Future 100 by VML - Beauty Edition
Here is an extract of the latest trend report released by VML at the end of January 2026.
After another year marked by economic upheaval, polarising political currents and environmental setbacks, 2026 will be a year for building resilience, courageous creativity and redrawing the boundaries of what’s possible. From the personal to the planetary, from human engineering to geoengineering the climate itself, a new class of creators and collaborators is multiplying potential in ways we are just beginning to imagine.
Helping to shape these worlds are AI tools that democratize world-building and new economic models for building empires. As both creativity and AI go global, voices from Buenos Aires to Busan are challenging Western dominance and creating tools that reflect their own cultures.
Amidst this “metamorphic” current, the desire for human connection remains unmistakable. In the year ahead, human impulse will shape brand strategies, influencing the top marketing trends in 2026, and draw people back to immersive, high-impact experiences that demonstrate the value of authenticity and unlock infinite possibilities.
In the beauty sphere, VML identified 10 trends that reveal how health, nature, fashion, society, and generations influence our beauty routines.
Speculative Beauty
Creative, otherworldly, and transformative—beauty’s expression has no limits.
The beauty toolbox has expanded over the years, from physical makeup to digital filters and AI-generated looks, bringing opportunities for people to express themselves in ways that transcend the physical world.
“When we say speculative beauty, we mean the fantastic, imaginative potential of transformation through beauty,” Bunny Kinney, global executive creative director at Dazed Studio, tells VML Intelligence. Whether it’s with “digital, physical, or hybrid mediums,” the aim is to utilise these tools “to realise that transformation,” he says.
Beauty remains a crucial outlet for self-expression and representation of human identity—even if the result is post-human. As new tools such as AI join the makeup box, broader forms of expression will empower people to speculate what beauty means to them. Sixty-seven per cent of gen Z believe AI tools will allow us to be more creative and progressive in imagining the future of beauty.
Edible Allure
When food loses its appeal, beauty steps in to satisfy the senses.
Once defined by dessert-themed packaging and flavour-led products, food-infused beauty now answers a more profound craving: for sensory pleasure in an era of appetite suppression (17% globally have previously or are currently taking GLP-1 medications, up from 12% last year). As GLP-1 drugs reshape how—and how often—people eat, fragrance and beauty brands are filling the gap, offering indulgence beyond the plate. Brands are borrowing from food to create tactile, fragrant moments that trigger dopamine hits just like dessert—without having to eat it.
As consumers look to soothe the senses, not the stomach, brands should create products that quench cravings without consumption, turning beauty into the source of guilt-free pleasure.
Skincare Wear
Skincare is breaking free of the jar
Beauty’s new frontier is the closet, as beauty brands and fashion labels alike embed skincare ingredients into textiles, turning garments into all-day treatments.
Parisian ready-to-wear brand Coperni wants to nourish skin with its new C+ athleisure spring/summer 2026 collection. A blend of prebiotics and probiotics is embedded into every gram of fabric of the brand’s “carewear.” The clothing line promises the same results as premium skincare products: a rebalanced microbiome, a supported skin barrier, and rejuvenation and repair benefits, lasting for 40 washes. An October 2025 Business of Fashion article reported that Coperni CEO Arnaud Vaillant saw the line as “a bridge between fashion and beauty, comparing it to a mashup of Skims and Augustinus Bader.” Speaking of Skims, the Kardashian-owned brand launched its own collagen-infused textile face wraps in 2025 too.
Skincarewear opens new categories and revenue streams for beauty and fashion brands alike, while meeting consumers' expectations for multitasking solutions. Expect beauty industry standards such as clinical claims and ingredient transparency to migrate from product packaging to clothing tags.
Substack Strategies
Storytelling is in, as beauty brands use Substack to build connections that go deeper than skin-deep.
Social media rewards brevity, but some brands want space to elaborate. Substack—the platform built for deeper storytelling—is becoming a quiet favourite, with beauty brands among those leading the shift away from other platforms.
Saie’s From the Saie Office Substack gives subscribers a backstage pass to the brand, with podcasts and articles that blend daily life, team inspirations, and even shopping tips. Rare Beauty’s Rare Beauty Secrets shares everything from the stories behind new makeup shades to the mental health mission of founder Selena Gomez. Another beauty founder, Colette Laxton of The Inkey List, launched her newsletter Mind the BS in fall 2025, offering a personal take on the world of beauty and beyond
This trend tells us that “we’ve hit peak scroll fatigue, and consumers are craving slower, more genuine ways to connect. Substack gives beauty labels such as Saie the space to open up—to talk less about what they’re selling and more about what they stand for. It’s less marketing, more meaning, where authenticity and shared joy build lasting loyalty.”
Seditious beauty
Unconventional looks might feel rebellious, but they are part of an expansive beauty spectrum.
From gen Z’s passion for Crocs to TikTok trends such as #weirdcore, a revolt against the refined is under way. In his summer 2025 essay The Vulgar Image, cultural commentator Dean Kissick says, “Beauty is boring, so we turn to the grotesque.”
Beauty looks are also dabbling in the provocative, with bleached brows (as seen on Miley Cyrus and Jenna Ortega), unconventional dermal and facial piercings (Willow Smith and Halsey), and campy, maximalist makeup (Chappell Roan and Doja Cat). Even Prada sent models down the Milan runways for its fall/winter 2025/2026 show with unkempt, bedhead hair.
What we can learn from this trend is that “ digital tools and subcultural currents are widening the spectrum for beauty. For brands, there is an opportunity to welcome the unconventional. Rooted in identity and diversity, seditious beauty is still beauty.”
Sleeping Beauty
Overnight beauty routines show an “ugly” side.
Over 9,800 videos have been posted under the hashtag #morningshed on TikTok, as of January 2026, which sees creators document the unravelling of the various masks, patches, mouth tapes, and facial straps that they’ve worn overnight as beauty treatments. The trend even reached the pages of the Wall Street Journal in May 2025, with a piece titled, “To achieve daytime beauty, these women look like monsters at night.”
Kim Kardashian’s Skims entered the fray in summer 2025, when it unveiled its Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap. The overnight face wrap is made from “signature sculpting fabric and infused with collagen yarns for ultra-soft jaw support,” and claims “strong, targeted compression for shaping and sculpting.”
Yet professionals are sceptical. Speaking to the BBC, Dr Anna Andrienko, an aesthetic doctor, notes that “face wraps do not deliver lasting contouring or skin-tightening results.” She warns, “At best, they can reduce fluid retention short-term. At worst, overuse may lead to skin irritation, breakouts, or circulation issues if worn too tightly or for prolonged periods.”
The insight here is that “Consumer fatigue with overly elaborate beauty routines points to a powerful opportunity for brands to offer simplicity, while celebrating authentic, natural beauty. Shifting the narrative from fixing flaws to empowering genuine confidence and acceptance will resonate with those who are over the artifice of extreme beauty narratives.”
Next-gen Gamer Glow
Beauty brands are levelling up into gamer culture with new fluency and flair.
Beauty’s relationship with gaming is entering its next phase. Gaming and beauty have overlapped digitally for years, and now a new wave of brands is taking the crossover from novelty to authentic immersion.
In this sphere, Charlotte Tilbury is meeting the demand, launching a Genshin Impact collaboration and running a Twitch channel to connect directly with beauty-loving gamers. “I feel like Charlotte Tilbury understands that, as gamer girls, our expertise, our loyalty, and our community matters,” said Pinkiysensei, a TikTok creator who bridges both worlds, celebrating brands that understand gamer culture from the inside.
Gamer beauty is entering its power-up era. It’s not about pixel filters or gimmicks, it’s about meeting real players on their own terms, with products that perform, a culture that respects them, and a relevance that lasts beyond the screen
Fragrance Layering
Gen Z are creatively combining fragrances to concoct their own signature scents.
Seventy per cent of gen Z believe the scent they use reflects their identity, highlighting this generation’s appetite for self-expression. In last year’s “The Future 100” report, Fine fragrances explored the younger generation’s willingness to spend more on perfume. This year, gen Z are crafting unique smells by layering multiple fragrances for aromatic depth and personalisation. Online platforms are catching on: #perfumelayering is trending on BeautyTok, with over 48,000 posts as of January 2026, and Elle magazine published an article in April 2025 offering tips on how to best layer different perfumes.
Sephora beauty director Myiesha Sewell told Elle that fragrance layering can “push and pull scent stories in different directions” and offers personalisation. “If you really love an ultra-popular fragrance but aren’t so keen on the idea of smelling like everyone else, layering your perfume is the key to creating something unique to you,” she said.
Personalisation is a key priority for gen Zers. For them, fragrance layering is not just a trend–it’s a tool of self-expression that allows them to reflect their identity, moving beyond mass market scents to create something uniquely their own.
Rhythmic Beauty
Beauty brands are crafting experiences rooted in nature’s ancient rhythms.
An elemental approach to beauty is on the rise, as brands fuse ancestral wisdom with modern techniques, following the natural rhythms of nature.
As an expression of this trend, UK skincare brand Wildsmith launched Treescape in May 2025, a bespoke soundscape that gives voice to nature, specifically the arboretum at its native Heckfield Estate in Hampshire. The brand, whose vision is rooted in caring for nature and the soil, collaborated with British sound artist Justin Wiggan, whose work explores biosonification, a technique that translates the electrical signals of living organisms such as trees and plants into sounds.
Its interesting because “rhythmic beauty grounds consumers in nature-led experiences rooted in ancient wisdom. By harking back to traditions and practices that connect us deeply to nature, they offer a reassuring sense of timelessness.”
Apocalyptical Glamour
Beauty becomes a conduit for strength and resilience.
Beauty is becoming a vehicle for resilience. Drawing on warrior queens and dystopian survivors, this new aesthetic is less about conventional prettiness and more about endurance. It uses stark, unsettling makeup and metallic, armour-like adornments to project defiance and power. It’s a statement of survival and liberation in challenging times.
An influence on this trend was the Maison Margiela spring/summer 2026 show at Paris Fashion Week: every model wore a restrictive silver mouth guard, alluding to the label’s four white stitch marks, yet disturbing.
These may not be mainstream aesthetices but it’s interesting because “at a time when many feel embattled—by social or political constraints, or collective anxiety—this aesthetic reflects an undercurrent of defiance that brands can also respond to. Beauty can be a canvas for resilience, projecting strength, and empowerment.
The report is available to download HERE.
