The beauty industry can collectively send its praise to color cosmetics for driving sales in both the prestige and mass beauty sectors last year. The category pulled mass out of a near slump, saving it from a second year of flat sales, with a triumphant 5 percent jump in mass market revenue. Prestige beauty realized a 13 percent jump in the category.

Beauty’s elite gathered Tuesday evening at Manhattan’s Harmonie Club to hear this, as well as other facts and trends relative to how beauty ended 2015 at this year’s invitation-only CEW/NPD Group’s Year-in-Review Event “Hot off the Press.”

To cut to the chase, prestige beauty grew 7 percent to $16 billion, while mass beauty grew 2 percent to $21.7 billion. Overall, beauty reached $37.7 billion in the US. Prestige online beauty sales grew 24 percent to $1.8 billion for the 12-months ended September 2015.

NPD reported that Amazon poses the biggest threat to retailers:
• Amazon’s online market share is 35 percent
• 25 percent of households have an Amazon Prime subscription (30 million)
• Amazon offers approximately 500 million items

Globally, makeup saw the biggest growth, with the US posting 13 percent increases, Canada 18 percent, the UK 14 percent, Italy 3 percent and Spain 8 percent in the category.

France didn’t fare well in beauty in 2015; overall beauty sales dipped 1 percent, with fragrance sales down 2 percent, skin care up 1 percent and makeup flat.