When you walk down that make-up aisle or browse through offerings online, you come away with more than just a product. Faye Remedios introduces you to the curative universe of beauty retail therapy.
During the 2001 recession, Leonard Lauder, chairman of cosmetics giant Estée Lauder, found that the sale of their luxury lipsticks increased, a phenomenon he coined as the ‘lipstick index’. Similarly, sales of lipsticks doubled for several brands in the aftermath of the horrendous 9/11 attacks. Basically, when the going gets tough, people swap the big purchases for smaller, more affordable luxuries. But this humble beauty product as an economic marker is not the only one in its category. Premium perfumes are included in the mix. The premise is that consumer confidence is directly proportional to a convulsing economy. When the latter fails, the former needs boosting, and the beauty industry is what people turn to for help. Dipali Mathur Dayal, co-founder of salon and spa, Magnifique, in New Delhi, finds that there is some merit to this theory. “We see a very interesting context of the same in Indian markets. For households with limited disposable incomes, the spends are on more expensive items that are consumed in public rather than the confines of their homes, and the idea is to look more attractive for better opportunities in order to be more prosperous in the future,” she says.
This story is from the April 2018 edition of Verve.
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This story is from the April 2018 edition of Verve.
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