How Consumers Shopped Beauty for Valentine’s Day 2025, According to Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Target and More

Emily Burns, Noor Lobad, James Manso and Kathryn Hopkins

Fri, February 21, 2025 at 6:00 AM UTC

4 min read

Retailers saw an increase in sales of lip balms, candles, and fragrances leading up to Valentine’s Day.
Florals and gender-neutral fragrances were popular choices for Valentine’s Day gifting at niche fragrance shops.
Luxury skin care, gift sets, and new fragrance launches were top sellers for Valentine’s Day at major beauty retailers.

Fragrances for Valentine's Day? Groundbreaking.

Every year, consumers flock to retailers, both mass and prestige, to stock up on heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and gift sets of romantic perfumes. This year was no different, though a few key trends popped up, per major retailers. In addition to scent, some retailers noted that within the fragrance category, candles were also popular gifts this year.

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Self care also seemed to be a major trend, with products like lip balms, eye masks and skin care seeing an uptick.

Here, a look at what performed well this Valentine's Day for five key beauty retailers.

Target

At Target , the themes that reigned for Valentine's Day included lip, self care and fragrance.

The retailer reported an increase in sales of lip balms and oils during the lead-up to the holiday , particularly those by E.l.f. Cosmeticsand Naturium's viral $10 Phyto-Glow Lip Balm.

On the self care front: Under-eye patches from Dot Dot Dash, sheet masks from ESW Beautyand tools like facial ice rollers and gua shas grew.

Meanwhile, body scrubs from Tree Hutand Daise— the new Gen Z and Gen Alpha-focused brand by Jaimee Lupton— were up.

Fragrances were "a popular item around Valentine's Day," said a spokesperson for the retailer, adding that it saw particular interest in both male and female fragrances from Fine'ry. Beauty minis across categories, too, saw an uptick.

Stéle

Is a florals wave encroaching on the gourmand fragrance trend?

At Stéle, New York's cult-favorite niche fragrance shop with locations in Williamsburg and NoLIta, such has been the case as of late — and especially leading up to Valentine's Day.

Régime des Fleurs' newest fragrance, Tóor Tóor, launches Oct. 1 for $240. — Régime des Fleurs Tóor Tóor

"People have been asking for florals — we are completely sold out of Régime des Fleurs , a floral line which we carry almost 10 stock keeping units from," said Jake Levy, who opened Stéle with partner, Matt Belanger.

Requests for spice-infused fragrances — chiefly coriander, saffron and cumin — have also been on the upswing, while momentum for gender-neutral fragrances has impacted the way consumers approach Valentine's Day gifting.

The most successful gifting approaches, Levy said, don't necessarily lead with note preferences but rather "a conceptual starting point — where someone can say, 'OK — this seems like him' or 'this doesn't seem like her' and so on.

"We'll see male stockbrokers walk out with Liis' Rose Struck— whether it's male- or female-presenting customers, people are switching it up," he added.

Bloomingdale's

According to Bloomingdale's fashion director of accessories and beauty Marissa Galante, this year Valentine's Day shopping was all about gift sets and discovery sets. She noted that Bloomingdale's exclusive fragrance gift set exceeded its initial projections.

"This gift set was in a playful heart shaped box, attracted a wide range of customers and sold out quickly," she said. "Bloomingdale's customers are looking for gifts that are elevated yet playful and spark a sense of joy. Some of our best gifts were elevated classics with a fun twist, like the Diptyque candle duo featuring two bestselling scents but with limited-edition Valentine's Day packaging."

New launches were also a hit for the retailer — specifically, Parfums de Marly's Valaya Exclusifand Jo Malone's Taif Rosewere bestsellers this year.

Aside from fragrance, Galante noted that luxury skin care was also popular, particularly La Mer's new The Rejuvenating Night Cream.

Bluemercury

At Bluemercury, Katlyn Skrinak, associate merchant profession skin care, body and tools, said that fragrance was king, no matter the format.

"In the week leading up to Valentine's Day, our website experienced a notable increase in searches for candles, with LAFCO's Lavender Amber Candleemerging as the top fragrance on site," she said. "Additionally, we saw a surge in the popularity of eau de parfums and date night makeup, with Tom Ford's Lost Cherryencased in a beautiful deep red packaging, topping the fragrance list. Meanwhile, in store trends stayed largely consistent with the usual patterns, pointing to the popularity of our digital Valentine's Day guide among clients this year."

Macy's

"Macy's is the ultimate gifting destination and this Valentine's Day, we celebrated with thoughtfully curated gifts, offering newness and on trend assortment across all product categories. Some of the customers' favorites included handbags, elevated watches and beauty and fragrance sets," said Julie Walsh, senior vice president of center core and beauty at Macy's.

On the beauty front, designer and luxury brands like Dior, Gucci Beauty, Yves Saint Laurent Beautéand Carolina Herreraperformed particularly well across both lip products and fragrances, according to Walsh. Valentino Beautyfragrances also hit high notes. Some newer products, such as Estée Lauder's Laduréecollaboration, also piqued interest.

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