1998: Sephora opens its first door in the U.S.
1999: Beauty.com launches, ushering in the age of beauty e-commerce.
2000: The top 100 firms in beauty had combined sales of $89 billion, versus $232.74 billion for 2022.
2001: Chanel launches Coco Mademoiselle, which goes on to displace Chanel No. 5 as the top-selling fragrance in America.
2002: The aftershocks of the 9/11 terrorist attack continued to be felt as sales stagnated in an uncertain consumer milieu.
2003: Gucci Westman named Lancôme’s artistic director; 15 years later she will go on to introduce her own line of cosmetics.
2004: Flanker fever hits the fragrance industry, sparking a battle between art and commerce in the category.
2005: Makeup outperforms fragrance in U.S. department store sales for the first time.
2006: The Estée Lauder Cos. launches Tom Ford Beauty. Sixteen years later, it buys the entire company for $2.2 billion, its largest acquisition to date.
2007: Ulta Beauty goes public.
2008: Gwyneth Paltrow launches Goop, ushering in the age of wellness.
2009: Raffaella Gregoris introduces Bakel skin care. With some products containing as few as two ingredients and no more than seven, it heralded the coming clean beauty movement.
2010: Instagram debuts.
2011: The travel retail channel takes off, with sales increasing from $13.8 billion in 2011 to a pre-pandemic high of $31 billion in 2018.
2012: Alicia Yoon launches Peach + Lily and Charlotte Cho introduces SokoGlam, kicking off the K Beauty wave.
2013: Amazon unveils Premium Beauty.
2014: The first Glossier products launch, ushering in the era of Millennial pink.
2015: Kylie Jenner’s Lip Kits blow up the internet.
2016: Coty completes its transformational $12.5 billion acquisition of Procter & Gamble’s fragrance, color cosmetics and professional hair businesses.
2017: Rihanna launches Fenty Beauty with a 40-shade strong foundation range.
2018: Supergoop’s Unseen Sunscreen launches, giving rise to the reinvention of a category.
2019: TikTok takes off in the U.S., with more than 693 million downloads in the U.S.
2020: Uoma Beauty founder Sharon Chuter creates Pull Up For Change, a campaign calling for companies to reveal the number of Black employees across all levels to improve accountability and inclusivity in the industry.
2021: The blurring of the channels heats up as Sephora inks a deal with Kohl’s and Ulta Beauty teams up with Target to bring prestige beauty to the masses.
2022: Brands like Maude, Dame and Unbound Beauty lay the groundwork for the sexual wellness category at retailers, underscoring the ever-expanding connection between health, beauty and well-being.
