Presenting the latest installment of W’s column By the Numbers, where we explore a given field—from art and fashion to music and movies—through the essential and eccentric metrics that define it. For W’s annual Originals Issue, we look at the beauty industry, covering everything from facelifts for the young to diamond-encrusted lipstick.
46% of women take 10 minutes or less to apply their makeup.
Meanwhile, Rita Ora’s makeup routine has up to 37 steps.
56% of Gen Z “care a lot” about how they look.
6% wear makeup daily.
39% of parents take skincare advice from their children.
38% of women wear makeup to the gym.
Lipstick sales grew by 16% in the first half of this year.
For the first time in its 171-year history, Louis Vuitton has launched a makeup line.
A single tube of lipstick costs $160, and refills are $69.
A monogrammed canvas mini-trunk for the lipstick is $2,990.
In 2007, Guerlain released KissKiss Gold and Diamonds lipstick, which came in a tube made with 110 grams of 18-karat yellow gold.
It was encrusted with 199 diamonds and retailed for $62,000.
75% of Americans have a positive opinion of Vaseline, making it the most popular skincare brand in the U.S.
63% of consumers do not believe that premium beauty brands work better than mass brands.
53% of consumers are open to buying beauty dupes.
More than 2/3 of popular cosmetics brands bought online through retailers like Amazon, TikTok Shop, Vinted, and eBay are fake.
Last year, the No. 1 searched skincare ingredient was salicylic acid.
34% of Americans believe they look younger than their age.
At least 25 celebrities—including Serena Williams, James Corden, and Chelsea Handler— have revealed they’re using GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.
That’s roughly .01% of the total number of celebrities who actually are on GLP-1s, according to W’s internal calculations.
40% of women who use GLP-1s plan to spend more money on beauty and personal care products in the next year.
In 2024, launches of sugary-scented, dessert-themed fragrances increased by 24%.
With more than 210,000,000 views, “Inside Out: Makeup Tutorial (Disgust, Sadness, Joy, Anger & Fear),” a video about doing makeup in the style of the 2015 animated film Inside Out, is one of the most-watched makeup tutorials on YouTube.
In the first 8 months of the year, beauty influencer James Charles posted 13 hours, 5 minutes, and 47 seconds’ worth of makeup videos on YouTube.
46% of Gen Z watch beauty content on TikTok.
TikTok Shop, which debuted in the United States in 2023, is already the 8th largest beauty retailer in America.
In 2023, the influencer Meredith Duxbury went viral for using 10 pumps of foundation when doing her makeup.
This past January, a few days before TikTok was briefly banned, she admitted to her more than 18,000,000 TikTok followers that she wiped away the excess foundation off-camera.
26% of Americans think male politicians always wear makeup on TV.
349,728 liposuctions were done in the U.S. last year, making the operation the most popular plastic surgery procedure in the country.
67% of facial plastic surgeons say that the average age of facelift patients is likely to trend younger.
445cc is the size of Kylie Jenner’s breast implants, which she revealed on TikTok earlier this year.
400cc is the most common breast implant size.
The largest FDA-approved implants on the market are 1445cc memory gel silicone implants.
The global leg-lengthening surgery market is expected to grow by 81%—from $4.59 billion to $8.31 billion—by 2031.
The total recommended leg length added is 2 to 3 inches.
In 2024, the No. 1 searched haircut on Google was “alpaca haircut.”
33% of men are “terrified” of going bald.
At 48 years old, John Cena got a hair transplant that “completely changed the course of” his life.
Sources: YouGov, YouTube, The New Consumer, Boots, Accio, The Wall Street Journal, Page Six, McKinsey & Company, The Times of London, The Guardian, Business of Fashion, Attest, Cosmopolitan, American Society of Plastic Surgeons, American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, TikTok, Burbank Plastic Surgery, CBS, Extrapolate, Business Insider
