TL;DR
Beauty companies experimented with virtual storefronts, events and staff training as metaverse interest grew, but those projects have since faded from public view. In a Cosmetics Business report, brand consultant Nick Vaus argues that many initiatives lacked a clear consumer need; the available source is an extract, so it does not establish a full industry-wide explanation or provide other experts’ views.
Beauty brands’ metaverse activity has largely slipped from view after a burst of virtual storefronts, branded events and other experiments, according to a Cosmetics Business report examining what happened to the trend. One expert quoted in the available extract, consultant Nick Vaus, says companies often moved into the space without establishing a compelling reason for consumers to take part.
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The report describes a period when beauty companies were eager to establish a presence in avatar-based online environments. Examples included virtual storefronts from Laneige and Laura Mercier, an Urban Decay launch party hosted on Roblox, and a Pride parade organized by NYX. Coty also used virtual environments for staff training sessions, extending the experiments beyond consumer marketing.
In 2023, advertising agency Cult launched Metaverse Beauty Week, a virtual festival built around beauty-focused online events. The report contrasts that level of activity with the trend’s diminished profile just three years later. The source extract does not provide figures on spending, participation, sales or audience retention, so the scale of the retreat cannot be quantified from the material available.
Vaus, creative director at brand and design consultancy Free the Birds, says the technology may have advanced faster than consumers’ appetite for using it. He argues that some projects appeared designed to meet a brand objective rather than deliver an experience consumers considered valuable. His comments are an expert’s interpretation, not evidence that every beauty metaverse project performed poorly.
Why Beauty Brands Pulled Back
The retreat matters because the earlier experiments involved more than a passing marketing theme: brands tested retail, events, training and digital experiences in virtual spaces. Their fading visibility raises practical questions for companies deciding where to direct marketing budgets and how to reach consumers online.
Vaus’s central point is about the gap between adopting a technology and solving a customer problem. If an experience asks people to create avatars or enter a separate virtual environment without offering a distinct benefit, novelty alone may not sustain use. That interpretation does not establish a single cause for the broader slowdown, but it gives brands a test for future digital projects: define the audience and the value before building the experience.
The episode also cautions against treating early publicity as proof of lasting consumer demand. The examples in the report confirm that brands and agencies tried a range of formats; the available extract does not show whether those initiatives generated measurable commercial returns or why individual projects ended.
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From Brand Experiments to Quiet
The metaverse was commonly described as an immersive online environment where people interact through avatars. During the period of heightened interest, beauty companies explored ways to adapt familiar activities—shopping, product promotion, events and employee instruction—to virtual settings. Laneige and Laura Mercier were associated with virtual stores, while Urban Decay and NYX used virtual events to promote launches and Pride.
The 2023 launch of Metaverse Beauty Week illustrated how the subject had become a coordinated industry conversation, rather than a handful of isolated brand projects. The Cosmetics Business report now asks why that activity did not sustain its visibility. Its supplied extract gives Vaus’s assessment but ends before the full article, which is described as premium subscriber content. The available material therefore supports a limited account, not a complete survey of the industry or all the experts consulted.
““Essentially the ‘why’ got lost.””
— Nick Vaus, creative director at Free the Birds
What the Available Extract Cannot Show
The supplied report extract does not include the full article or the views of the other experts it says Cosmetics Business consulted. It therefore does not establish a definitive explanation for the metaverse’s decline in beauty, or show whether the experts agree with Vaus.
It is also unclear how much brands invested, how many people used the experiences, whether the projects met their original goals, and whether any remain active in less visible forms. The report’s description of the metaverse as having become a distant memory reflects its framing of the trend, not a measured finding that all related activity has ended.
The Test for Future Virtual Projects
The immediate next step for a fuller account is access to the complete Cosmetics Business report, which may contain the additional expert perspectives absent from the supplied extract. The available source gives no scheduled follow-up, new launch or industry data that would establish what beauty brands will do next.
For companies weighing similar projects, Vaus’s comments point to a practical question: can a virtual experience offer consumers something useful or distinctive enough to justify their time? Whether brands return to avatar-based spaces, use other digital formats or leave these experiments behind remains unclear from the material available.
Key Questions
What is the beauty metaverse?
It refers here to immersive online environments where people interact through avatars, used by beauty brands for activities such as virtual shopping, events and training.
Which beauty brands or companies tried metaverse projects?
The report names Laneige and Laura Mercier for virtual storefronts, Urban Decay for a Roblox launch party, NYX for a Pride parade, and Coty for virtual staff training.
Why does Nick Vaus think the trend lost momentum?
Vaus says the technology may have advanced without enough attention to consumer behaviour or demand. He argues that some projects lacked a clear reason for consumers to participate.
Did the metaverse end for beauty brands?
The available extract says the trend has become much less visible, but it does not show that all metaverse activity has stopped. It includes no complete industry inventory or data on projects still operating.
Does the report show whether the projects made money?
No. The supplied material gives no spending, sales, audience or return-on-investment figures, so it cannot establish the commercial results of the named projects.
Source: rss
