2 in 3 women are turning to nail appointments for mental wellbeing

Research from salon booking platform, Fresha, has revealed that two in three women are supporting their mental wellbeing via beauty experiences in 2024.

This aligns with TikTok trend, ‘girl therapy’, with #girltherapy used on over 50K posts. The phrase is used to show when girls and women prioritise self-care, via activities from dancing to their favourite songs to carrying out beauty routines, such as applying a face mask or visiting a nail salon.

In Fresha’s The Future of Beauty & Wellness Report 2024, created in collaboration with trend forecasting authority, WGSN, 59% of beauty consumers surveyed shared that they see wellness as being about how they feel both mentally and emotionally. Less than a third (32%) noted that it is just about how they feel physically.

Findings show that two-thirds of women (65%) are turning to beauty experiences that prioritise their mental and emotional health, over physical health. And over half of the men surveyed (52%) agreed that they are doing the same.

The report details that these emotionally driven actions are understandable, as the last three years have marked a turbulent period, with the Covid-19 pandemic, cost of living crisis and climate emergency impacting emotional wellbeing. It cites the 2022 Gallup Global Emotions Report, which found that a mixture of negative emotions including anger, stress, anxiety, fear and sadness has led to a new record level of unhappiness, compared with its first edition in 2006.

Read the full The Future of Beauty & Wellness Report 2024 here.

Scratch shares more trends and insights from the report here.