0.9 ounce) as a concealer.
“If you want to do something quite artistic and quite blocky, it’s like paint,” he said of the professional makeup product. He wears the F1 shade, a nude tone, every day, “if I need to cover some spots, underneath my eyes,” he said, noting that it lasts “a really long time.”
Recently he has been doing more skin care “to look good,” he said, including adding a few drops of Elemis Pro-Collagen Future Restore Serum ($159 for 30 milliliters/1 fluid ounce) day and night to the Simple Kind to Skin Replenishing Rich Moisturizer ($7 for 125 milliliters/4.2 fluid ounces). He said he buys the Simple moisturizer from his local Superdrug store in East London as “it goes with everything and I’ve got really sensitive skin and it’s thick enough that it doesn’t absorb into your skin too quickly.”
Omoyemi Akerele
Ms. Akerele is the founder and executive director of both Lagos Fashion Week and the fashion business development agency Style House Files.
A mix of international beauty buys and local products have produced some favorites for Ms. Akerele, 48.
Case in point: For what she described as “an extra glow,” she wears the Pat McGrath Labs Skin Fetish Sublime Perfection Foundation in the Deep 32 tone ($69 for 35 milliliters/1.18 fluid ounces). And for her barely-there every day look, she buys lip glosses, including Zaron’s Peptide Glossy Lip Care in the pinkish Soufflé shade ($12 for 10 grams/0.35 ounce) from the Nigerian brand’s website. She buys her beauty products online or via WhatsApp messaging so they are delivered to her home. “It’s easier,” she said, adding that, otherwise, “it would not get done.”
After locing her hair three years ago, Ms. Akerele has adopted a strict hair care routine, using natural hair products as “microlocs thrive best on natural hair care” and need to be moisturized, she wrote in a later WhatsApp message.
She spreads Argan Beauty Deep’s Moroccan Rose Water ($27 for 500 milliliters/17 fluid ounces) on her hair every other day, she said. She bought it from Amazon in September while she was in London as “it’s very natural and I need it a lot,” she said. Then there is Manketti Hair Oil by Charlotte Mensah (about $70 for 100 milliliters/3.4 fluid ounces), which she uses in the evenings “for a little bit of shine for the locs under my braids.”
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