Cosmoprof North America is targeting its biggest audience yet — the beauty consumer.
The organization has unveiled Beauty New York, a four-day, consumer-facing event that will kick off Oct. 15.
“It’s our fashion week for beauty,” said Liza Rapay, vice president and head of Cosmoprof North America, who founded Beauty New York. “I wanted to do what’s right for the market, and for us beauty lovers, New York is where it all started in terms of modern beauty: Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden, Estée Lauder. That was the inspiration.”
Additionally, Cosmoprof partners with Esxence and Cosmetica Italia on Milano Beauty Week, which gave Rapay insights on how best to serve attendees.
“We got to follow along, and I started wondering why we wouldn’t do something like that in New York,” Rapay said. “It doesn’t exist in the market. I had seen what Milan was looking like, and the white space is here. We have Premiere Shows, which is for professionals, and Cosmoprof, which is retail and business-to-business. What was missing was the consumer piece.”
Citing Circana data, Rapay noted that the beauty market across channels amounted to $8.3 billion in 2024 in New York, outpacing beauty’s overall growth in the U.S.
“The success of this market is industrywide, with both mass and prestige retail posting unit growth, which is a strong indicator of the consumer demand in this dynamic city,” said Larissa Jensen, global beauty industry adviser at Circana, in a statement from Beauty New York.
The event will begin with a black tie gala on Oct. 15 at the Hall des Lumières, followed by an industry-facing forum called Beauty New York Voices & Visionaries the next day. The final two days will be ticketed and open to the public, with varied tiers of access, VIP and general.
Tickets will go on sale for the event in June at Beauty New York’s website.
“There will be between 40 and 50 brands doing pure activations. There’s no selling, it’s purely experiential,” Rapay said, though she expects the event to provide a lift for participating brands.
“October kicks off the holiday selling for these brands, as well as for retailers. It’s the most important quarter,” she said. “There are also a lot of new launches in the fall, too. This consumer experience will help drive them to purchase either online or in-store.”
Rapay is also in conversations with retail players to “create an environment where we lift everyone together,” she said. “We’re not having retailers or brands create anything new, this is about leveraging what was already planned and driving its consumption.”
Similar to Cosmoprof’s CosmoTalks programming, Beauty New York will also have a speaker lineup, which is yet to be revealed.
