October 2024 was a month with several simultaneous reckonings. Halloween — increasingly a real beauty event in itself — pulled an enormous amount of product attention and TikTok cycles into character makeup and special-FX content. The presidential election the first week of November sat under everything else, draining ad inventory and pulling political coverage into beauty-press spaces in ways that felt clarifying rather than disruptive. Allure‘s Best of Beauty 2024 awards landed mid-month and did the work of re-anchoring the year’s product narrative. And the most underdiscussed beauty story of the month came from a quarterly earnings call — Estée Lauder’s brutal results pushed the entire prestige industry to admit conversations they’d been postponing.
Halloween became a real beauty category
Halloween in 2024 was a different commercial event than it had been five years earlier. Special-FX and theatrical-makeup brands sold through fast. Make Up For Ever‘s body paints and the brand’s high-pigment HD products had sustained October momentum. KVD Beauty Tattoo Liner finally became the mainstream choice for the under-25 customer for sharp gothic looks. Urban Decay‘s 24/7 Eye Pencil line in the more saturated colors moved into character-makeup tutorial space. Tarte ran a heavy Halloween-tied lashes capsule. The takeaway: Halloween makeup had grown from an October bumper category into a multi-week creative cycle that affected which products sat at eye level at Sephora through fall.
Allure Best of Beauty re-anchored the year
Allure‘s Best of Beauty 2024 awards published in October as they have for thirty years, and the 2024 list was notably broad — over three hundred products across categories, with real weight given to indie launches alongside the prestige brands. Pat McGrath, Charlotte Tilbury, and Sol de Janeiro all picked up multiple wins. But the more interesting wins were the smaller — a Naturium ceramide moisturizer, a Bondi Sands self-tan, a Beauty of Joseon SPF — that confirmed indie and global brands were now full citizens of the editorial-prestige conversation. The takeaway: the gate-keepers were genuinely open, and “Allure-validated” no longer correlated with “$60 plus.”
Estée Lauder’s earnings forced honest conversation
Estée Lauder’s October earnings call delivered the worst quarterly numbers the company had reported in years — China softness, US prestige-foot-traffic decline, the multi-year hangover from the post-pandemic lipstick boom. The CEO succession was already in motion (Stéphane de La Faverie taking over from Fabrizio Freda effective January 1, 2025), but the October results made the transition feel urgent. The honest conversations that followed across the beauty press were the most clarifying we’d read in years: prestige had over-relied on Sephora foot traffic, the China rebound that the entire industry had bet on never quite arrived, and the customer was real about spending on the products that actually performed. The takeaway: the prestige beauty industry’s long bull market was over, and the brands that survived would be the ones that earned the customer’s spending rather than relied on category tailwinds.
Pre-election anxiety pushed comfort buys
The week before November 5, search data and DTC reports across the beauty press consistently pointed to one pattern: customers reverting to comfort buys. Lipstick — Charlotte Tilbury’s Pillow Talk Original, MAC’s Russian Red, NARS Audacious in classic colors — saw a measurable pre-election spike. Bubble bath, body lotion, and “self-care” purchases moved hard. The takeaway: anxiety isn’t bad for beauty, but it changes what gets bought — established products outsold new launches by a wider margin than usual.
Mini sizes became a real strategy
One of the more interesting micro-trends through the back half of 2024: the mini-size product as a credible primary purchase. Shop Miss A‘s entire $1 cosmetics premise had been ahead of this for years. By October the prestige brands had caught up. Sephora’s Best of Sephora Sales and the Beauty Insider events relied heavily on minis as the entry point. The takeaway: customers in a tighter economic climate were buying smaller units, and brands that built mini lineups won the trial-and-conversion battle.
What we are watching in November
The election on November 5 sits at the top of everything, but the beauty calendar continues regardless. Wicked opens November 22 — we’re expecting a real Glinda/Elphaba beauty moment to compress into the back half of the month. Holiday gift-set season kicks fully into gear. Black Friday on November 29, and the Sephora Holiday Savings Event. We’re also watching for early signs of how Estée Lauder’s new leadership handles the inventory reset, and whether the indie clean-beauty brands that picked up Allure wins translate that recognition into Q4 momentum. We will see you on the first Tuesday of November.
Shop the edit
- Urban Decay All Nighter Setting Spray — long-wear hold for Halloween looks.
- NYX Epic Ink Liner — a precise liquid liner.
- CeraVe Resurfacing Retinol Serum — an Allure-favorite skincare hero.
- Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask — an easy holiday-gift win.
As an Amazon Associate, Tried & Tested Beauty earns from qualifying purchases. The links above are affiliate links.