With so much retail and brand activity buzzing around Canada, The NPD Group, Inc. saw fit to head to Ontario on Oct. 9 to reveal trends at an event on the prestige beauty and fashion industries. The event, Style Symposium: Illuminating Today’s Prestige Beauty & Fashion Market, put on in partnership with the Retail Council of Canada, explored emerging trends, how shopping behavior has changed and where the most promising opportunities exist in both prestige beauty and fashion. Here, several characteristics NPD revealed on Canada’s beauty customer.

1. Canadians spent $1.4 billion in beauty for the 12 months ended June 2014, with makeup accounting for $502.8 million (+8%), skin care generating $480 million (+5%) and fragrance making up $438.9 million (-2%).

2. Multi-functional alphabet creams are outpacing their single-feature product counterparts. For example, sales of concealer, foundation, primer, moisturizer and serum grew at a combined annual growth rate of 5%, while sales of alphabet creams grew 55%.

3. Products with multi-ethnic origins are changing beauty regimens. For example, sales of face oils increased 63%; sales of eyebrow makeup grew 52%.

4. Items made for darker skin tones are seeing sales increases. Sales of light-to-medium foundation shades grew 5%, while sales of medium-to-dark foundation shades grew 20%.

5. Sales of personal care and beauty products for men are seeing increases, with shave items realizing 5% dollar sales growth in Canada and facial moisturizers growing 3%, driven mainly by price increases.

6. Casual and natural looks are favored in Canada as sales of foundation with a matte finish saw sales fall 9% while sales of foundation with a natural finish grew 8%.

7. In Canada, premium-priced foundation and eye shadow showed sales increases with sales of foundation priced over $60 seeing a 40% increase and sales of eye shadow priced over $40 seeing a 57% increase. Conversely, sales of foundation under $60 grew 3% and sales of eye shadow under $40 slipped 9%.

8. Premium priced fragrances are the only growing price point in Canada with sales of scents priced $100+ grew 6.2%.

9. The average price the Canadian beauty consumer is willing to pay is increasing. She’s will to pay 2.7% more for foundation, 4.2% more for facial serum and 10.7% more for eye shadow.

10. One in 10 respondents said they budget for beauty and are willing to cut back on other spending in favor of buying beauty products.