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Far from its sticky iteration of the ’90s and noughties that wafted with heady fragrances (remember Liquid Lip Smackers and Lancôme Juicy lip tubes?), the new generation of lip gloss brands are marketing products as “lipcare”, with hydrating and repairing ingredients.
It’s an evolution of the “no makeup” makeup trend. “It’s important to understand the aesthetic that people are going towards,” says Laney Crowell, founder of beauty brand Saie. “We saw Pamela Anderson at fashion week appear completely makeup free. Just good, healthy skin on proud show. It’s all about real-girl makeup right now.”
Across social media, the ongoing obsession with all things Y2K and a slew of launches from brands have all played a role in reviving interest in lip gloss. Summer Fridays’s Lip Butter Balm is an influencer favourite, alongside Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Peptide Lip Treatment. Lip oils have flooded the market, evoking a slicker, less sticky sheen, like Saie’s Glossybounce Hydrating Lip Oil (one is sold every 90 seconds on the brand’s website, according to Crowell), Inn Beauty’s Lip Oil, Gisou’s Honey-Infused Lip Oil and Elf’s Tinted Lip Oil, which featured in the recent Mean Girls adaptation.
For brands, lip glosses and oils are an easy point-of-entry purchase, but at the same time, prices have gone more premium, with some versions ranging between $20-30 a tube.
UK-based e-tailer Cult Beauty is forecasting big things for lip gloss in 2024 after searches for the product on its site rocketed 73 per cent year-on-year in January. Meanwhile, TikToks of users testing out lip glosses can rack up to 34 million views. “Watching someone apply their lip gloss is so addictive,” says Susan Yara, founder of science-backed natural skincare brand Naturium. A TikTok of a customer applying the brand’s Phyto-Glow Lip Balm in 2022 received 8.8 million views; another influencer video in March 2023 accumulated 9.2 million views, driving a 162 per cent week-on-week increase in unit sales of the shade “Jam” on Amazon.
Saie’s Crowell argues that lip gloss is more than just a makeup product. “Whether it’s ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos or ‘What’s In My Bag?’, lip gloss is a mainstay. If you’re having a cup of coffee, you put your lip gloss next to it, right? You might even take a picture of it and document it on social media,” she says. “It’s just such a social media-friendly accessory. That’s really what it’s become, even more than a makeup look or trend.”
Lip gloss as lipcare
The lip gloss revolution has been building for a while. In 2022, makeup artist Kelli Anne Sewell coined the term “gym lips” for the makeup look she liked to wear while working out, which quickly went viral on TikTok. “Gym lips require slightly overlining, with a liner close to your natural lip colour, before filling them in with that same pencil. Then, layering a nourishing lip treatment — ideally, one with a bit of gloss — over [the] top for a lush, plumped effect that manages to look natural,” reads a Byrdie article on how to recreate the look. The combination of nourishment and gloss is where the biggest opportunity lies for brands in this space, experts say.
That same year, the “skinification” of makeup, aka products that doubled up as skincare, found a foothold on beauty shelves around the world. However, taking care of one’s lips as part of a daily skincare routine wasn’t a ritual until recently, notes Yara. “People don’t think of treating their lips as skin,” she says. “We almost avoid our lips as we go over our face with our skincare products, and it doesn’t have to be like that.”
More recently, there has been a surge of interest in lipcare: searches for the category rose 17.5 per cent year-on-year in the US in 2023, according to consumer intelligence firm Spate. “Emerging trends include lip balms, lip oils, lip treatments, butter balms and lip serums. They are all gaining popularity in this segment,” says Yarden Horwitz, Spate’s co-founder and president. Spate predicts a 29.3 per cent year-on-year growth in searches for “lip oil” in 2024.
“Similar to the ‘lipstick effect’, lipcare products (in a world where makeup is skincare and skincare is tinted) offer an accessible entry point into a brand,” adds Horwitz.
In line with this shift, lip glosses are evolving to offer benefits beyond a sheen. Naturium’s Phyto-Glow acts more like a lip balm, promising to nourish and hydrate alongside giving a glossy finish. Rhode’s popular lip treatment includes peptides, which are more often found in face creams to reduce fine lines and symptoms of ageing.
Contrary to the lip gloss of previous eras, today’s brands are swapping out the nasties and plastics for vegan ingredients, leaning into the clean beauty trend. Dimethicone, a silicone-based polymer that is frequently used as a skin protectant in products including lip balms and gloss, is the sticky, drying ingredient that Saie eschews for ingredients like shea butter, jojoba oil, hyaluronic acid and polyglycerides (said to have moisturising and anti-wrinkle benefits). Summer Fridays opts for entirely vegan formulations that do not use ingredients like lanolin, beeswax or honey. Highlighting that trending ingredients can be a key element in navigating a competitive market, experts say.
Packaging, too, has evolved to echo this treatment-style propositioning. Clean lines and an elevated look have replaced the once loud-and-proud lip gloss tube.
Thanks to its roots in popular culture, lip gloss has evolved with every decade while remaining one of the most accessible makeup products to own. “It should really be called the ‘Lip Gloss Index’ rather than the ‘Lipstick Index’ for how vast its popularity is, and how dynamic its role is in the modern beauty kit,” says Yara.
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