Premium Beauty and Personal Care in the Netherlands

PRE-COVID-19 PERFORMANCE

Strong economy inspires consumers to increasingly opt for high-quality, premium products that offer indulgence, relaxation and a greater sense of wellbeing in 2019

Premium beauty and personal care continued to record positive growth in 2019, driven by strong economic growth in the Netherlands and strong consumer confidence in the economy. Premium brands are outperforming mass products as Dutch consumers with higher disposable income increasingly opt for higher-quality products for personal care and indulgence, or that otherwise offer a greater sense of luxury and wellbeing, while those households that are struggling continue to opt for the less expensive or even the cheapest possible options.

In 2019, the trend towards natural products with clean labelling inspires players to focus on new product development and packaging that moves in this direction

The trend towards natural, organic and/or clean labelled products has been driving interest and inspiring premium beauty and personal care product development in recent years. This trend inspired two premium fragrance brands – Hugo Boss with Private Accord and Ralph Lauren with Polo Red Extreme – to launch products containing natural ingredients in 2019, and also helped several categories achieve stronger value growth over the year.

Prestige & Collections Nederland and Estée Lauder still lead in premium beauty and personal care, while losing some share to niche brands and newer players in 2019

Prestige & Collections Nederland leads the way in premium beauty and personal care. Its brands include Lancôme, Biotherm, Armani and Ralph Lauren.

2020 AND BEYOND

COVID-19 impact

Constant value growth of premium beauty and personal care is set to be slightly positive in 2020, compared to moderate growth seen in the previous year. Some product categories are seeing sales declines due to department store closures and other temporary lockdowns, travel restrictions and home seclusion, but that will be counterbalanced by strong gains in categories that are benefitting from greater focus on hygiene and a tendency to do some pampering while spending more time at home.

Affected products within premium beauty and personal care

Premium colour cosmetics, fragrances and adult sun care will be the most negatively impacted by the pandemic in 2020. Premium hand care, deodorants and bath and shower, which were already enjoying strong growth over the review period, will continue to post strong growth in 2020 due to further product innovation, pampering and greater attention to hygiene while spending more time at home, but hand care also has been super positively impacted by the significantly increased frequency of hand washing as a preventative measure to avoid infection.

Recovery and opportunities

Premium beauty and personal care is expected to see nearly immediate improvement in most categories, such as premium colour cosmetics and fragrances, starting in 2020-2021 after Dutch social life and business life has normalised, while others are not expected to see recovery quicken until 2022 and beyond. However, even some of the categories that were seeing the fastest growth prior to the onset of COVID-19 were expected to see growth slow down over the forecast period when the economy started to slow down, and if recession sets in due to the pandemic, prospects for premium beauty and personal care growth in the Netherlands could be dimmer.

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