Just as with fashion, trends in the beauty industry alter each year. What was once the hottest craze in hairstyles ten years ago, may now just cause a giggle when looking at old photographs. In contrast, with easy access to tutorials and beauty tips at the click of a button through social media platforms, like Instagram and TikTok, new trends and styles are constantly entering the beauty-sphere.  

While some beauty fads may fade to a memory, others live to stand the test of time; but what are the biggest beauty trends right now in the UK and how do these compare globally? To find out, The Body Shop analysed online search data across 64 countries to highlight the world’s biggest beauty trends today.  

The top 10 UK’s biggest beauty trends based on monthly searches are: 

Results show that the most popular trends in the UK are short haircuts, and perfectly-shaped eyebrows. While many years ago, small and thin, pencil-like eyebrows were popular, now full, thick and defined eyebrows are the go-to. In fact, “brow lamination” is the search term which saw the biggest increase in popularity in the last year, with an extra 1,495% searches since 2019, followed by “pastel eyeliner” with a rise of 735%.  

Au Natural 

Just like the impact of Covid-19 on our everyday lives, throwing us into a “new normal” of staying home and reducing our social contact to virtual means, it is evident from The Body Shop’s research that the global pandemic has also influenced our hair and beauty habits. In more ways than one, for many of us 2020 was the year of less is more and this rings true for our beauty routines throughout the year. “Natural makeup looks” received a whopping total of over 114,200 searches in the UK in 2020 – that’s a 56% increase from 2019 and 122% increase since 2016. Nottingham and Plymouth were the cities with the biggest demand for this trend, with a 73% increase between 2019 and 2020 respectively, followed by Brighton with a 71% increase.  

Natural hair appears to be the biggest trend of the last year with seven of the top ten searches for natural beauty trends based around hair. Short hair seems to specifically be the talk of the town as this dominates the top ten; the top two searches, “short hair styles” and “bob haircut” were searched for the most in Newcastle, while Manchester searched for third-place “boycut hair style” the most. Based on average monthly searches, the UK’s top 10 searches for natural beauty trends are as follows:   

Make-Up 

Out of the top ten most searched for beauty trends around the world, “red lipstick” placed tenth and the UK is the country which had searched for this the most in 2020. Manchester is the city which searched for this the most, as well as “lip plumper gloss” and “winged eyeliner”. When looking at the top searches for make-up in the UK however, Newcastle is the city which searched for the top two make-up trends – “bronzer” and “how to contour” – the most. On the other hand, it appears Glaswegians are now opting for more natural habits with “natural makeup looks” being most popular in their city in 2020.   

Based on average monthly searches, the UK’s top 10 searches for make-up trends are as follows:  

Hair 

Again, it’s Newcastle that dominates the top ten searches for hair trends with the city being home to the most searches for eight out of the top ten search terms, with Manchester taking the crown for the remaining two. Styling and colouring are the themes which populate the top ten searches for hair here in the UK, and when it comes to dyeing our locks, un-natural colours were the biggest trend for 2020. Pink, purple, red, and blue hair dye all place in the top, however it’s pink, green and blue hair dye that have seen the biggest increase in searches with all three seeing a rise in popularity of over 200% since 2019. Searches for “natural red hair colour” also saw a climb, with 202% more searches for this term compared to the previous year.  

The top 10 searches for hairstyle trends in the UK, based on average monthly searches are:  

Men 

Hair trends take the top three spots in the popular searches for beauty trends for men. It appears “short haircuts for men” takes the crown, followed by “long hairstyles for men” and “hair dye for men”. The top two are searched for the most in Manchester while third place resides in Newcastle. Looking elsewhere, “eyebrow slits men” is searched for the most in Plymouth and has seen the biggest increase in searches with a 212% rise between 2019 and 2020, and a whopping 15,456% increase since 2016. The trend of “long hairstyles for men” has seen the second highest increase with 154% more searches in 2020 than in 2019, followed by “skincare for men” with a 120% rise in popularity.  

Global 

The research was not just limited to the UK; to compare how beauty trends differ across the world, The Body Shop analysed and compared Google search data on beauty trends in 64 countries across all continents. Short hair appears to be a common trend across the globe as the style has taken the top three most popular searches for natural beauty trends. The most searched for beauty trend around the world is “short hair styles” with over 1.4 million Google searches a month. It is in fact the UK which searches for this term the most with an average of 165,000 searches each month. The trend “boycut hair style” ranks second in the list, and is most searched for in Guyana, while the third ranked trend of the “bob haircut” is most popular in Germany.