Let’s be honest, there are plenty of reasons for consumers to be stressed out. In the past five years alone, we have experienced environmental disasters, a global pandemic, economic instability, and geopolitical tensions, among other challenges. It’s no wonder that in today’s world, consumers are exerting control where they can, and choosing to spend their hard-earned dollars on items that deliver joy alongside (other) necessary functions.
The concept of spending on little luxuries is nothing new in beauty (cue the lipstick effect), but with the rise of the joy economy and shifting consumer behaviors, purchases driven by emotional satisfaction, sensory delight, and personal meaning are combining with the broad megaphone of the internet to reshape how people engage with products across industries. The booming wellness space is the quintessential example of this transformation, with a $2 trillion global wellness industry beckoning consumers to embrace well-being as a daily, personalized practice. Beauty, closely tied to wellness, is riding the same wave, requiring products to do more than simply work—though they must also work—in a subtle transformation that combines the product outcome with the experience offered by the product itself.
A Brief History of Beauty Ritual
Step into any salon and one thing is immediately clear: the rituals of beauty are about more than results. The results are still critical, and they’re a requirement for entering the salon a second time. But the experience itself also boosts mood—through community, confidence, relaxation, renewal, or a combination of all of these—in a ritual that integrates and elevates both mind and body, so your whole-of-self leaves feeling better than when you came in, and you take that feeling with you into the rest of your day.
While joy taking center stage is part of the new beauty evolution, the interconnection between beauty and joy, and the notion that an experience must deliver both function and joy to be seen as valuable, is a tale as old as time. Roman bath houses were places for not only hygiene, but also leisure and community. Cleopatra’s milk baths were possibly the OG chemical peel, designed to improve the look and texture of the skin. For thousands of years, Ayurveda, rooted in traditional Indian beauty rituals, has aimed to promote overall health and well-being. In recent years, we have seen a host of studies on the connections between fragrance and mood. And in the early days of COVID lockdowns, we saw an uptick in extensive, multi-step skincare and self-care routines implemented by consumers who were attempting to counterbalance doomsday scrolling with beauty rituals that supported mind, body, and spirit. This outside-in approach to mood and feeling through beauty ritual continues, with an April 2025 report from Circana noting that, of women incorporating beauty into their wellness routine, “46% dedicate time to skincare, over 30% apply makeup or style their hair more often to make themselves feel good, and more than one-quarter wear fragrance to lift their mood.”
Joy as an Outcome
Compared to the experience of a beauty service, the consumer experience of a beauty product was, until recently, more opaque. But certain cultural and behavioral shifts, like our use of social media and our comfort with immersive omnichannel experiences, have contributed to blurring and expanding our sense of what it means to experience a beauty ritual. There’s no longer a line in the sand defining a product versus an experience, and what was once the solitary act of putting on a facial moisturizer can now easily be socialized. This additional layer of shared product experience showcases both the product results and the product experience, bringing with it an expectation that both will be joyful.
At the same time, joy-seeking consumers may look for elaborate hair or makeup routines in an effort to improve the way they feel throughout the day—whether that’s through a multi-step #BeautyTok routine, or embracing messy beauty. Circana’s recent Eat Play Love report highlights that European consumers “are prioritizing purchases that give them more control over their lives and offer ‘mini moments of bliss.’” Similarly, the Mintel Spring/Summer 2025 Seasonal Beauty Trends report calls out the opportunity for “party makeup” to support mental health and fight the loneliness epidemic, noting, “beauty brands have an opportunity to champion community through campaigns or curated products that celebrate togetherness, positioning makeup as more than aesthetics—a bridge to confidence, self-expression, and shared experiences.”
Consumers Craving Fun Still Require Function
Consumers today trade up and down across categories—sometimes to extremes. With this high/low behavior, Circana notes that “consumers [are] becoming far more selective, channeling their money into experiences, products, and brands that deliver clear value, meaning or emotional return,” with products that support health and well-being in high demand.
How does this desire for joy translate into product selection? For immediate gratification, consumers may turn to new textures, with Circana reporting that “new liquid and cream textures [helped] blush sales grow by 31% in prestige beauty in 2024.” The food-beauty connection elicits joy for consumers, with glazed-doughnut skin and cherry cola lips topping searches and “foodie scents, colors, and visuals” adding a fun twist to beauty.
Even with the importance of joy, function is still paramount, indicating that fun is not a trade-out but a pull-in for today’s skintellectuals. The desire for “great skin” has led to a shift in purchasing habits, with concealer overtaking lip color to be the second-biggest makeup segment in France by unit sales, and lip treatments up 54%, per Circana, aligned with consumer desire for radiant, natural complexions, and elaborate routines that deliver a natural look. Consumers want to look great and feel great, with no compromises.
Marrying Hard-Hitting Claims with Joy Delivered
The task for brands is to marry hard-hitting claims with the experience of joy delivered. Brands can win by leaning into listening and getting product into consumers’ hands that delivers the experience they crave alongside claims that will provide benefits in the long term.
This is something we have already seen through the increased blurring of beauty categories, as skin care claims have embedded themselves in makeup and haircare, and play has entered the skincare chat. In the SPF space, consumers have embraced the sunification of both skincare and makeup. Compelling brands and innovative product textures are engaging consumers in year-round SPF routines that benefit both their daily ritual and their long-term health. Delivering key health benefits like SPF through joyful, prestige experiences that uplift the consumer can result in big wins for all. Innovation, creativity, and ingenuity can turn a daily must-do into something joyful, allowing consumers to embrace meaningful skin health claims alongside the uplifting experience they crave—a feat for the joy-seeking and the wellness-seeking alike.
The Future of Joyful Beauty
In an era when satisfaction means both emotional value and functional performance, the attention to product experience is paramount. As joyful beauty evolves, beauty as a whole must be multisensory, experiential, and immersive—from the gorgeous aesthetic of eye-catching componentry to the satisfying ASMR of a click-pen or the sensorial delight of an innovative texture being swatched onto skin.
As joy becomes as important as visible results, beauty is entering a new era—one that’s less about perfection, and more about pleasure, ritual, and self-expression. The biggest opportunity for brands is to use these joyful experiences to deliver meaningful skin health benefits that provide value to the end-consumer long after the beauty high has faded. It’s both the journey and the destination.
