Top Beauty Brands for Teens

Piper Sandler Companies has completed its 45th semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey in partnership with DECA. This survey highlights discretionary spending trends and brand preferences.

The survey was conducted from February 13 to March 21.

According to Piper Sandler, teen self-reported spending was up 2% year over year to $2,419; parent contribution was 60% vs. 61% last year.

While food was the No. 1 wallet priority for males at 24% share and clothing was No. 1 for females at 28%, spending on beauty rose year over year, according to the data.

Teens Increased Spending on Beauty

The core beauty wallet (cosmetics, skincare, fragrance) stood at $313/year, up 19% year over, led by cosmetics (+32% Y/Y), according to the survey data.

In this most recently conducted Piper Sandler’s survey, budget beauty brand ELF retained its sport as the No. 1 cosmetics brand, increasing 900 bps Y/Y to 22% for female teens.  ELF is No. 38 in Happi's most recent Top 50 Report. 

Here are the top brands by category from the 45th semi-annual survey:

Top 5 Cosmetics Brands

1. ELF (22%)
2. Rare Beauty (11%)
3. Maybelline (7%)
4. L’Oreal (6%)
5. Fenty Beauty (5%)

Top 5 Skincare Brands

1. CeraVe (41%)
2. The Ordinary (7%)
3. Cetaphil (6%)
4. Drunk Elephant (4%)
5. La Roche-Posay (4%)

You can take a look at the top ingredients in skincare, according to Google, here.

Top 5 Fragrance Brands

1. Bath & Body Works (31%)
2. Victoria's Secret (14%)
3. Sol de Janeiro (9%)
4. Ariana Grande (6%)
5. Chanel (4%)

US prestige fragrance sales rose by double digits in 2022.

Top 5 Haircare Brands

1. Olaplex (10%)
2. SheaMoisture (8%)
3. Pantene (4%)
4. Mielle (4%)
5. Amika (4%)

Survey Data

Piper Sandler'sTaking Stock With Teens survey is a semi-annual research project that gathers input from 5,690 teens with an average age of 16.2 years. Discretionary spending patterns, fashion trends, technology, and brand and media preferences are assessed through surveying a geographically diverse subset of high schools across the US.

You can check out the 44th Piper Sandler survey here.

Since the project began in 2001, Piper Sandler has surveyed more than 239,000 teens and collected over more than 58 million data points on teen spending.