We saw a lot of interesting beauty trends in 2019, but the biggest one just might have been CBD. It seemed like a day didn’t pass by without another new CBD skin care company entering the market, or an established beauty brand dropping a new CBD face serum. Several CBD-loving celebrities also jumped on the bandwagon, either by extolling the benefits of their favorite product or partnering with brands to launch their own. Luxury hotels throughout the country featured CBD massages in their spa menus, while mainstream retailers like CVS, Barneys, and Sephora added specially curated CBD sections to their assortments.
CBD was, and is, everywhere, but what does that mean for 2020? Are we experiencing CBD beauty overkill or is the trend going to get even bigger in the New Year?
First, let’s talk about some of the drawbacks. There was, of course, CBD fatigue. Not only was the influx of new launches overwhelming, but it also meant that it was harder to differentiate the legit brands from the ones who just wanted a piece of the CBD pie. “While there are top-tier players doing everything right, there are also many brands using CBD simply for marketing purposes rather than as a highly effective material meant to help with very specific skin care needs,” Ashley Lewis and Meredith Schroeder, founders of online apothecary Fleur Marché, explain. “This isn’t great for the CBD industry as a whole, as it risks devaluing CBD’s efficacy in the minds of consumers who start to view this whole thing as a scam.” However, there’s a possibility that this will all change in 2020, which brings us to our first prediction…
Only the Strong CBD Brands Will Survive
As the poet William Cowper once said, variety is the spice of life, but when there’s too many options, how can someone make a proper decision? We can apply that thinking to a boatload of things, but in the case of CBD, 2020 will see the weeding out (no pun intended) of lesser quality products. “While we anticipate the market for CBD will continue to grow, we expect that it will be because the premium brands start to dominate market share while the opportunists wash out,” Lewis and Schroeder say. Mazz Hanna, founder of Mazz Hanna Beauty, agrees. “If 2019 was all about quantity in the CBD space, then 2020 will be all about quality,” she says. “With that in mind, I suspect you will see a lot of brands disappear in the New Year.”
Everyone (Who Wants To) Will Need to Become a CBD Expert
There’s no doubt CBD has had one big question mark hanging over it ever since it became 2019’s biggest buzzword, and some of those aforementioned not-so-legit brands were able to capitalize on the confusion surrounding the cannabinoid. But in the beauty world, it pays to know exactly what you’re putting on your skin, and Hanna says that consumers will start to demand more information from CBD brands. “It’s incredible how rapidly consumers have been able to educate themselves,” she says. “We were already getting tough questions from our customers by mid-year — which made us so happy — and inspired us to launch a whole new website dedicated to transparency.”
Leave-on Skin Products Will Prevail
In 2019, people were putting CBD in everything, from sportswear to toothpicks to tacos. On the beauty side, we saw it in a lot of skin care, including face cleansers and body washes, as well as hair care like shampoo. Expect to see more CBD products that won’t need to be washed off right away, so they can penetrate the deeper layers of the skin and interact with your endocannabinoid system, aka what it’s supposed to do! “Products that actually stay on the skin will be in it for the long haul,” Celebrity esthetician Alexandra Wagner says. “Creams, face oil, body oils and CBD bath salts — all which can penetrate and calm the skin.”
Edible Beauty Meets CBD
Edible beauty supplements like peptide powders, collagen bars, and adaptogenic teas have gained popularity in recent years, and Lewis and Schroeder believe CBD is next in line to join that arena. “CBD edibles for things like sleep and calm are already huge, so it’s not a huge leap to think that brands will start to focus on glowy skin as a target function,” they say.
CBD Will Get Specific, With Skin Care Targeting Specific Issues
Instead of a standard CBD moisturizer or serum, beauty brands could launch products that focus on various skin conditions. Research has shown CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties to be effective against fighting issues like acne, psoriasis, and eczema, making a CBD zit cream a possible reality. (Hey, if there’s a CBD Stiletto Cream, why can’t there be one for breakouts?)
