Updated 19 August 2026
A new report landed recently with a headline every beauty and wellness brand wants to believe: 60% of luxury shoppers say they plan to increase their wellness spend over the next year. That is stated intention, not recorded spend, and the difference matters more than it sounds.
Trust in luxury beauty and wellness no longer comes from a glossy campaign or a celebrity face. It comes from evidence a sceptical, well-read customer can check herself — who is saying it, what standing they have, and whether the brand holds up once she starts asking questions.
Buried further into that same report is the number that should concern you more than the growth figure did. Trust is fragile, and the brands that don't understand why are about to leave serious money on the table.
The trust equation has shifted
I've spent almost 20 years inside beauty and luxury — at L'Oréal Group and Coty, across brands including YSL Beauty, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Lancôme and Rimmel, and now in my own consultancy — and I've watched the trust equation move in the last few years. What used to build confidence, a beautiful campaign, a famous face, a premium price point, is no longer enough on its own. Consumers have become genuinely sophisticated. They read ingredient lists. They ask what evidence sits behind what is being said, and who is saying it. They cross-reference what a brand says against what a dermatologist on YouTube says, and increasingly, they walk away when the two don't match.
The report backs this up with real numbers, and the scope matters, so I'll be precise about it. It's a 2026 survey of 300 luxury shoppers across the UK, US and France, each of whom had spent at least $2,500 on personal or experiential luxury in the past year, published as the Luxury Wellness Trends consumer insights report (Professional Beauty). Only 16% said a celebrity affiliation would make them trust a wellness claim. A third look for scientific backing before they trust a product's benefits at all. And 47% engage with an expert testimonial before they buy (The Industry.beauty).
That's three specific, well-off luxury markets, not a global claim, and it's a survey of intention, not of behaviour. But in my reading, this isn't a niche pattern any more. It's how a meaningful share of the luxury customer is starting to think.
So what does that mean commercially?
Aspiration without evidence is no longer a strategy
For years, luxury beauty operated on desire. You bought the product because of the world it promised to bring you into, and that still matters. But desire now needs to be backed by something a customer can verify. A brand that leads with beautiful imagery and can't explain what actually sits behind the product, who made it, how, and on what basis, is increasingly exposed. The customer will find out, and she will not forget.
Rethink the influencer model, don't abandon it
The issue isn't influence itself. It's the credibility gap. The brands winning right now understand that who is talking about a product matters almost as much as what they're saying. A cosmetic chemist, a working dermatologist, a mediagenic scientist — these voices carry weight that a paid partnership doesn't any more, at least not on its own. Building those relationships takes longer than booking a campaign, and that is the trade you are making.
Trust is built in the quiet moments
This is the one most brands underestimate. It's in how you handle a return. Whether the person on your counter, or answering your DMs, actually knows the product. Whether the answer a customer gets from your team is the same answer she gets from your website. None of that is a marketing problem. It's a commercial one, because every one of those moments either confirms the trust a customer already extended you or spends it.
One thing this article deliberately does not cover: what a product is permitted to say about itself, and how that is worded on the pack or in an advert. That is a regulatory question, not a commercial one, and it belongs with whoever signs off your claims.
Treat trust as a strategic asset
The brands I see getting this right aren't necessarily the biggest ones. They're the ones that have made a deliberate decision to treat trust as something to be built, protected and checked, the same way they'd treat a margin or a stock position, rather than as a by-product of good PR.
The stated appetite is there. The open question is whether your brand gives her a reason to choose you, and then to stay.
If you want a second, honest read on where your own brand's trust signals actually sit, that's exactly the kind of question Brand Intelligence is built to answer.
Common questions
What actually changed in how luxury beauty and wellness customers decide who to trust? How easily they can check for themselves. The desire for proof was always there; what changed is that a quick search now surfaces the research, the reviews and the contradictions a brand would once have controlled, so anything a brand says about itself gets checked faster than it used to.
Does this mean influencer marketing is finished for luxury brands? No, but the maths behind it has changed. Reach alone no longer carries an argument; credibility does. The question I'd ask before booking anyone is whether that person has the standing to say what you're asking them to say, because reach without standing is doing less work than it used to.
What's the fastest way for a brand to lose a customer's trust? A mismatch between what's promised and what she can check. The most common version is a brand whose marketing says one thing and whose team, service and website say another. My view is that it rarely takes more than one of those to lose a sceptical customer for good. What a product is permitted to say about itself is a separate regulatory question, and one for whoever signs off your claims.
Is treating trust as a strategic asset only realistic for large, established brands? No, if anything smaller founder-led brands can move faster on it, because there are fewer layers between a decision and the customer seeing it. The advantage isn't budget, it's the discipline to check your own claims as hard as your customer will.
If you'd rather talk it through than read further, tell me what's making you uneasy about your own brand's trust signals and I'll give you an honest read. Get in touch.