Longevity is now a defining focus across many aspects of consumer lives, shaping food and beverage choices, health and wellbeing actions and influencing beauty and personal care decisions. But for beauty companies to succeed in this space, they must understand the significant shift in consumer thinking that underpins this movement, said Emily Hood, consultant in beauty, consumer and health at Euromonitor International.

Speaking to attendees at in-cosmetics Global in April in Paris, Hood said: “People are living longer, and they’re living longer in a way that means they are wanting to live independently, not relying on family so much for support as they age. And there’s this real focus on functionality through ageing as opposed to surface-level factors.”

According to Euromonitor International’s 2025 Voice of the Consumer Survey Beauty, the number-one perception of beauty now, across all age demographics, is “looking healthy”. This is followed by “hygiene and cleanliness”, “being comfortable in your own skin” and “inner confidence”.

Beauty longevity, Hood explained, is a “real move into biological resilience and a focus on having the internal support to make the external look good”.

“...This idea of longevity within beauty is becoming a far more holistic subject,” she said. “Consumers are wanting brands to support all of their different needs, whether that be physical performance, emotional balance, mental resilience or lifestyle empowerment.” And, importantly, she said consumers are willing to wait for longer-term results.

Hood said industry is starting to respond. “We’re seeing a real shift in the way brands are speaking to consumers and how they’re marketing products, based on these new definitions and new cultural ambition.”

Scientific focus areas

Looking ahead, opportunities for new product development (NPD) and consumer engagement can centre on areas where scientific research is advancing fast, the expert said. According to Euromonitor International, there are three key areas of research offering promise for beauty longevity innovation: oxidative stress, cellular senescence and inflammaging.

Oxidative stress, Hood said, presents opportunities to develop formulations that can tackle things like free radicals pollution and UV damage or build stronger, healthier skin barriers to prevent and support healthy ageing. Within cellular senescence, she said opportunities can be found in understanding that addressing zombie cells and cell regeneration is important to keeping skin and hair looking good. For inflammaging, she said opportunities are in working to address low-grade skin inflammation and rejuvenating cells before more damage is done.

Ultimately, she said the innovation promise for beauty longevity lies in cellular repair, barrier strength and stress adaptation. Translating these to the consumer, however, needs a smart approach given these scientific terms mean “very little to the average consumer”, she said.

Beauty longevity NPD

“If we look at what’s starting to happen within this cultural change, there’s a real focus on lifestyle as a support for beauty and hair,” Hood said. “And for beauty brands, understanding how this relates to their position and supporting the additional needs of consumers is going to be really important.”

Products designed to help with lifestyle modifications, for example, will prove popular, she said – think neuro-scented products or dietary supplements to improve things like sleep. Regenerative therapies are also gaining ground as consumers explore stem cell facials, gene editing and UV light treatments, opening up areas of promise for beauty and bringing alternative products, tools or rituals into the home, she said.

On the ingredients side, ceramides and collagen remain popular with consumers and are suitable for longevity innovation, Hood said, given they work as “building blocks” to skin care. Adaptogens, omega-3s and microbiome support ingredients also hold promise, she said.

And as beauty brands look to innovate in the longevity space, Hood said four pillars should underpin strategies: biological relevance, scientific evidence, consumer outcomes and scalability.

Products must target “real needs” and not just the surface markers, she said, and any launch must be backed by solid scientific evidence. Products must also offer “measurable and visible improvements”, she said, and be able to scale.

Asked how opportunities could be split between topicals and edibles for beauty longevity innovation, Hood told Premium Beauty News: “In terms of ingestibles, it’s still very new for a lot of consumers, particularly when we’re talking about things specifically designed for beauty. Consumers are used to using ingestible vitamins for health, and I think there’s a real association between taking medicine and that kind of focus on health, but it’s not quite there for beauty yet.”

More broadly speaking, what is key to understand here is that beauty longevity expectations amongst consumers are building pace globally, she said, albeit filtering down from “entrenched” understanding and engagement in Asia-Pacific. The beauty longevity product development opportunity, therefore, is very much global in scale, she said.