January 17th, 2023, Hoang Nguyen
Wellness and self-care have been big themes for consumers since the pandemic. The personal care sector stands to benefit even further with many parts of the world relaxing their pandemic-related regulations over the past two years, creating more usage occasions for personal care products.
Globally, more than two in five consumers say they use health and beauty products to make themselves feel better (43%) or look better (49%), furthering reinforcing today’s wellness-focused market.
In this analysis, YouGov measures the market for oral hygiene and personal care products including face cleansers, face creams and body skincare over the past year. The data is from Global Profiles—an advanced audience segmentation tool covering 48 markets around the world. For the purpose of this study, we’ll compare data from a few key markets against the global average across 48 markets.
Oral care
When it comes to the oral care category, more than half (56%) of global consumers say they bought an oral hygiene product such as toothpaste or mouthwash in the past year. It's important to note that the data points to who actually purchases these items, rather than the actual share of people who use oral care products.
Oral care purchases are predominately driven by consumers aged 35 and over around the world. Consumption for oral hygiene products tends to increase with age, with global consumers aged 55 and over the most likely to say they buy oral hygiene products (72%), followed by 45-54's (62%) and 35-44's (59%).
Younger groups such as 18-24's (43%) and 25-34's (50%) are less likely to have bought oral hygiene products but this is likely due to their household situation and who does the shopping. After all, these age groups are significantly more likely to say they are still living with their parents (54% and 33%, respectively).
Looking at country-level consumption reveals that consumers in Portugal (80%), Greece (80%), Croatia (78%), Romania (76%) and France (75%) are among the most likely of the 48 markets to be buying oral hygiene products.
Oral care products seem to be less popular among consumers in Norway (54%), Denmark (53%), Singapore (52%), Japan (52%), Japan (51%) and China (51%), indicating opportunities for players in this category.
Facial care and skincare products
The skincare category has numerous benefits and functions, such as protecting the skin from sun damage, rejuvenating and moisturizing the skin, treating wrinkles and aging and reducing acne.
Globally, 39% of consumers from the 48 markets surveyed say they bought facial cleansing products such as cleansers and exfoliators or facial care products such as moisturizers and creams.
At the market-level, consumers in Indonesia (48%), South Africa (63%), Taiwan (61%), Malaysia (59%) and Singapore (59%) are the most likely to say they bought facial cleansers or facial care products.
In places such as Great Britain, the US, Spain, and Germany, consumption of facial care products seems to increase with age. For example, Brits aged 45-54 (20%) and those 55 and over (36%) are significantly more likely to be buying facial care products than those aged 18-24 (10%) or 25-34 (18%).
The reverse finding occurs in markets such as China, Vietnam, the Philippines, where younger age groups are much more likely than older cohorts to be buying facial care products.
Methodology
YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 48 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.
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Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash