Holiday beauty shopping is underway, and consumers are offering clues about what they want this year.
Skin care remains dominant, while hair and scalp health, elevated body care, and home beauty technology are gaining traction. Shoppers also appear increasingly willing to buy now rather than wait for deeper discounts.
These are among the findings in e-commerce and marketplace agency Market Defense’s October 2026 report, which analyzed shopping and search behavior around Amazon’s fall Prime Big Deal Days and the TikTok Shop.
The report compared TikTok Shop sales during the same week with each product’s or brand’s average weekly sales over the preceding 30 days. It found signs of cross-platform influence, with Prime-related hashtags generating substantial activity on TikTok during the period.
Here are seven of the report’s findings relevant to the beauty and wellness industry.
1. Beauty is Huge for the Holidays
Beauty was the most-shopped category in the report, making up 32% of October Prime Big Deal days purchases. By comparison, during Amazon’s June Prime Day, beauty ranked fourth at 26%.
It was the platform’s No. 1 clicked category for gift-related searches, ahead of toys and home goods. Shoppers tended to search by gifting occasion, using terms such as “stocking stuffers for women,” rather than beginning with a particular brand or category.
2. Skincare Remains the Heavyweight
The data points to skin care as the unquestionable category leader. Nine of Amazon’s 10 bestselling beauty brands were skin- or body-care.
Derm-focused brands grew their beauty share by 3.7 percentage points year over year. La Roche-Posay ranked as the No. 1 overall beauty brand, and EltaMD nearly quadrupled its share to 3.9%.
K-beauty’s momentum continues to accelerate: Medicube, Biodance, Anua, and Dr. Althea collectively grew their beauty share by a 20.8% relative increase YOY.
Seven of the 10 most-clicked beauty products were K-beauty buys associated with specific skin concerns and desired results, from pore reduction and acne control to hydration and anti-aging.
For skincare retailers, that makes efficacy and an easily understood purpose compelling selling points.
3. Body Care Steps Into the Spotlight
Skincare below the neck is gaining ground, with key brands within body care capturing a meaningfully greater portion of beauty spending than they did last year.
Native more than doubled its share of beauty sales, while eos became the No. 4 beauty brand overall. “Body wash” generated an estimated 493K searches during the event week.
The shift strengthens the case for treating body products as an integral part of skincare routines rather than an add-on.
4. Hair Care is Increasingly About the Scalp
On the hair side, consumers are actively engaging with products associated with hair growth, scalp and dandruff care, bond repair and treatment, styling, and color products.
Nutrafol was the No. 3 beauty brand overall and dominated the hair-care category with a 20.5% share. Other leading hair brands included Nizoral, L’Oréal Paris, K18, Color Wow, Native, Rogaine, L’ange Hair, Kitsch, and Just For Men.
Social commerce adds another dimension. Medicube Rosemary PDRN Scalp Care generated $492K in TikTok Shop sales, 74.7% above its prior 30-day weekly average, with 34.6K units sold.
5. Social Buzz Sells (Even Off Social Media)
Where consumers discover a beauty product and where they ultimately buy it aren’t necessarily the same place. Product discovery is distributed across an increasingly interconnected ecosystem of social platforms, influencers, marketplaces, and retailers.
Medicube offers the report’s most striking example of this. It was the No. 1 beauty brand on TikTok Shop during the shopping week, generating $6.52M in revenue, 18.2% above its prior 30-day weekly average. At the same time, it ranked No. 2 among beauty brands on Amazon by share of sales, while its Zero Pore Pads were Amazon’s most-clicked beauty product.
Across U.S. online retailers during the period measured, social media’s share of revenue rose 40% year over year.
6. Higher-Priced Beauty Tech is Finding Buyers
At-home beauty technology is another category to watch heading into the holidays.
On TikTok Shop, sales of Shark Beauty’s Glossi 2-in-1 Blow Dryer Brush jumped 93.3% above its prior 30-day weekly average, and its FacialPro Glow Facial System climbed by 60.3% during that time.
The performance of two products isn’t enough to establish a category-wide surge, but it does offer evidence that consumers are willing to spend far more than impulse-buy prices on beauty tools and devices.
7. Shoppers Aren’t Holding Out for Deals
The 2026 holiday beauty story isn’t just about how much consumers will spend; it’s about what feels worth spending on. The October data suggests consumers are willing to buy at full price or close to it. And gifting searches show they’re thinking about beauty not just for themselves, but for others.
For salons, spas, retailers, and beauty brands, that suggests the holiday opportunity isn’t necessarily about winning the discount race, but about making a product’s value, purpose, and giftability immediately clear.
