Lipsticks, treatments plump up sales

It is 11 a.m. on a Thursday at the new NYX store in Willowbrook Mall in N.J., and already shoppers are congregating near the expansive lip collection. Called The Lip Bar, the fixture sports almost 700 colors.

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The bustling lip area proves there is mounting interest in the lip color category — and not just light glosses that have dominated sales for the past few years.



NYX isn’t the only brand enjoying swelling sales. Milani and online sensation ColourPop have benefitted from the dramatic lips made famous by the Kardashian/Jenner women and others. And Revlon and L’Oréal are among the lines posting high single-digit gains with color options with dramatic color payoffs.



Of note, lipsticks soared 10% in the drug channel (almost 13% in all mass doors), while gloss declined about 4% for drug and mass doors combined. That’s a reversal from past years when glosses generated bigger gains. Lip treatments also are tearing up the sales chart, perhaps as women pay more attention to their lips so they look better with dramatic color applied. Treatment sales jumped more than 40% in all measures.



The brands on buyers’ lips include those with intense color payoff, such as Revlon Super Lustrous, Revlon ColorStay Overtime and L’Oréal Infallible.



To maintain momentum, retailers and manufacturers have big plans for lips. As part of its reinvigoration of Nuance by Salma Hayek, CVS has a new True Color Plumping Liquid Lipstick. Ingredients include green tea extract and mint, which leave lips more hydrated.



Straight off the recent New York Fashion Week runway trends, Maybelline is planning to introduce a black lipstick as part of the company’s upcoming line of Color Sensational Loaded Bolds, a collection of lipsticks in strong colors, according to Allure.