For all its talk of innovation, beauty still has a blind spot. It is obsessed with youth, yet one of its most powerful, informed and high-value consumers is a woman over 40. What makes that even more striking is that the aesthetics industry has already understood the assignment and been richly rewarded for it. Clinics, device brands and treatment-led businesses have built growth by speaking directly to this audience and developing technologies, products and services that meet us where we are. Mainstream beauty has been much slower to catch up.
I know this not just from watching the market, but from years of speaking to women through Ageless Radiance Club, across my podcast, events and a community of over 50,000 women over 40. I also know it because I am one of them. I am a Gen X woman, and what I hear over and over again, from our audience and in my own life, is that we have not lost interest in beauty. We have lost patience with bad beauty.
We are not asking for less. We are asking for better.
Better textures. Better wear. Better language. Better formulas. Better proof. Better service. Better value. Better understanding of who we are now.
And the market backs that up. Business of Fashion reports that Gen X, defined there as ages 46 to 61, accounts for 28 per cent of beauty purchasing in the US and spent a projected US$86 billion on beauty last year, including US$33 billion on products and US$53 billion on services. NIQ’s broader generational spending work makes the same point at a macro level: Gen X has been the world’s highest-spending cohort since 2021 and is expected to remain so until 2033.
That is not a niche customer. That is a market force.
What matters just as much is how we shop. We are not loyal by default. We are loyal when respected. We are not anti-innovation. We are anti-nonsense. We do not reject glamour, colour or pleasure. We reject being patronised. And we are no longer shopping through one dominant channel anyway. Specialty beauty, online, clinic-led retail, pharmacy, spas, founder-led ecosystems and treatment culture all matter because they meet us where we are: looking for expertise, relevance, service and results.
When brands understand that, you can feel the difference immediately. I spoke to the best in category leaders for their winning approach and the insights are worth noting for the whole industry.
James Tuffin, Executive Director, Global PR at Hourglass Cosmetics, puts it well: “Innovation sits at the heart of everything we do. Every formula begins there and for us, skincare is always the foundation.” He shared that Hourglass complexion products are designed to deliver coverage while staying connected to skincare benefits, “whether that’s all day hydration or addressing concerns such as smoothing, lifting and firming.” His most telling insight was this: “Our signature products are developed with that duality in mind: high performance complexion combined with skincare benefits. I think that is what many customers are looking for today. They want multi-purpose products that deliver visible results while still feeling effortless to use.”
That idea of duality is exactly right. We do not want stripped-back mediocrity dressed up as ease. We want products that work hard, feel elegant and justify their place in our routine. We want beauty that keeps up.
Tuffin also spoke to something the industry still gets wrong about women over 40. We do not age out of self-expression. We age out of being told there is only one correct way to be visible. Talking about Hourglass’s approach to colour and experience, he shared the brand is creating “immersive experiences” that let customers step deeper into the Hourglass world, and points to the Ambient Lighting Edit: Charms palette, which allows people to personalise their palette with charms that reflect their mood. The inspiration, he said, came from fine jewellery and curated collections built over time. “It feels playful and collectible, but still very refined.”
That is smart. Really smart. It understands that grown women do not need joy edited out of beauty to make it feel adult. We still want delight. We still want polish. We still want things to feel beautiful, considered and a little bit thrilling.
The product detail matters too, because it shows what is actually landing. Tuffin points to Hourglass’s tubing mascara, which is the brand’s number one product in Australia. He describes it as delivering “beautiful length and definition” while being humidity resistant, which makes obvious sense in this market. He also highlights Vanish Airbrush Concealer, noting that it is crease-resistant, offers up to 16 hours of wear, and is selling globally at the rate of one every six seconds. Bravo!
That is not fantasy selling. That is performance. Wear that lasts. Beauty that solves real concerns. Products that understand that many of us are juggling work, hormones, travel, family, events and skin that no longer behaves the way it did at 27.
Tuffin makes the same point when it comes to blush and radiance. “I think everyone loves colour. It just depends on how you choose to wear it,” he says. He describes Unreal Liquid Blush as adaptive in tone and buildable in pigment, allowing you to control whether you want “a soft wash of colour or something with more intensity.” He adds that the new Unreal Liquid Highlighter comes in five shades and is infused with skincare benefits, “designed to visibly lift and firm the look of the skin,” with a lightweight, almost serum-like texture that feels pleasurable to apply.
That is the sweet spot. Playful, but not juvenile. Strategic, but still sensorial. Beauty that gives us control instead of assumptions.
Even primer becomes revealing in this context. Tuffin describes Hourglass primers as “the perfect first step”, creating a smooth canvas for foundation while hydrating the skin and supporting the luminous finish associated with the brand. Their appeal, he says, comes from their multi-benefit properties: neutralising redness, blurring pores, fine lines and wrinkles, and offering SPF 15 in an airy, silky, almost cloud-like texture.
Again, that is a very Gen X proposition. We do not need a sermon. We need a smarter first step.
Lisa Schweighoffer, Co-Founder of Australian skincare brand Boost Lab, gets to the emotional core of this just as clearly. “What we learned very quickly is that women in their forties and fifties don’t want to be confused when it comes to solving their beauty concerns, they want to be informed and spoken to directly,” she says. “BOOST LAB was born out of my own frustration. I was standing in front of shelves filled with products full of complicated ingredient lists and vague promises, and I just wanted something that clearly said, ‘this will help with your neck,’ or ‘this will target fine lines around your eyes.’”
That is such an important insight because it explains why so much modern beauty language feels alienating. Not because we cannot keep up. Because too much of it has become performatively complex. Schweighoffer says that while her daughter knew exactly which ingredients to look for, for her it felt “overwhelming and, quite honestly, a little alienating” because nothing felt like it was speaking to her or her stage of life. “That’s where the idea for BOOST LAB came from. We realised that this customer doesn’t want fluff or trends, she wants clarity, confidence, and results.”
Yes. Exactly that.
Her answer was not to talk down to women, but to strip the clutter away. “Our products are designed to be incredibly straightforward, both in formula and in communication. We name them based on exactly what they do, because our customer shouldn’t have to decode her skincare.”
There is a whole industry lesson in that sentence. We are not asking brands to simplify because we cannot understand complexity. We are asking them to stop hiding behind it.
Schweighoffer is equally sharp on trust. “This customer is incredibly discerning. She’s tried it all, so she knows what works and quickly questions anything that feels overpromised or overpriced,” she says. For Boost Lab, that means trust starts with “clarity and honesty”, proven ingredients, realistic expectations and real-user feedback. She points to the testing behind launches such as Collagen Firming Serum and Pro-Lift Neck Cream, which were put into the hands of more than 100 real women ahead of launch. “That way, we’re proving results through real experiences, not relying on vague claims or empty promises.”
That is why Gen X is such a powerful beauty consumer. We are not simply spending. We are evaluating. We know the difference between aspiration and manipulation. We will invest, but we expect proof, transparency and language that feels adult.
Schweighoffer’s openness about her own skin journey matters for the same reason. She says her decision to speak honestly about not pursuing injectables was “never a marketing strategy”, but simply an honest reflection of where she was and what she wanted from skincare. That visibility, she says, helps cut through because it makes the brand feel human, “not just a product on a shelf”, but something created by someone who genuinely understands the same frustrations and is trying to solve them.
This is also why founder-led beauty has become such an important proving ground. Not because every founder who resonates with this demographic is technically Gen X, but because so many successful brands have been built by women who understand grown consumers from the inside. Charlotte Tilbury, Goop, Naturium, Caudalie, Jones Road, Rae Morris and Anastasia Beverly Hills all point to the same bigger truth: when products are created around adult women’s real lives, real skin and real standards, they tend to travel. They do not just work for us. They often work better for everyone.
Legacy beauty is listening too. Estée Lauder’s reformulation of Double Wear Stay-in-Place Makeup is a strong signal. The brand says the foundation has been “reimagined” because “consumer needs have evolved and as science has advanced.” The new formula is described as more buildable, more breathable and more skin-balancing, while still delivering long wear. The release highlights 36-hour colour-true wear, 36-hour oil control, 72-hour moisture maintenance, and 67 tailored shades developed using more than 15 years of colour capture technology and 14,000-plus skin tone measurements across five continents.
That matters because Double Wear is not just another launch. It is one of beauty’s defining icons. When a brand at that scale revisits a hero formula so thoroughly, it tells you something about where the category is heading. Performance alone is no longer enough. We want coverage with comfort. Longevity with life in it. Makeup that works with skin rather than sitting on top of it. And I can confirm this reformulation hits the mark beautifully.
And this is where the story gets even more interesting, because while skincare and makeup have clearly evolved in how they serve us, fragrance still feels like the holdout.
That gap to me is striking. We are arguably the ideal fragrance customer for what comes next. We already understand scent as memory, identity, emotion and ritual. We do not need to be told that fragrance can shift a mood or call up another version of ourselves. We have lived that truth for decades. We also understand luxury, but we want it with substance. We are open to wellbeing, but not at the expense of sensuality, glamour or pleasure.
This is why I think fragrance is the category with the most untapped potential. DSM-Firmenich has identified the “Silver Economy” as a critical growth driver in prestige fragrance, with consumers over 50 commanding a disproportionate share of spend and showing stronger loyalty and ritual behaviour than younger cohorts. I see that reflected constantly in the women I speak to through Ageless Radiance Club. We are not passive fragrance buyers. We are deeply ritualistic ones. We attach scent to memory, identity, mood and self-recognition. When specialty beauty meets us with education, curation and a more thoughtful offer, we are ready for it.
That should be a wake-up call.
Because fragrance still too often speaks to women in this cohort through stale binaries. Sweet and girlish on one side. “Mature” on the other. It misses the richness in the middle. We do not need perfume to make us feel younger. We need it to stop underestimating us. We want scent that understands memory, mood, ritual and self-recognition without falling back on dusty tropes.
The opportunity now is for fragrance to catch up with the rest of beauty. To speak to nostalgia without becoming retro. To offer personalisation without becoming cold. To acknowledge wellness benefits without draining away glamour. To create scent that feels emotionally rich, sensorially modern and genuinely connected to a woman’s sense of self.
This is what I have learned from years of listening to women in the Ageless Radiance Club community, and from being one of them. We are not retreating from beauty. We are refining our relationship with it. We want products that work harder, speak more clearly and feel more relevant to the lives we are actually living.
The brands that understand that will win.
The ones that keep chasing youth as though it is the only story worth telling will keep missing one of the most valuable consumers standing right in front of them.
Rant over.
