The skin care paradigm is shifting.
While legacy players continued to struggle in 2025, alternative business models with a focus on longevity, medical credentials and instrumental beauty are changing the rules of the game, tapping into longer lifespans, growing demand for aesthetic procedures and specific skin concerns.
Analyzing 2025 results from beauty’s heavyweights bears witness: After an eight-year growth streak, L’Oréal’s skin care sales grew just 0.4% in 2025. “The skin care playbook is the one that has changed the most,” acknowledged L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus when the company reported its year-end results this February. The Estée Lauder Companies’ revenues in the category dipped by as much as 5% last year, and Japan’s Shiseido, which indexes heavily in skin care, also saw a drop in sales. Beiersdorf said slowing skin care sales, especially in emerging markets, weighed on its revenues, with numbers down at both core brand Nivea and luxury label La Prairie.
But the news was better in other category sectors. Beiersdorf’s Derma brands, especially Eucerin, continued to outperform, with revenues on an organic basis up 11.7% for the year. It was not alone. Galderma’s Dermatological Skincare sales were up 9.3% at constant currency last year, and pharmacy players like Nuxe, Caudalie and Naos — its Bioderma brand’s hero line Créaline/Sensibio grew 18% last year — continued to outperform. France’s Laboratoires Pierre Fabre is doubling down on its medical credentials and increasingly marketing its skin care products as solutions for specific skin concerns, a strategy that appears to be paying off, with constant-currency sales up 9.3% for Ducray and 4.9% for A-Derma.
Longevity and medical skin care has become beauty’s next frontier, an area of significant investment as companies look to invest in targeted science-backed solutions. Skin care specialists were among the biggest spenders on R&D last year, with Galderma leading the pack, investing 4.7% of its total sales in research and development.
When Beiersdorf rolled out its proprietary ingredient Epicelline under Nivea with Cellular Epigenetics Serum last year, it said the launch was a major success that proved consumers, even in mass, are willing to pay more for breakthrough innovations.
Players from Asia, notably, are reshuffling the cards, too. China’s Giant Biogene, a newcomer to this year’s Top 100, is a leader in bioactive ingredients that has popularized recombinant collagen in skin care with the Comfy and Collgene brands. It markets certain of its skin care products in the “medical dressing” category, meaning they can be sold in pharmacies and consumers can be reimbursed under the country’s health care system.
Shanghai-based Chicmax, best known for the Kans brand, is leaning into dermocosmetics with newer labels Armiyo and Atiser. Its compatriot Proya is enhancing its R&D expertise, setting up Paris and Japan-based research centers. Previously best-known for its Perfect Diary makeup brand, skin care now accounts for nearly half of Yatsen Holdings’ revenues.
Hailing from South Korea, meanwhile, APR Co., owner of Medicube, is coupling sales of its skin care with devices, and shaking up the status quo in the process. It is a strategy that larger rival LG H&H, which has been struggling, is seeking to emulate with the acquisition of LG Pra.L from LG Electronics last June, and the launch of skin care brand Glasslike to be used in combination with devices.
Look for incumbent players to fight back with a growing focus on skin health adjacencies. “The real opportunity in skin lies in the increase of lifespans, the focus on preventive health, and new perceptions of aging,” said Hieronimus. “Longevity is fundamentally reshaping the consumer skin care journey, from reactive antiaging to proactive skin health span.”
Medik8, the luxury medical skin care brand acquired by L’Oréal last year, saw sales increase 40% in its first year of integration. No wonder L’Oréal plans to keep leaning further into longevity, doubling its stake in dermatological skin care specialist Galderma to 20% last year to tap growth. Shiseido, meanwhile, is homing in on in-house technology development, launching micro-needle technology last year that it claims offers efficacy equivalent to procedures that is safe for daily at-home use. The landscape looks set for ongoing changes as new players and concepts emerge.
