Personal Care Trends For 2026, Are The Predictions Right?
Last year, we noticed many of Pinterist’s predictions came true, and according to their business page statistics, 88% of the time they are correct. That specific site is seen by 600 million monthly users, making it ideal for retail brands. In this post, we will go over the trends that could be applied to personal care. And will point out the ones we already noticed coming to fruition. Even in the second month of the year, signs of trends are apparent when looking through the “new” tab at retailers like Ulta and when walking through the big-box stores.
Personal Care Trends For 2026
We scoured beauty articles, Pinterest Predicts, TikTok insights, and Retail stores, and have curated a list of personal care trends for 2026 you should look out for. You may be able to fit them into your product line.
- Gummy Aesthetic
- Scent Stacking
- Skin Barrier
- AI Skincare
Gummy Aesthetic
Gen Z and Millennials embraced the ASMR. Especially when it peaked in 2019. ASMR, also known as autonomous sensory meridian response, is a deeply relaxing tingling sensation caused by auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli. So it’s no wonder textures and visual aspects appeal to that age range. Anticipate rubberized nail art, gummy bear aesthetic, agar agar, and jelly candy aesthetic will be popular search terms. We will most likely see a gravitation to products that are transparent, boldly colored, and have a glossy finish. And gummy/ jelly textures in the product. Here are some bases that could satisfy the Gummy Aesthetic.
- Jelly Soap Base: Use this base as is for a sensory bath or shower treat. Or use it as part of our gummy soap recipe.
- Super Clear Melt & Pour Glycerine Soap Base: This super clear soap base is great for making bright, bold, and even sparkly soap. With a huge variety of molds on the market, you can make any gummy aesthetic soap.
- Aloe Gel Base: Gummy doesn’t strictly apply to the texture in this trend. Tinting our aloe gel base with a bright color and adding extracts makes a light jelly moisturizer.
Scent Stacking
What is scent stacking? It is when you apply multiple complementary scented products, such as lotions, oils, and perfumes, to create a unique, longer-lasting aroma. One-and-done fragrances are quickly falling out of style. Customization and personalization, especially guided by AI, have set a new standard for products like fragrance. Consumers are leaning towards wanting a one-of-a-kind personalized scent.
A common scent stack is a base of scented lotion, body oil, or body butter. Followed by a perfume, body spray, or hair mist. Here are our Lotion Base and Body Spray Base Categories. Browse our vast selection to choose the right base for your brand.
- Body lotion, cream, and butter base category: The recommended scenting load is 1% for our body lotion, but be sure to check the SDS of your fragrance oil.
- Body spray and mist base category: Our body spray base can handle a fragrance load of up to 5%. Check the SDS of your fragrance oil to ensure you can use that load.
- Lotion Bar & Balm Base: The Lotion Bar and Balm Base is great for a solid perfume. A more waxy base for solid perfume is ideal for making the scent last on the skin for a long time.
Skin Barrier
One of the biggest words we will see in personal trends for 2026 will be “skin barrier”. It will be used in many ways: “protects skin barrier”, “repairs skin barrier”, “nourishes skin barrier”. Marketing will be using this term heavily. And consumers will be looking out for products that benefit the skin barrier.
What exactly is the skin barrier? It is the outermost layer of skin made up of Corneocytes, which are the tough skin cells that make up the exterior. They are held together by lipids, which are ceramides, cholesterol, and fatty acids. Here are some ingredients that can be added to our skincare bases that will benefit the skin barrier.
- Hyaluronic Acid Gel Base: Hyaluronic acid attracts and holds moisture to the skin, keeping it plump and moisturized.
- Niacinamide (Vitamin B3): Niacinamide (Vitamin B3) strengthens the skin barrier through several key mechanisms at a cellular level. It actively encourages the skin to build a stronger and more resilient barrier from within.
- Squalane Oil: Squalane Oil can help improve the skin’s natural barrier function, which protects the skin from environmental damage and helps prevent moisture loss.
- Lotion Bar & Balm Base: Our lotion bar base can be made into a nourishing salve that helps protect the skin’s barrier. The formula features skin-barrier-loving ingredients like argan oil and rice extract. But you can customize this base with more oils to make a salve unique to your brand.
AI Skincare
People are using AI platforms like Gemini, Chat GPT, and Groc everywhere in business. From creating AI-generated images to planning purchases. One of the biggest personal care trends for 2026 will be AI-assisted skincare. Not only for business owners, but also for consumers. AI assistant features on retail brands will help customers find the right product for their specific needs.
Last year, I had a shopping experience with an earlier model when shopping for a perfume. Shopping online for a perfume is usually taboo. However, this website featured an AI scent finder. It was simple enough; I input my scent note preferences, and it recommended a few that fit my descriptions. It was slightly off, and I had to return half of the perfumes I had purchased. After checking back on it a year later, it has gotten significantly better, with much better suggestions.
Whether your brand is in a big store or you have an AI assistant program on your own website, here’s how it can benefit your business, especially if you are starting up.
- In-Depth Descriptions: Having a clear and thorough description of your product’s ingredients, benefits, texture, and uses. Doing this in your product description will help match your product to someone using AI for recommendations.
- Matching Product to the right customer: When people use an AI search engine to find a product, they get very specific. For example: ” What face cream works for my dry, maturing skin that is under $20 and has clean ingredients?” This will put your product in front of someone with very specific needs.
- Having an AI assistant on your own website: This article mentions a retail brand that implemented a personalized diagnostic assistant, which saw an over 60% return rate! Which is phenomenal.
Closing Thoughts on Personal Care Trends For 2026
The year is fresh, but we are seeing personal care trends for 2026 already coming to fruition. Gummy aesthetic will have people reaching for bold sensory personal care products. Scent stacking will bring a big boom to the fragrance industry. People will be drawn towards products that have anything to do with benefiting the skin barrier. And AI skincare is going to shake up the market in ways we have never seen before.
Sources:
Source 1: https://trends.google.com/explore?q=ASMR&date=all&geo=US
Source 2: https://www.beautyindependent.com/why-ai-may-be-beauty-great-equalizer/
