January 2025 was a quieter beauty month than the calendar implied. The new-year skincare reset content dominated the first two weeks, sharper than usual on the back of 2024’s pushback against over-routining. Stéphane de La Faverie stepped into the Estée Lauder CEO role on January 1 — a transition that had been telegraphed since October and which was already shaping the prestige-beauty conversation. The Spring 2025 couture shows in Paris in late January gave us the first post-Galliano Maison Margiela moment (a stand-in collection while the next creative director was finalized) and another Schiaparelli show from Daniel Roseberry that confirmed the maximalist red-carpet direction. We tried to absorb all of it without writing the January resolution piece every January insists on.
The new-year reset got tighter and more honest
The skincare reset content this January was a clear maturity step from the years before. The consensus routine — gentle cleanser, vitamin C in the morning, retinoid at night, ceramide moisturizer, SPF — appeared across editorial and social with notably less noise. The Inkey List, Naturium, and CeraVe dominated under-50 routine recommendations. The over-30 conversation moved more toward Augustinus Bader and the prestige clinical brands. The takeaway: the “five products are enough” framing had won, and the brands building tight clinical narratives — not eleven-step regimens — captured the year-start attention.
Estée Lauder’s new CEO started on day one
Stéphane de La Faverie’s first day as Estée Lauder CEO was January 1. The early signals out of the company — restructured global beauty leadership, a tighter focus on hero franchises, an explicit “Beauty Reimagined” strategic agenda — read as the kind of operational discipline the prior earnings calls had previewed. The transition mattered beyond Estée Lauder itself because the company owns MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Clinique, Aveda, Smashbox, Too Faced, and Tom Ford Beauty — so its strategic posture shaped how a huge slice of prestige beauty marketed itself. The takeaway: 2025’s prestige beauty story was going to be about whether the Estée Lauder restructure worked, and the entire industry was watching.
Schiaparelli couture stayed surreal
Daniel Roseberry’s Schiaparelli Spring 2025 Couture in late January extended his streak — sculptural pieces, surrealist beauty, the kind of front-row that draws everyone from Hollywood. Pat McGrath’s makeup work for the show stayed in the porcelain-doll language she’d developed for Margiela’s prior couture, but adapted for Schiaparelli’s particular brand of theatricality. The takeaway: the couture beauty arms race wasn’t slowing down, and Schiaparelli had become the most reliable producer of viral runway-makeup moments in the absence of Galliano at Margiela.
Drunk Elephant’s first post-controversy year started
By January 2025, Drunk Elephant had spent a year working through the tween-skincare conversation. The brand had clarified its age-appropriate guidance, and Shiseido (the parent) had restructured the brand’s marketing posture. The customer was returning — but more cautiously, and with a clearer sense that the brand’s actives weren’t for everybody. The takeaway: a year of careful course-correction had stabilized Drunk Elephant, but the brand would never have the broad-spectrum cult it had built in 2019-2022, and the wider clean-actives category had taken a permanent reset on age positioning.
The lipstick index quietly held up
The “lipstick index” — the old Estée Lauder thesis that lipstick sales spike in economic stress — got a renewed look in January press coverage. The actual data was nuanced. Prestige lipstick sales were softer than peak-pandemic levels, but the mass-market lipstick tier had held up well, particularly at e.l.f., NYX, and the drugstore brands. Charlotte Tilbury‘s Pillow Talk Big Lip Plumpgasm continued to be one of the highest-selling units across prestige. The takeaway: lipstick was still a comfort buy, but the comfort was being expressed at the $8-15 tier as much as at the $40-50 tier.
What we are watching in February
February brings New York Fashion Week Fall 2025 and the run-up to the Academy Awards on March 2. The BAFTAs on February 16 always seed early Awards-season beauty. Valentine’s Day on the 14th will pull the lip-and-blush category into focus. We’re watching for Glenn Martens’s appointment at Maison Margiela to be officially confirmed (the rumors were already running in January). And we’ll be looking at what the first wave of February beauty launches says about the prestige industry’s appetite for risk in 2025. We will see you on the first Tuesday of February.
Shop the edit
- CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser — the gentle cleanse to start the reset.
- La Roche-Posay Toleriane Double Repair Moisturizer — a no-drama daily moisturizer.
- The Ordinary Granactive Retinoid — an approachable retinoid for the new year.
- TruSkin Vitamin C Serum — a brightening vitamin C step.
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