There’s a woman somewhere in her late forties or early fifties who has been buying beauty products for thirty years. She has a job, aging parents, kids who may or may not still depend on her, and she knows her skin. She’s tried the serums that didn’t work and the sunscreens that left a cast. She has a point of view about ingredients, a few brands she trusts, and very little patience for being directed toward a wall of product she didn’t ask for. She did not come to browse. She came to find the one thing she already researched, pay for it, and leave.
This is the typical Gen X beauty shopper, born between 1965 and 1980, representing 24 percent of Southeast Asia’s population according to Mintel’s industry study Inside the Forgotten World of Gen X: Southeast Asia. She’s one of the region’s most financially discerning consumers, shaped by economic uncertainty in the ’90s into someone who thinks carefully before she spends. She is also, as Mintel puts it with some understatement, “overlooked and forgotten” in favor of Gen Z and Millennials.
It’s a strange place to be, for a woman with this much purchasing power.
The Spending Power Is Real
A recent Business of Fashion (BoF) piece made the case plainly: Gen X and older millennials are beauty’s biggest spenders, and retailers are finally rethinking how to reach them. Mintel’s study puts it in regional terms: Gen X represents 24 percent of the population here in Southeast Asia, with accumulated savings and a level of purchasing discernment that tends to deepen with age.
Discerning is a good word for it. This tends to be someone who researches before she buys, who has a point of view about actives or product benefits, and who isn’t easily swayed by a pretty campaign.
A joint 2025 report by NielsenIQ, World Data, and Spate—cited in the BoF article—also found that Gen X accounts for 28 percent of beauty purchasing in the US, spending a projected $86 billion on beauty products and services last year. They’re expected to hold that position until at least 2034. The money is there. The question has always been whether the industry is making the right things for her—and selling them in the right way.
She Knows What She Wants
She tends to be someone who researches before she buys, cross-referencing reviews and ingredient lists before committing to anything new. Mintel found that 45 percent of Filipino consumers aged 45 to 64 think brands should provide more scientific evidence to back up their products’ claims—noticeably more than younger consumers who feel the same way. She’s not impossible to win over. She just needs to be spoken to honestly.
What’s also shifted, for many women in this cohort, is how they think about spending overall. Less about chasing what’s new, more about investing in what actually works for them. Alicia*, a 52-year-old housewife who has been buying beauty products since the ’90s and has watched trends come and go ever since, puts it this way: “In my thirties, beauty spending was more about trends, trying new products, and wanting quick results. Now that I’m in my fifties, I think about beauty more intentionally. I focus more on quality over quantity, products that actually work for my skin, and things that support healthy aging.”
The decision is driven by results, not by marketing. “If a product performs well, lasts a long time, and fits into my routine, I’m more willing to invest in it,” she says. “If it shows results, then it’s worth the price.” It sounds straightforward, but it’s a higher bar than it might seem, especially for a consumer who may have bought enough disappointing products to know the difference between a claim and a result.
On top of that, brands chasing long-term loyalty tend to focus on younger consumers, but the report points out the risk in that logic: Staying focused on young shoppers means overlooking the immense buying power Gen X already represents.
The Sandwich Generation Goes Shopping
The report also describes Gen X across Southeast Asia as the “sandwich generation”—managing aging parents alongside their own families, financially and emotionally stretched in more than one direction. Beauty, for many of them, might have to fit into the margins of a very full life.
She is not, in other words, shopping with a lot of time to spare. “I don’t have time to shop,” says Alicia, “which is why online shopping is very convenient.” She plans purchases in advance, arriving at any store—physical or digital—already knowing what she needs. “Beauty shopping is something I plan. I determine first if I really need the product.”
And beauty, for her, is viewed as self-care rather than indulgence. “When I get busy, I simplify my routine,” she says. “It’s less about being overly polished and more about feeling good and taking care of myself, even during stressful times.” Framing beauty as the part of the day that belongs entirely to her feels somewhat specific to this life stage, and it has implications for how brands might speak to her.
Where She’s Shopping
BoF also reported that specialty beauty retailers saw a notable drop in Gen X shoppers between 2024 and 2025, per Mintel data—even as overall beauty spending held steady. The spend didn’t disappear but rather moved somewhere more convenient.
For Alicia, those places are e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada. “I can easily find what I’m looking for, it’s free shipping, and there are a lot of choices,” she says. But online has its limits, and she knows exactly what they are. “Some makeup such as foundation or powder—I need to know if it matches my skin tone. Also, fragrance. I need to be able to smell it.” For those, she’ll make the trip.
What brings her into a store, and what sends her back out, is also specific. “A good experience feels welcoming, helpful, and easy without being pushy,” she says. “The store feels clean, organised, and comfortable to browse.” On the other hand, being ignored, judged, overwhelmed, or approached too aggressively is enough to turn her away. More than anything, she isn’t looking to be dazzled—she simply wants to feel assisted.
What would make a store worth the visit, she says, would be “being able to test shades and scents, and having knowledgeable staff who can give real guidance for my skin type.” BoF’s reporting found this consistent across the cohort globally, as the in-store discovery experience is still where the gap lives, and where the most interesting opportunities remain.
What She Actually Responds To
The research paints a consistent portrait of the Gen X consumer across categories—food, beauty, health, finance. She is pragmatic and adaptable—having navigated the shift from analog to digital, she is not afraid of new things, but she is not chasing them. And she brings what Mintel calls “healthy scepticism” to everything she buys: She wants brands to be transparent and not assume she’ll buy something just because it’s new or beautifully packaged.
In beauty terms, this looks like a woman who reads ingredient labels and product claims before she reads brand names. She’s someone who would rather have one serum that genuinely does something than a cabinet full of pretty bottles; someone who responds to a knowledgeable sales associate not because she needs to be educated, but because she wants to have an actual conversation with someone who knows the products they’re talking about.
How She Thinks About Spending Now
One of the more interesting shifts in this generation is how beauty spending has changed—not shrunk, but evolved. “In my thirties, beauty spending was more about trends, trying new products, and wanting quick results,” Alicia says. “Now that I’m in my fifties, I think about beauty more intentionally. I focus more on quality over quantity, products that actually work for my skin, and things that support healthy aging.”
Results drive the decision. “If a product performs well, lasts a long time, and fits into my routine, I’m more willing to invest in it,” she says. “If it shows results, then it’s worth the price.”
Why This Matters Now
A lot of the industry’s focus here has pointed younger—and given how beauty-obsessed and digitally fluent Filipino Gen Z is, that’s not surprising. But the Gen X and older millennial Filipina is already spending, already informed, and perhaps more open to being delighted than she’s given credit for.
Those Filipinas are often the quieter, more enduring beauty consumers—the women who have been buying products since the ’90s, who remember when Rustan’s was one of the only places to find a good moisturizer, and who have lived through enough trends to know which ones were actually worth investing in. The Philippine beauty market is projected to nearly double by 2033, and they remain a meaningful part of that growth—if the industry chooses to truly show up for them.
*Name has been changed for privacy reasons.
