Masks, men’s beauty and DIY top charts for most googled skincare trends

By

Robin Driver

Published
Dec 13, 2018

Google has published its Beauty Trends 2017 report, Skincare Edition, identifying the top trends in the category in the US, France and Japan. The study, which is based on search term data compiled by Google from September 2014 to September 2016, found that masks are currently trending across all three markets.

The trend has been most prominent in Japan over the last five years, a period when it also saw sustained growth in the US and France. More recently, however, interest in Japan has begun to slip while the trend is starting to accelerate in the US and France.  
 
One of the reasons the report identified for the rise and rise of masks is the popularity of YouTube content related to them.

“Masks are an experience for the senses, which means they naturally make for entertaining and educational video content,” explains the study, pointing out that the top 10 mask-related videos on YouTube currently have a total of 98 million views between them.
 
Importantly, though, consumers in different markets are hunting down masks with different ingredients in order to cater to distinct skincare priorities.
 
Acne ranks highly as a concern across all three markets, placing first in the US and Japan, and second in France, behind blackheads. However, while in the US consumers are combining the search terms “acne” and “mask” with ingredients such as charcoal, clay and mud, French users favor aloe vera, and Japanese consumers worried about acne are mostly searching for products with clay or flour, as well as sheet masks.
 
Along with acne, American and French consumers searching for masks were found to be most concerned about oily skin and blackheads, closely followed by dry skin or hydration. In Japan however, second place in the list of priorities was taken by whitening, followed by sensitive skin and darkening.
 
Favorite ingredients also varied widely outside of searches related to masks. Overall, the top three searched ingredients in the US were clay, aloe vera and charcoal, while in France they were clay, coconut oil and hyaluronic acid topped the charts, and in Japan it was enzymes, ceramide and vitamin C.
 
Once again, these different ingredients reflected different concerns. In the US, clay was the most searched for ingredient in relation to “healing” and “detox”, and also came in second with “scars”, hot on the heels of essential oils.

In France, as well as being searched for in relation to acne, aloe vera was also the favorite ingredient among consumers concerned about stretch marks and came in third as a solution for dark circles, after hyaluronic acid and tamanu oil.
 
In Japan, where trending ingredients were found to be more likely to be synthesized than naturally occurring, vitamin C was the most searched-for ingredient by consumers looking for products to deal with scars, and also came in second for those concerned about “pores”, after water.
 
A slower growing but steady trend observed in all three countries was the rise of men’s skincare, which has seen particular progress in France and Japan.
 
The most popular searches related to the subcategory in the US were “men’s face wash”, “best face lotion for men” and “men’s facial”, while in France they were “antidark circles for men”, “face cream for men” and “antiwrinkle cream for men”. In Japan, the top three searches were “how to slim your face for men”, “men’s lotion” and “beautiful skin for men”.

In general, the report noted a growing tendency toward increasingly specific search terms in relation to men’s skincare, a fact which the study’s authors see as an “opportunity to educate men (and those who shop for them) on the different nuances for each product type.”
 
As further pointed out by the Google report, keeping track of the fluctuations in specific search terms can also help companies get their positioning right. Searches related to DIY beauty, for example, are a growing trend in the US and France, increasing 8% year-over-year in the course of the study in the US alone. Perhaps even more interesting for brands looking to nail their messaging, though, is the news that skincare searches specifically using the term “DIY” increased 38%, while searches using other terms such as “homemade” or “recipe” are actually in decline.

Other trends highlighted by the report include the rapid climb in popularity of bath bombs in the US and the rise of the facial brush in France.