French Prestige Beauty Market Faces Growth Stagnation in 2025, Reveals Circana Report
The prestigious beauty sector in France has hit a concerning growth plateau across all categories during the first quarter of 2025, according to new data from market research leader Circana. Following an already disappointing 2024 holiday season, these findings suggest a challenging year ahead for luxury beauty brands in France—contrasting sharply with the more robust markets in Southern Europe and the United Kingdom.
Post-Pandemic Slowdown Intensifies
After experiencing post-pandemic euphoria characterized by double-digit growth throughout North America and Europe—particularly in makeup and fragrance segments—the French prestige beauty market entered a pronounced deceleration phase in 2024. The latest data points to an even more troubling trend, with the first quarter of 2025 showing a 2% decline in value compared to the steady 8% growth observed during the same January-March period in 2024.
“The 2024 Christmas season wasn’t particularly profitable, unlike previous years,” confirms Mathilde Lion, analyst and director of beauty for Europe at Circana. “Today’s concerns about the French market slowdown are unmistakable because the decline affects every category.”
Category Performance Breakdown
Fragrances, historically the cornerstone of the luxury beauty segment, demonstrated slightly better resilience with only a 1% value decline and 4% unit decrease. More alarming is the makeup category’s performance, which plummeted from an impressive 15% growth in early 2024 to a 4% value decline and 5% unit reduction. Skincare experienced the most significant impact, falling 5% in value and 9% in volume. Only the hair segment—though marginal in overall market share—showed positive momentum with 25% value growth and 17% increase in units sold.
This market contraction spans all distribution channels: physical retail locations reported a 2% decline, while e-commerce remained relatively stable at 1% growth, primarily sustained by fragrance sales which increased 7% in the online space.
Fragrance Market: Luxury versus Accessibility
Within the fragrance category, women’s perfumes outperformed men’s offerings, while gift sets demonstrated healthy 8% growth. “This indicates potential pricing challenges, with a strong gravitation toward promotional offerings,” explains Lion.
Highly concentrated extracts and perfumes maintained impressive 18% growth, with body sprays surging 43% and hair fragrances increasing by 5%.
“These consumer preference shifts highlight a dual market trend,” Lion emphasizes. “One segment of consumers remains willing to invest in more luxurious, intense products, while another demographic—younger or more price-sensitive shoppers—gravitates toward affordable alternatives like body sprays, available at approximately €23 compared to €110 for a fragrance extract.”
Traditional Eaux de Toilette continued their decline at 12% this year, while Eaux de Parfum recorded zero growth for the first time.
Makeup’s Surprising Reversal
Once a powerful growth engine for the prestige market, makeup now faces decline across most segments. The complexion category, previously showing consistent growth in recent years, experienced a 7% downturn. Only tinted moisturizers (9% growth) and accessories maintained positive trajectories. The lip segment remained marginally positive, primarily driven by hybrid products like balms, oils, and liners, while traditional lipsticks decreased in popularity.
Perhaps most unexpected was the performance of concealers and highlighters—products that had enjoyed tremendous popularity in recent years alongside the trend toward lighter, more natural beauty routines. These categories declined sharply at 14% and 28% respectively.
“The major shift compared to 2024 is that the category was previously propelled by private labels and exclusive brands that had flourished in recent years at the expense of established players. These brands have now declined 4% in makeup,” adds Lion.
Skincare Sector Under Pressure
Within skincare, nearly all segments showed decline, with exceptions being gift sets (7% value growth) and specialized body care products like deodorants and serums, which achieved double-digit growth—illustrating consumers’ interest in innovative textures and application methods for body care.
For facial skincare, the only growing segments were cleansers (5%), clarifying toners (3%), and non-tinted lip care products, which experienced remarkable 26% growth.
Regional Variations Across Europe
At the regional level, European growth remained positive overall at 3% in value during the first quarter, though significantly lower than the 10% value growth recorded during the same period in 2024. This deceleration appears particularly pronounced in France and Germany (which declined 4%), while the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy maintained positive momentum.
Beyond Europe, the American market showed minimal growth at just 1% for the first quarter.
Strategic Outlook for Luxury Beauty Brands
“2025 will likely prove challenging for prestige beauty brands and companies,” notes Lion. “While pockets of growth remain, the key challenge lies in re-engaging consumers by clearly demonstrating the added value of premium products compared to alternative consumption models. In a challenging economic climate, pricing remains critical, as does competition from other sectors and consumer platforms. For example, our research indicates that companies including Rituals, Adopt, and Aroma Zone have experienced strong growth in the French market.”
Despite these challenges, Lion emphasizes the importance of contextualizing this setback: “Although the French prestige market declined 2% early this year, it still shows significant growth compared to three years ago—17% higher than the first quarter of 2022. This sector experienced such extraordinary growth in recent years that we’re now witnessing a natural stabilization phase.”