The Rise of Gender-Neutral Beauty Products: What It Means for the Industry

Why "for men" and "for women" labels are fading, and what that shift really means for how we all get to show up.

Father's Day just passed, and this year we ran something a little different at Palafoxia: a non-gendered color sale. No "manly" section, no "for him" banner, just polish. It got us thinking (and talking to customers) about something bigger than one sale, so we wanted to dig into it here.

Beauty has always been sorted into two boxes: pink aisle, blue aisle. But that wall is coming down, and it's not just a trend, it's a full industry shift.

📊 The Numbers Don't Lie

This isn't a niche movement anymore. The global gender-neutral beauty market was valued at $4.2 billion in 2025 and is projected to expand to $8.4 billion by 2034. Major retailers have felt it too: Sephora's 2024–2025 store renovations dedicated 18–22% of shelf space to products marketed without gender targeting.

The generational data is even more telling. Nearly 40% of Gen Z consumers prefer gender-neutral products, compared to about 30% of older generations, and over 41% of millennials say they prefer unisex skincare. Men are part of this shift too, not just as bystanders: the World Advertising Research Centre found that over 56% of men now use skincare, a number that would've seemed wild a decade ago.

🧠 It's Not Really About the Product, It's About Permission

Here's the part that doesn't show up in market reports: beauty standards have never just been about aesthetics. They've been rulebooks for who's allowed to care about themselves, and how loudly they're allowed to do it.

For women, that's meant impossible, ever-shifting standards. For men, it's meant something quieter but just as heavy: the pressure to not care, or at least to not be seen caring. Researchers studying men's grooming habits found something they called "invisible consumption," meaning men who use skincare or nail treatments often go out of their way to keep that fact hidden from friends, partners, even family. One study participant put it simply: there's a stigma tied to masculinity around it, but otherwise it's just personal choice.

That stigma is doing real psychological work. It tells men that smelling "manly," wearing muted colors, and having rough, unmaintained hands isn't really about preference, it's about proving something. The American Psychological Association's 2018 guidelines on working with boys and men connected traditional masculinity ideology directly to mental health stigma, noting that boys are taught from an early age to be self-reliant and to minimize and manage their problems on their own. That same script that says "don't ask for help" is the one that says "don't use lotion." It's the same wall.

The good news: that wall is getting shorter. A 2024 University of Gothenburg study found that while men still felt societal pressure around masculine norms in skincare, they also increasingly saw many of those norms as outdated. We're watching the script get rewritten in real time.

💅 Where Palafoxia Fits In

This is exactly why our Invisible Restore & Nourish Nail Treatment exists. It's a strengthening, nourishing nail treatment (sweet almond oil, vitamin E, tea tree) that dries down completely natural, no color, no shine. It came out of customer requests, specifically from people who wanted the benefits of a nail treatment without a visible marker of "polish" on their hands.

It's a small product, but the idea behind it is not small: healthy nails shouldn't require an explanation. You shouldn't need a specific gender, a specific vibe, or a note pinned to your hands justifying why you take care of them. That's the same spirit behind our Father's Day sale, and honestly the same spirit behind Palafoxia as a whole. Color and care are not "his" or "hers." They're just choices.

🌍 What This Means for the Industry Going Forward

Brands that keep splitting product lines by gender aren't just behind on trends, they're increasingly out of step with how people actually want to shop.

Genderless brands have built entire identities around this, and legacy players are following: even fragrance houses like Chanel and Calvin Klein have leaned hard into unisex positioning, with Tom Ford's Beauty division reporting a 42% increase in sales for products explicitly marketed as unisex between 2023 and 2025.

For a small, independent brand like ours, this isn't about chasing a trend line on a chart. It's about something we already believed: beauty is for whoever wants it, full stop. The market is just starting to agree with us.

💬 A Kind Note on the Industry

We're not here to say every brand needs to abandon their gendered lines overnight, some customers genuinely love that language and framing, and that's okay too. But when a brand only offers the gendered version, it quietly tells a chunk of its potential customers they don't belong there. We'd rather build something anyone can walk into.

If you tried our Invisible Treatment during the sale (or if you're a guy who's been low-key eyeing our shimmer oils this whole time), we see you. There's no badge you need to earn to take care of yourself.

Thank you for letting your nails be exactly what you want them to be. No labels required.

Sources:

• Market size, Sephora shelf space → Gender-Neutral Beauty Market Research Report (Link)

• Gen Z/millennial preference stats, WARC men's skincare stat → cosmetics manufacturing industry article (Link), which cites McKinsey, Statista, and WARC as its original sources

• APA 2018 guidelines → WWD feature article that quotes the guidelines (Link)

• "Invisible consumption" → peer-reviewed study in Journal of Consumer Culture (Link) — this one's a solid academic citation if a nail tech pushes back

• World Advertising Research Centre → Over 56% of men now use skincare (Link)

• Gothenburg 2024 study → The Beauty Edit feature (Link)

• Tom Ford 42% → Gender-Neutral Fragrance Market Research Report (Link)