The Cosmetify Index

It’s been a year since we launched the initial ‘Cosmetify Index’, where we ranked the world’s biggest beauty brands on factors such as their social reach and engagement. Now, it’s time to take a look at the latest state of the beauty industry with our 2020 Q3 report.

Of course, the world has changed a lot since our last refresh of the Index, which came just as the coronavirus outbreak was taking hold, so how have things changed for Quarter 3 (July - September)?

Hottest Beauty

Brands, Ranked

We begin, as always, with our ranking of the 200 hottest beauty brands in the world, based on: Instagram followers, Instagram engagement, Instagram mentions, Google search volume and change in search volume.

The top three brands in beauty remain unchanged, but there are still plenty of interesting updates to the index.

1

HUDA BEAUTY

Huda Beauty has consistently taken top spot in our ranking, which is little surprise when you see the numbers, with 47.9 million followers on Insta and 27 million hashtag mentions too. However, it’s been an interesting quarter for the brand, which saw Huda Kattan herself step down as CEO of the company and focus her energies on other aspects of this.

2

Anastasia
Beverly Hills

Much like Huda Beauty, Anastasia Beverly Hills was built from the ground up by its visionary founder, Anastasia Soare and is now amongst the very best in the business, with over 24 million people posting about their products on social media. Q3 saw them launch their new collection of waterproof, matte and pigmented Lip Stains.

3

M·A·C Cosmetics

Canadian brand MAC stayed in third place in our ranking, with an impressive Insta following of 23.4m (bettered only by Huda Beauty). Developments for them in the last three months included launching their products in Boots in the UK, with over 48,000 people joining the waiting list beforehand (a record for Boots.com).

4

The Body Shop

Moving all the way up from 26th place to 4th is the Body Shop, which this quarter was also the most-searched beauty brand in the world, with over 8.2 million searches between July and September.

5

Florence by Mills

Florence by Mills is the creation of Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown and moves up one place into the top five for this edition of the index. Once again, the brand has by far the highest level of social engagement, with an engagement rate of 4.41% (down from 7.97%).

6

L’Oreal Paris

L’Oreal Paris have been around forever but made a big jump in our rankings, from 14th up to 6th. Their Insta following grew by about 750,000, while most of the other big names saw their follower counts largely stay the same or fall during the pandemic.

7

Yves Rocher

As we’ve seen in previous versions of the index, Yves Rocher is a huge brand globally, especially throughout Europe, although this year it’s no longer the most-searched beauty brand in the world, losing that title to the Body Shop.

8

ColourPop
Cosmetics

ColourPop were one of the few big brands to see their searches actually go up in the last few months, with global searches increasing by 5.8% this quarter. They also launched a new Hocus Pocus makeup collection just in time for Halloween!

9

PÜR

Despite having a lower profile compared to many of the other brands in the top ten, PÜR scored so highly this time around due to an incredible 338% increase in searches compared to the previous quarter, driven by their collaboration with influencer RawBeautyKristi.

10

Morphe

Since its beginning in 2008, Morphe has only gone from strength to strength. The brand has maintained their top 10 ranking throughout 2020, sitting in 6th place as the most searched brand of the year, with over 3 million searches, and scoring highly for Instagram following and number of tags on the platform.

Rank

Brand

Instagram
Followers

Instagram
Engagement
Rate

Instagram
Hashtags

Q3 searches

Change in
search
Volume

Overall
score

The Most Powerful

Beauty Influencers

We also refreshed our look at 50 of the world’s most influential beauty influencers, measuring not only the follower counts of our favorite Insta and YouTube beauty gurus, but also how much money they could potentially be earning from their sponsored posts.

While the top three all switched places, there was significant movement further down our influencer rankings, with the likes of Mari Maria jumping from 13th to 6th and Bianca Heinicke rising from 16th to 8th, while Antonio Garza and Safiya Nygaard were among those to fall down the rankings.

It’s also interesting to note that Jeffree Star saw his following decline by over 1.5 million people, after a number of high-profile controversies.

1

Huda Kattan

2

James Charles

3

Bretman Rock

Rank

Name

YouTube
Subscribers

Estimated
YouTube
Earnings per
Video

Instagram
Followers

Estimated
Instagram
Earnings per
Post

Combined
Followers

Combined
Earnings per
Post

Combined
Earnings per
Post q1

Change in
Followers
Since Q1 (%)

Rising Stars

of Beauty

Next up, we take a closer look at which beauty brands have seen the biggest increase in interest over the last three months.

It’s been a tough time for all kinds of industries, not just beauty, but searches for cosmetics have been down across the board. However, there are still some companies which have seen interest on the up in the last quarter.

1

PÜR

2

Kitsch

3

Merci Handy

PÜR

PÜR Cosmetics saw an increase of 337.9% - the biggest spike in searches throughout Q3! This was largely down to a much-anticipated collaboration with beauty blogger RawBeautyKristi, which sold out just hours after going on sale in early July. They also launched a Barbie-themed makeup collection in August to celebrate the iconic doll’s 60th birthday.

Kitsch

Another company that saw interest grow by more than double was Kitsch, who are best known for their designer hair products (which often go viral on Instagram). They made the best of a bad situation with the coronavirus pandemic, creating a range of lightweight, stylish, cotton face masks, which were a huge hit.

Merci Handy

Another brand which has largely benefitted from the current situation is Merci Handy, who actually had the biggest increase in popularity in the last edition of the index. They specialise in colourful hand gels made using clean ingredients, which understandably have been in high demand over the last couple of months.

Biggest Social

Following

Social media is a huge tool for any business, but that’s especially true in the world of beauty. In fact, beauty brands are often among the most followed and engaged with on social media, using it to their advantage to showcase tips and tutorials with their fans, as well as working with the ever-increasing number of beauty influencers and bloggers. But who are the beauty brands who are at the very top of the social media game?

1

Huda Beauty

47.9m
Instagram followers
2

Kylie Cosmetics

24.8m
Instagram followers
3

M·A·C Cosmetics

23.4m
Instagram followers

Probably the least surprising aspect of the Cosmetify Index at this stage is that Huda Beauty is by far the most followed beauty brand on Instagram. At the latest count, the brand had over 47.9 million followers, steadily closing in on the 50 million mark after adding around 4 million new followers since the last edition of the index. Once again, they’re followed by Kylie Cosmetics (24.8m) and M·A·C Cosmetics (23.4m).

1

Huda Beauty

27.m
Instagram hashtags
2

Anastasia Beverly Hills

24.4m
Instagram hashtags
3

M·A·C Cosmetics

19.2m
Instagram hashtags

Huda also takes the crown when it comes to the highest number of hashtag mentions on Instagram, with over 27 million people posting about Huda and her products. That’s an increase of about 2 million from quarter 1.

1

Florence by Mills

4.41%
Instagram engagement rate
2

Merci Handy

2.47%
Instagram engagement rate
3

L'Oreal Paris

2.09%
Instagram engagement rate

Florence by Mills has had an incredibly high social media engagement rate in each edition of the Cosmetify Index. Over time, that rate has steadily dropped down to 4.41% as the initial hype from the brand’s launch has potentially died down a little. But, that’s still a very impressive level of engagement for a big brand – especially one with just shy of 2 million followers.

Each Country’s

Favorite Beauty Brand

One of the areas where we saw the biggest change in this edition of the Cosmetify Index was our look at each country’s favorite beauty brand.

While in previous years, the picture has largely been dominated by Yves Rocher, this time around it was an even split between the French brand and The Body Shop, which were both the top brand in 31 different countries around the world.

Other popular brands around the world included Dove and ColourPop and we once again saw a few brands which clearly have a strong presence in their home country, such as RMK in Japan, Fenty Beauty in the Caribbean and Ole Henriksen in Denmark.

KEY
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1

Yves Rocher

Favoured In

31

Countries

List
1

The Body Shop

Favoured In

31

Countries

List
3

Dove

Favoured In

15

Countries

List
4

ColourPop Cosmetics

Favoured In

14

Countries

List
5

Rituals

Favoured In

11

Countries

List
6

Clinique

Favoured In

9

Countries

List
7

Estee Lauder

Favoured In

8

Countries

List
9

Benefit

Favoured In

7

Countries

List
10

Huda Beauty

Favoured In

6

Countries

List
11

Juvia's Place

Favoured In

6

Countries

List
12

Beauty Bay

Favoured In

6

Countries

List
13

Kiehl's

Favoured In

4

Countries

List
14

Maybelline

Favoured In

3

Countries

List
15

Fenty Beauty

Favoured In

3

Countries

List
16

Glossier

Favoured In

3

Countries

List
17

L'Occitane

Favoured In

3

Countries

List
18

Ouai

Favoured In

3

Countries

List
19

Foreo

Favoured In

2

Countries

List
20

Garnier

Favoured In

2

Countries

List
20

Lush

Favoured In

2

Countries

List
20

Morphe

Favoured In

2

Countries

List
21

Tarte

Favoured In

1

Countries

List
22

Urban Decay

Favoured In

1

Countries

List
23

Ole Henriksen

Favoured In

1

Countries

List
23

RMK

Favoured In

1

Countries

List
24

Vichy

Favoured In

1

Countries

List
25

Jo Malone

Favoured In

1

Countries

List
26

L'Oreal

Favoured In

1

Countries

List
27

Olaplex

Favoured In

1

Countries

List