In a LinkedIn post, Larissa Jensen, global beauty industry advisor at the market research firm Circana, exclaimed that prestige beauty won Black Friday. “Kicking off the official start of peak holiday season with double digit increases in dollars and units, this industry is seemingly unstoppable,” she wrote. “Total retail results across 20+ different industries were notably softer for Black Friday week, and once again prestige beauty was the only industry across all of them to post double digit unit gains.”

She expounded, “Fragrance, skincare and hair grew double digits in dollars Black Friday week. Makeup posted strong single digit growth. Skincare was ON FIRE. This category blew the others away during Black Friday week, growing 8 points faster than fragrance. Luxury fragrance is BACK. Well, for Black Friday week anyway. Average prices for fragrance jumped the most of all beauty categories during that period.”

In comparison to prestige beauty’s double-digit Black Friday gain, Mastercard SpendingPulse estimates Black Friday retail sales in the United States rose 2.5% year-over-year, excluding automative sales and not adjusting for inflation. According to Adobe Analytics, online purchases from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday this year climbed 7.8% to $38 billion.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) reported that 200.4 million Americans shopped in stores and online from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, up from 196.7 million last year and the highest volume of shoppers the trade organization has ever recorded during that period. Personal care and beauty cracked NRF’s top five list of categories shopped for the first time this year. In its survey of holiday shoppers, it found 23% purchased personal care or beauty products versus 49% who purchased apparel and accessories, 31% who purchased toys, and 25% who purchased gift cards, books, video games and other media.

Bluecore reported that online traffic to health and beauty brands was up 14.55% year-over-year on Black Friday, ahead of apparel, consumer electronics, footwear, home goods, luxury goods, sporting goods and toys. The retail technology company detected that overall web traffic decreased by 1.5% from last year. Order volume for health and beauty brands increased 22.4%. Average order value for the category jumped nearly 7% from last year. Bluecore noted that larger brands with powerful customer loyalty accounted for most of health and beauty’s online surge.

Traffic analytics provider RetailNext approximated that brick-and-mortar retailers across categories experienced a modest 2% boost in holiday foot traffic. Last year, retailers notched a 7% bump on the same day. The NRF reported that 121.4 million consumers shopped at brick-and-mortar stores from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, down slightly from 122.7 million last year.

Traffic advanced 13% at health and beauty stores on Black Friday, an amount that exceeded jewelry, apparel, home and footwear retailer increases. Foot traffic at Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Sally Beauty was up 375% on Black Friday compared to the daily average throughout the rest of the year, per traffic analytics firm Placer.ai. Last year, traffic at the beauty retailers increased 390% compared to the daily average.

Analysts and beauty entrepreneurs are circumspect about the Black Friday/Cyber Monday numbers, underscoring that consumers have plenty of reasons to be vigilant about expenses this year. Although inflation escalation has cooled, heightened interest rates, credit card debt and student loan payments are eating into shoppers’ wallets. Budget strains have them turning to Buy Now, Pay Later options, and Adobe Analytics figures show that BNPL transactions spiked 43% on Cyber Monday to reach an all-time high.

Chelsea Bartolotta, SVP of U.S. and international sales at professional skincare brand Osmosis Beauty, points out beauty brands went out of their way to provide compelling offers to convince consumers to plunk down for products. “The online beauty space is more competitive than ever, and companies are getting more and more aggressive with their marketing,” she says. “Consumers are spending more time cross checking promotions to find the best deals online. They are however willing to spend more with a solid incentive.”

Megan Rein, co-founder and CBO of makeup brand Siia Cosmetics, says, “Late last year and early this year we definitely felt customers were buying less, and retailers were also shedding excess inventory and not willing to try new brands. The second half of the year through now has been slowly improving, and we are seeing customers cautiously buying more.”

For its first Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale, Miles offered Amazons of 50% off its Antiperspirant and 30% off its Deodorant. The promotions lifted the teen personal care brand’s sales between 30% and 45% across the holiday shopping stretch. Shoppers gravitated to 2-packs and 3-packs of Miles’ products.

Miles’ holiday strategy incorporates an elongated promotional period and meaningful discounts. It started providing 10% off its entire product lineup on Nov. 19 and the discount will run through Dec. 2. The brand sells exclusively on Amazon and at Target. It’s not selling via its own website.

“Over the past two to three years, retail has trained consumers to expect great deals all week long and extending well into December,” says Miles founder Carly Broderick. “As a result, we’ve been very intentional in our promotional calendar for the entirety of Q4, not just the historical ‘deal days.’”

Siia Cosmetics took a similar approach. The brand offered 40% off its entire website on Black Friday and an additional 50% off its foundations on Cyber Monday. It also offered 20% off its website in the week leading up to Black Friday. Rein says the brand intends to keep the latter promotion going until January.

Siia Cosmetics broke sales records every day during the holiday shopping span. It saw a 67% sales increase over the previous week’s sales this year and a four-digit increase over last year’s Black Friday sales. Fueled by viral trends like latte and espresso makeup, the brand’s bestsellers included Duo Face Sculpting Contour Stick, Everlasting Makeup Setting Spray and Luminous Longwear Liquid Foundation.

Rein mentions the brand’s average order value ticked down during Black Friday/Cyber Monday due to smaller basket sizes on its retail partner platforms Flip and Trendio. She says, “Most of our sales growth came from social commerce channels focused on a few of our viral products, so most were only one item per sale, as opposed to our own website sales where we normally sell two to three items per sale.”

Skincare brand Ember Wellness started its Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals early this year, offering 15% off its website from Nov. 6 through Cyber Monday. On Black Friday, the brand initiated a buy-three-get-one free incentive that featured bestseller Sculpt & Glow Solid Highlighting Moisture Bars and its new Sculpt & Glow Serum Bar. In 2022, the brand offered shoppers 30% off site-wide from Nov. 23 to Nov. 25.

Amanda Schuler, founder and CEO of Ember Wellness, says the brand’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotion was framed as a “mindful gifting” sale that encouraged customers to kick off their shopping early to avoid hasty last-minute purchases. She shares that the brand bolstered marketing spend at least 250% this year by hiring a third-party agency to grow awareness. The amplified marketing appears to have worked. Ember Wellness’s Black Friday top-line revenue increased 100% over last year, with total orders increasing 68% and conversion rates increasing 163%.

“The shopping mindfully trend helped us,” says Schuler. “There is a small, but growing segment of the population that are trying to limit their consumption and buy local and/or sustainably-minded brands. I think that is why our zero-waste moisture bars fared so well during the weekend.”

Osmosis Beauty registered 30% sales and 25% average order value lifts. It offered customers 25% off site-wide. Repeat customer purchases leapt, too. Bartolotta says, “That indicates to me that our consumers took advantage of the campaign to not only stock up on their self-care staples, but many used the promotional discount to add on additional products they may not have purchased at full price.”

Makeup brush brand BK Beauty shipped 50,000 orders in November, the majority of which occurred during its 12-day Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale when it offered 20% off its site starting on Nov. 16. Paul Jauregui, co-founder of BK Beauty, says that November’s numbers surpassed yearly sales from 2019, 2020 and 2021 combined because of the brand’s presence on TikTok Shop. The newly launched e-commerce destination on the social media platform was responsible for more than half of BK Beauty’s November sales as shoppers paired the brand’s savings with discounts that TikTok proffered.

To fortify brand equity, mature skincare brand Caire Beauty kept its promotional period tight and matched previous Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals. It offered 25% off site-wide on Black Friday and two of its Triple Lift Molecule Masks for $99 on Cyber Monday. The product usually retails for $64. Caire Beauty’s sales for the five-day holiday shopping period increased 18% over last year, and Black Friday had the highest lift, at 35%. On Small Business Saturday, its sales slipped 45% from last year.

Celeste Lee, co-founder of Caire Beauty, chalked up the Small Business Saturday sales retreat to elevated purchasing on Black Friday. “We believe customers were ready to buy on Black Friday, which in our case impacted Small Business Saturday,” she says. “Overall, skincare is a category that is very strong even in sensitive environments. Despite all the activity on the world stage and high interest rate concerns, in general, women and some men, recognize that fundamental self-care remains a priority.”

Lee theorizes that Caire Beauty was uniquely positioned to stand out during Black Friday. “As a high-performance brand that’s intentionally priced in the accessible range, we have perhaps benefited from this pricing sensitivity environment,” she says. “The Grownup Moisturizer is sometimes compared to Augustinus Bader’s The Rich Cream. However, our product is $88 versus $290 for The Rich Cream.”

Caire Beauty and Ember Wellness have been leveraging holiday markets and pop-ups this year. Caire is participating in a three-week pop-up at Bryant Park’s Winter Market in New York City. The brand generated about $16,000 in revenue during its first two weeks at it. Joining forces with other Canadian beauty and wellness brands like 19/99 Beauty, Everist, Guests On Earth and Everly, Ember Wellness’s products are selling at Toronto pop-up The Laneway. Twenty-five free goodie bags containing products from all five brands were handed to the first 25 customers who shopped on Small Business Saturday. The month-long pop-up opened on Nov. 17.

Broderick and Lee believe that shopping behavior has been affected by rocky economic conditions. Broderick says, “The lingering effects of inflation played a role this Black Friday as there were so many commodity-type items offering deals to take advantage of the consumer interest in stocking up on essentials at great discounts.”

Amid economic uncertainty, testy holiday shoppers are skeptical about what’s been offered to them. Rein says, “A huge trend I see online is people complaining that most major retailers were not offering large enough sales to make Black Friday/Cyber Monday special, just normal sales you can see throughout the year or showing proof that retailers artificially increased the price to cover discounting.”

Thinking ahead to the remainder of the year, Rein says, “Shoppers are disillusioned with the big influencers and large retailers who they feel have let them down. They are looking to real customers giving real reviews and wanting large discounts or offers to tempt them to purchase. I think the biggest thing for the fourth quarter will be real customer video reviews across all video platforms being the biggest driver of sales. Brands that are able to find pickup there will do well.”