A national women’s survey reveals that Boomers and Gen Xers feel ignored by beauty brands, AARP reports. Women want to see more variety of ages — and more realism — in beauty advertising and product ads, it concludes.

The survey, Mirror/Mirror: Survey of Women’s Reflections of Beauty, Image and Media, was conducted in July 2019 and polled 1,992 U.S. women.

Women age 50 and older spend an average of $29 monthly on beauty and personal grooming products, representing nearly $22 billion in annual sales.

Key Points

Here’s a few highlights from the survey:

• 40% of Gen-X women (ages 39-54) and 53% of Boomer women (ages 55-73) disagreed with the statement “the beauty and personal grooming product industry creates products with people my age in mind.”


• 70% of women age 40 and older want to see more perimenopausal and menopausal beauty and personal grooming products.


• Key elements from the survey will appear in the November issue of Allure.


• 64% of Gen X women and 74% of Boomer women feel older adults are underrepresented in product advertising.


• Over 7 in 10 women in both age groups state they are more likely to purchase products from brands that depict people of a variety of ages in their ads.


• Interestingly, 76% of Millennial women (ages 22-38) reported they, too, are most likely to purchase products whose ads feature people of a variety of ages.


• 85% of women of all ages reported they wish ads had more realistic images of people.


• 75% of women of all ages said that seeing beauty and personal grooming ads with real people makes them feel better about themselves.