How TikTok catapulted the male beauty market

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In today’s retail landscape, specifically between Gen-Z consumers, TikTok plays a robust position in which beauty products and models grow to be common. A person unique team that TikTok seems to hold raising impact about is male purchasers. 

In accordance to a industry study examine revealed by Personalized Market place Insights [CMI], the world-wide male grooming industry was valued at approximately $55 billion in 2021. By 2030, which is anticipated to access $110 billion. 

Men’s rising interest in pores and skin care items was even more affirmed by marketplace investigate corporation NPD Group, which documented that 2022 men’s status pores and skin-treatment product sales reached $190.1 million, a 23% raise in comparison to 2021. 

The Connecting the Dots 2022 report from insights firm GWI showed that, given that 2018, beauty and beauty products have represented the “fastest-increasing interest” among the male customers, escalating by 21% among 2018 and 2021. It peaked during Covid-19 lockdowns in early 2020. TikTok’s person base, meanwhile, doubled from 2019 to 2021. 

So what does the increase of the men’s grooming market place have to do with the movie-ahead, dance-crazed app?

According to Dr. Muneeb Shah, or else recognised on TikTok as the @dermdoctor (17.9 million followers), “TikTok has produced a wealth of elegance written content, which includes guidelines and tutorials on skin treatment, hair care and grooming. The ease of entry to this facts has built it offered to men for the to start with time. Typically, this content material would require to be sought out, but the ‘For You’ webpage (FYP) tends to make it so that individuals can uncover new pursuits.” 

He additional, “TikTok has assisted me individually split down gender stereotypes.”

TikTok has led the wave for a number of style and splendor traits, from “teenage dirtbag” appears to be to the increase of e-boy and e-woman culture. In doing so, it’s both of those diminished limitations that the male client base has beforehand felt toward elegance solutions and opened up alternatives for self-expression.

Though TikTok and Instagram have pretty identical membership numbers, TikTok has a greater viewers for male-centered natural beauty written content. In accordance to market and customer details platform Statista, as of January 2023, approximately 54% of TikTok world wide end users had been women and 46% had been adult males. 

For occasion, the “#mensskincare” hashtag at present draws up roughly 350,000 success on Instagram on TikTok, the very same hashtag has more than 295 million views. 

A consultant from TikTok pulled up the viewership rely for numerous of the most well known male-centered beauty hashtags: #mensgrooming has 1.5 billion views, #mensmakeup has 326.8 million, #mensskincare has 292.7 million and #mensskincareproducts has 31.7 million, for case in point. There’s also #mensmanicure with 20.5 million views, #mensnails with 16.3 million and #mensmakeuptutorial with 8.1 million. To draw a stage of comparison, on Instagram, the #mensgrooming hashtag has garnered 3.1 million posts.

In addition to skin-treatment goods and beauty products and solutions providing a “natural” end, male individuals are also turning out to be far more fascinated in customarily female-promoted elegance products and solutions. In accordance to client conduct investigate company Spate, there has also been a year-more than-calendar year raise in Google searches for “men” alongside goods like eyeshadow (+9.5%) and nail polish (+13.7%).

The video clips of SkinTok influencers Edward Zo (@edwardzo, 2 million TikTok followers) and David Kim (@dthekorean 526,000 TikTok followers) regularly go viral. That is specifically genuine of video clips that confront the thought of “toxic masculinity”. Quite a few of Zo’s movies center on wig styling and colorful makeup appears. Kim’s films principally concentration on how to develop a correct pores and skin-care regimen and present pores and skin-care solution and component explanations. 

Kim theorized that males of previous generations have been not as self-informed of their appearance. With the rise of selfies and other aesthetically-focused social media written content, nonetheless, young generations of guys have become extra self-mindful and are now actively addressing insecurities.

In a discussion with Jon Shanahan, co-founder of male grooming and cosmetics brand name Stryx, functioning from the ease and comfort of dwelling has allowed guys to experiment with pores and skin treatment and cosmetics in techniques they have not before.

On the brand’s internet site, 1 of the company’s taglines goes, “Stryx was started on a simple insight: Adult males seek out to glimpse handsome.” Versus the pink or additional boldly-coloured packaging of historically woman-promoted merchandise, Stryx’s models arrive in a extra gender-neutral black-and-white colour palette. The model features a combine of skin-treatment products and solutions, like a moisturizer and cleansers, and colour cosmetics goods, like the Tinted Moisturizer and the Concealer Device, to aid men achieve a “natural”, additional polished variation of their visual appearance.

With 328,000 followers, Stryx is one particular of the most followed men’s grooming brand names on TikTok. 

On the system, the brand’s content material facilities all over “get all set with me” (GRWM)-design and style films that attribute Stryx merchandise like the Tinted Moisturizer and the Brow & Beard Gel Comb, in addition to merchandise demonstrations and explanations from Shanahan.

Shanahan approximated that 70-75% of the brand’s 2022 product sales ended up pushed by its TikTok viewers. In 2021, the model produced about $1.5 million in income, reflecting a 250% annual profits enhance.

As for the Styx articles that performs ideal on TikTok, Shanahan explained it’s a combine of user-created content material (UGC) and GRWM video clips, additionally product tutorials featuring Shanahan himself. 

“[Stryx] has a item that lends itself to [impactful] visuals. And the actuality that I get on there on a regular basis, and that I’m the target audience and can converse to [Stryx product] from all angles, has [worked to] construct a marriage with our audience.”

Shanahan credited a significant part of the brand’s TikTok success to the subversive image of the model. When questioned to elaborate on the definition of subversive, the brand name founder pointed out that it is presently uncommon and relatively surprising to see a masculinely-presenting man choose a concentrated effort and hard work in their facial visual appearance. The shock element is a aspect of how the model is capable to stand out in the crowded splendor sector. 

“My GRWM movies carry out twice as effectively when I have a mustache,” he mentioned. “There’s the idea of a gentleman with a mustache getting masculine, but the idea of him employing [makeup] captures persons off guard a tiny little bit.”

More than all else, regularity, a apparent brand impression and authenticity are keys to a brand’s achievement with a male audience on TikTok.

Executives from another male-marketed pores and skin-care and grooming model, Dr. Squatch, backed this up. Dr. Squatch presently has 410,000 TikTok followers, and it arrived at $100 million in income in 2020. The corporation declined to report its 2022 product sales quantities.

Visually speaking, the two models could not be any much more unique. The place Stryx has minimalistic, monochromatic branding, Dr. Squatch’s solutions, which variety from bar soaps to colognes, have a considerably rustic, boyish truly feel. Stryx’s TikTok movies largely centre on UGC of customers using the merchandise in their day by day routines. The majority of Dr. Squatch’s content material facilities on trending seems, cheeky memes, and comedic skits established by the manufacturer and its consumers. 

Authenticity is the typical factor, said John Ludeke, head of promoting at Dr. Squatch. 

“Even when we initial went viral with our YouTube written content, the goal has generally been to be instructional and entertaining,” he stated. “Not getting ourselves too severely has continued to operate perfectly on TikTok.” 

He additional, “TikTok permits for traits to proliferate much better with a younger buyer than Instagram does. … It is considerably less polished and far more impactful in driving buyer habits. The UGC is a additional [successful] referral than some model attempting to aggressively provide you a little something.”

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