Happy New Year! As we embark on our 22nd year as the only vertical cosmetics, fragrance and personal care packaging magazine and online community in the industry, Beauty Packaging’s publisher Jay Gorga and I wanted to take a moment to thank our readers and our partners for your interest and support.  Your patronage is all-important to us—and we look forward to another year of providing you with relevant news and information.

The end of 2016 brought lots of good cheer in Beauty, particularly in the Prestige sector, where The NPD Group told Beauty Packaging that YTD sales figures for Jan. ’16-Nov. ’16 reached $14.1 billion, a rise of 7% over the same period in 2015. Makeup continued to lead at $6.6 billion (up 12%); Skin Care followed at $4.6 billion (up 2%); and Fragrance came in at $2.98 billion, also up 2%.

The year was capped with exciting developments in Indie brands, M&A activity and theories surrounding Millennial purchasing preferences. Packaging seems more innovative than ever as suppliers strive to satisfy brands always on the lookout for new technologies and special effects that will make their products shine.

What can we expect in 2017? According to Karen Grant, global beauty industry analyst, The NPD Group—and a member of Beauty Packaging’s Board of Advisors—more of the same: the unexpected. 

One of the change-ups we have seen as the calendar switched pages was the rise in freestanding beauty boutiques that set up shop to woo customers. In many cases, younger consumers, drawn to digital apps and images and personalized services—environments where they could “play” with cosmetics to their hearts’ content. Among them: Dior, Estée Edit and Philosophy. After all, even Amazon is doing it.

Urban Decay—Beauty Packaging’s Beauty Company of the Year: Excellence in Packaging—is also on a roll in this regard, adding doors in Vancouver and in their home base of Southern California, as well as four new stores in the UK. The brand’s cofounder and chief creative officer, Wende Zomnir, was once quoted as saying she’d like to see more UD freestanding stores in key global locations. As you’ll read here, expansion is just one of the goals that drives her.

We hope you enjoy this issue,