Top 10 Cosmetic Products Trends in 2023
2023 was the year cosmetics stopped being just about the finished look and started being about everything around it the ingredients, the packaging, the personalization, even the celebrity behind the brand. Below are the 10 biggest cosmetic trends that shaped the industry this year, and the products that defined each one.
1. The Skinification of Makeup
Key products: Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40, Makeup By Mario Skinluxe Foundation
Foundations and tints formulated with actual skincare actives like niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, peptides became the industry standard rather than the exception in 2023, blurring a line that had separated the two categories for decades. Ilia’s Super Serum Skin Tint led the charge, marketed explicitly as a serum-foundation hybrid rather than a traditional base product, and its runaway popularity pushed dozens of competitors to reformulate their own bases with similar actives by year’s end. The appeal was straightforward: people wanted their makeup to actively improve their skin over time, not just cover it up for a few hours, and brands that could credibly make that promise won a disproportionate share of the conversation. It also tied directly into the broader “skin-first” mood that shaped nearly every other trend on this list, from the products people chose to how they talked about their routines online.
2. Clean Beauty Standardization
Key products: Ilia Beauty’s full color line, Kosas Revealer Concealer
As “clean” claims faced growing scrutiny in 2023, including legal challenges over vague or unsubstantiated labeling, brands doubled down on genuine ingredient transparency rather than marketing language alone. Ilia and Kosas both built strong reputations here by formulating without a defined list of excluded ingredients while still delivering real, high-performance color payoff proof that clean and effective didn’t have to be mutually exclusive, a tension that had dogged the category for years. This mattered because it repositioned “clean beauty” from a somewhat vague lifestyle label into something closer to a genuine quality signal, with brands increasingly expected to back up their claims with third-party certification or clear ingredient sourcing rather than relying on the word “clean” doing the marketing work by itself.
3. Inclusive Shade Ranges as the Baseline
Key products: Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Foundation (50 shades)
What Fenty Beauty started back in 2017 became the industry floor by 2023 extensive, undertone-inclusive shade ranges stopped being a differentiator and became a baseline expectation for any serious foundation launch. This shift put real pressure on legacy and indie brands alike to expand or entirely rebuild their foundation lines, since a limited shade range increasingly read as a red flag rather than a minor limitation to consumers scrolling through reviews. The change also extended past foundation into concealer, powder, and even blush formulation, as brands recognized that undertone-matching mattered across the entire face, not just the base layer.
4. Refillable and Sustainable Packaging
Key products: Kjaer Weis refillable compacts, La Bouche Rouge refillable lipstick cases
Refillable packaging moved from a niche prestige feature into a genuine purchasing consideration for a meaningfully larger share of consumers in 2023. Kjaer Weis’s metal refillable compacts and La Bouche Rouge’s leather-cased, book-style lipsticks became reference points for the category, designed to be kept for years while only the inner product itself gets replaced when it runs out. Part of what drove this shift was a growing awareness of just how much cosmetic packaging ends up in landfill, and refillable systems offered a way for people to feel better about a beauty habit that can otherwise generate a lot of waste without asking them to give up the products they already loved.
5. The Celebrity Beauty Brand Boom
Key products: Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez, Rhode Skin by Hailey Bieber
Celebrity-founded beauty brands reached a genuine saturation point in 2023, with new launches arriving almost monthly, but a handful of brands broke through the noise in a real way. Rare Beauty’s Soft Pinch Liquid Blush became one of the best-selling cream blushes of the entire year, credited with helping popularize the cream-blush format industry-wide. Rhode built its cult following through a different strategy entirely restrained, skin-first product drops rather than an overwhelming catalog, releasing just a handful of hero products and letting each one build genuine demand before launching the next. The contrast between these two approaches became something of a case study in how celebrity brands could actually succeed long-term, rather than just riding an initial wave of curiosity.
6. Cream Products Taking Over Color Cosmetics
Key products: Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush, Merit Flush Balm
Cream and stick formats overtook powder across blush, bronzer, and highlighter this year, prized for their natural, skin-like finish and easy, finger-blendable application that didn’t require a separate brush. This shift was a direct continuation of the skinification trend applied to color cosmetics specifically people wanted their blush to melt into skin the same way a good moisturizer does, rather than sitting visibly on top of it. It also simplified a lot of routines, since cream products could often be applied with the same fingers used to apply foundation, cutting down on both time and the number of tools cluttering a makeup bag.
7. Blurring Skin Tints as the New Foundation
Key products: Merit The Minimalist Perfecting Complexion Stick, Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint
Sheer, buildable skin tints continued displacing heavier, full-coverage foundations throughout 2023, reflecting the broader “your skin but better” aesthetic that shaped makeup all year rather than a full-coverage, mask-like finish. What made this trend stick, rather than fade after a season, was how well it photographed under the natural, softer lighting favored on social media heavy foundation can look flat and cakey on camera, while a good skin tint reads as genuinely believable skin even in close-up video. Brands responded by expanding their tint shade ranges and buildable coverage options, recognizing that people still wanted the option of more coverage on bad-skin days without giving up the lightweight feel entirely.
8. At-Home Beauty Devices Going Mainstream
Key products: Solawave Radiant Renewal Skincare Wand, Dr. Dennis Gross SpectraLite FaceWare Pro
Red-light and microcurrent devices moved from the dermatologist’s office to the bathroom counter in 2023, with accessible, mid-priced tools like Solawave’s wand making device-based skincare routines feel genuinely achievable rather than purely aspirational for the average consumer. This trend was helped along by a wave of social media content showing real, if gradual, before-and-after results, which built a level of trust that pure marketing claims alone hadn’t managed to establish for the category previously. It also reflected a broader pattern across 2023: consumers increasingly wanted at-home versions of professional treatments, whether that was a facial, a peel, or in this case, light therapy.
9. Gua Sha and Facial Tools
Key product: Mount Lai Gua Sha Facial Lifting Tool
Rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, gua sha tools became a genuine skincare-routine fixture in 2023, with Mount Lai’s rose quartz tool frequently credited as the specific product that introduced the technique to a much broader audience through social media tutorials. The appeal went beyond any single claimed benefit like lymphatic drainage or reduced puffiness for a lot of people, the ritual itself, a few slow minutes of intentional self-care, became as much a part of the draw as the physical results. That combination of tangible technique and a calming, ritualistic feel is part of why gua sha managed to outlast a lot of shorter-lived tool trends from previous years.
10. Barbiecore Beauty
Key products: NYX Professional Makeup x Barbie collection, OPI Barbie-inspired pink polish shades
Tied directly to the cultural moment around the year’s biggest film release, hot pink took over limited-edition collections across the beauty industry in 2023 everything from eyeshadow palettes to nail polish got the Barbiecore treatment in some form. What made this trend notable wasn’t just its scale but its speed: brands moved unusually fast to capitalize on the cultural moment, with collaborations announced and released within a matter of months rather than the typical year-long lead time for a major collection. It ended up proving that a single pop-culture event could still drive a genuine, industry-wide color trend, even in a beauty landscape that’s become increasingly fragmented and niche-driven.
Image alt-text guidance: lead each alt tag with the product name plus the trend keyword — e.g. “Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint, a 2023 cosmetic trend for skinified makeup” — rather than a generic description like “makeup product on white background.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the biggest cosmetic trend of 2023?
The skinification of makeup was arguably the most industry-defining trend of the year, as foundations and tints increasingly blurred the line between color cosmetics and genuine skincare treatment.
What does “clean beauty” actually mean?
There’s no single legal definition, which is part of why the category faced scrutiny in 2023. In practice, most clean beauty brands avoid a specific list of ingredients they consider controversial (like certain sulfates, parabens, or synthetic fragrances), though the exact list varies significantly from brand to brand.
Are celebrity beauty brands worth trying?
It depends on the brand rather than the celebrity attached to it. Some, like Rare Beauty and Rhode, built genuine product quality and a focused catalog that earned real, repeat customers — while others launched primarily on name recognition without the same follow-through, so it’s worth researching individual product reviews rather than assuming quality based on the founder alone.
Do at-home LED and microcurrent devices actually work?
Many users report gradual, visible improvements with consistent use, and some devices have supporting clinical research behind their core technology. Results tend to be subtler and slower than professional in-office treatments, so at-home devices are generally better understood as a maintenance tool rather than a replacement for professional care.
What is gua sha supposed to do for your skin?
Gua sha is commonly used for temporary de-puffing and to promote lymphatic drainage through gentle, repeated massage strokes with a smooth-edged tool. Results are generally temporary and tied to consistent use rather than a one-time treatment.
The Takeaway
2023’s cosmetic trends made one thing clear: the line between “makeup” and “skincare” essentially dissolved this year, and consumers rewarded brands that treated the two as one continuous category rather than separate aisles. Whether it was a skin tint doubling as serum or a blush stick replacing three separate cream products, the winning formula was doing more with less and doing it with ingredients and brands people could actually feel good about supporting.
