October in Beauty: Superdrug on top, Sephora fastest growing

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While overall brand search demand in the beauty sector was down by -6% YoY in October, Superdrug was the most in-demand brand with nearly 20% of market share.

Sephora was the fastest-growing beauty brand and also one of the biggest brands for October, with +6% market share and 6% market share difference. This could be because of the hype around Sephora’s next UK store opening in Kent’s Bluewater Shopping Centre, due on November 27th.

When it comes to non-branded search, Halloween items like colourful hair spray, glitter lipstick and kids’ makeup were expectedly high on the list. Perfume also saw a lot of search demand, which is in line with the fact that fragrances have really come to the forefront of public conversation recently. Social media buzzes with discussions about the best dupes for beloved luxury perfumes, and viral ads like the recent one for Bleu de Chanel, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Timothée Chalamet, are also propelling this category further in the world of search.

Fragrance is obviously not something buyers can get a sense of without smelling it for themselves – so are shoppers being inspired by what they’re seeing on social media, and then researching online to make sure that they’ll like the product without having smelled it? It will be interesting to see how popular perfume-related search phrases become during the festive gifting season.

Top 10 <Market Share Winners>

[Brands with the biggest share of brand search demand in October]

• Superdrug: 19.20% (-0.15%)
• Lookfantastic: 7.54% (+1.11%)
• Sephora: 6.26% (+1.49%)
• Charlotte Tilbury: 5.09% (+0.31%)
• Space NK: 4.02% (+1.20%)
• Bodyshop: 3.73% (-0.33%)
• The Perfume Shop: 2.82% (-0.03%)
• Jo Malone: 2.44% (-0.16%)
• Cult Beauty: 2.23% (-0.24%)
• Chanel: 2.20% (-0.07%)

Figures in brackets represent YoY growth based on share of brand search demand

Top 10 <Fastest-Growing Beauty Brands>

[Fastest-growing beauty brands in October, according to brand search demand]

• Sephora: +1.49% (+31.12%)
• Space NK: +1.20% (+42.63%)
• Lookfantastic: +1.11% (+17.19%)
• Huda Beauty: +0.38% (+83.56%)
• Rituals: +0.37% (+48.28%)
• Charlotte Tilbury: +0.31% (+6.41%)
• Neal’s Yard: +0.29% (+19.21%)
• Diptyque: +0.26% (+44.03%)
• Glossier: +0.20% (+11.70%)
• L’Occitane: +0.18% (+18.70%)

Figures in brackets represent market share % change

Top 10 <Non-Branded Beauty Products>

[Beauty buys with the biggest year-on-year search increase]

• Perfume: +9.13% (154,616)
• Green hair spray: +95.23% (19,107)
• Lip balm: +47.06% (16,250)
• Hair color spray: +38.05% (14,934)
• Spray color hair: +38.05% (14,934)
• Kids makeup: +20.35% (18,713)
• Eyebrow piercing: +65.01% (7,813)
• Mascara: +9.97% (28,721)
• Glitter lipstick: +274.06% (3,475)
• Fake tan remover: +90.49% (4,928)

Figures in brackets represent searches in October 2024 (UK only)

How we get the data

The data above comes from the ‘Share of Search’ tool on our proprietary market data tracker, Metis – it’s what we, and our clients, use to deliver unprecedented growth and unlock actionable opportunities 4x faster than the competition.

Share of brand search is a powerful metric for diagnosing brand health and contextualising market performance – providing a view of where your brands sit in relation to your unique competitor set and the industry at large.

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