Marc Prieur, President of Aptar Beauty
© Aptar Beauty
At the LUXE PACK New York show in May 2025, Formes de Luxe caught up with Marc Prieur, President of dispensing specialist Aptar Beauty. He shares his candid insider’s view on the latest trends, from the rise of C-Beauty to the growing popularity of on-the-go fragrance formats.
How do you see the beauty market’s performance in the context of current geopolitical headwinds?
Marc Prieur: Beauty has always been a complex and exciting business, but it has become much more uncertain and volatile. This volatility relates to both to economic fluctuations and the political and tariff landscape. Since the pandemic, supply chains have been increasingly strained with a stop-and-go pattern. This causes uncertainty throughout the entire value chain. And as packaging suppliers very much upstream in the process, we feel these market jolts with a delay. But we adapt!
We experienced a rebound in 2021-2024 in the prestige fragrance sector. Customers stocked up and sometimes overstocked in anticipation of a strong market recovery. By the end of 2024, there was a fair amount of destocking, or normalization. This impacted us in the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025.
But we’re anticipating a gradual recovery in demand in Q2 and Q3. What we hear from the market is a return to low single-digit growth.
Aptar is fortunate to have a ‘local for local’ strategy. Our very regional supply chains allow us to be agile. During the health pandemic it gave us a certain amount of resiliency, and we continued to ship to our customers with very little disruption.
What about the prestige facial skincare market?
The segment has mainly been impacted by what’s been happening in China—the world’s largest skincare market—over the past 18 months. When a market that has been seeing double-digit growth experiences a double-digit decline, it's significant! Overall consumption has dropped, but the segment is slowly but surely beginning to recover in the region.
What role does C-Beauty have in this recovery?
Aptar Beauty has progressed in China in part because we supply C-Beauty brands, which have been gaining market share on international brands, be they Korean, Japanese, European, or from the US. Two years ago, C-Beauty brands had 49% of China’s market, and today they are at 55 or 56%. This shift is happening gradually but quite markedly. It began before Covid and will certainly continue. For now, these are more masstige brands; the younger generations of Chinese have a real concept of value for money.
The China beauty wave is asserting itself in the same way as China fashion has. It's important to understand this. Our Innovation Center in China is a response to this; it covers all of Aptar’s product segments and our Chinese teams have an inside view of the market and the innovations that could be suited to the local consumer.
What are these Chinese brands asking from their suppliers?
The bulk of the business is in skincare solutions: innovation, quality and performance requirements that are in keeping with international standards. But innovation for C-Beauty brands isn’t the disruptive innovation that is in demand in Europe; it’s more focused on formula protection as they have significant claims in that area.
There is also strong demand for full packaging solutions. Not a standard product, but one that offers key elements to assert the brand’s marketing and positioning.
How will the China market evolve in the short term?
As I said, we see recovery on the horizon, and our order book confirms this. We are quite serene when it comes to the next two quarters, and even the full year. But of course, given the global market uncertainty, we need to exercise caution.
How do you see the growing trend for body sprays?
This segment is developing especially in the US and Latin America. Some analysts are linking the category’s success to the escalation of the price of fragrance, but this is an underlying trend that began well before the price increases and is now accelerating. I’d attribute the growth of body sprays more to marketing initiatives, and influencers. I believe fragrance’s high price points will motivate consumers to opt for more masstige scents or even dupes. We certainly see dupes taking more place in the market.
Nomad Refill, Aptar Beauty's 10ml on-the-go format ©Aptar Beauty
There is talk that brands are reducing their investments into more sustainable packaging given the difficult market conditions.
That’s not entirely true. First of all, the level of demand for sustainable solutions is not the same everywhere. Europe is the major driver, but in Asia and China, for example, if we look at C-Beauty brands, we’re seeing strong demand for recycled resins and other more sustainable options. These brands are taking an interesting approach: as they are starting “from scratch”, they immediately position their brand at an advanced competitive level, rather than going little by little on the sustainability journey. This is an extremely positive sign.
What about Aptar Beauty’s sustainability agenda?
In terms of our pumps, our entire portfolio must be converted to full plastic [to be recyclable] within a two-year horizon. It’s a significant investment. These components will certainly be used more quickly and more heavily in Europe than in other regions. Brands have focused on containers first, which is the largest part of plastic by volume; pumps only represent about 5% of the total volume.
What are your priorities regarding innovation?
Innovation needs to respond to sustainability-related trends—mono-material solutions, offers such as refill, reload, reuse… But innovation is also about bringing things to market that don’t exist. Aptar Beauty’s Nomad Refill is a good illustration of this. While sampling formats are declining—for various reasons—the 10ml refill category didn’t exist. It addresses two trends: on-the-go and refill.
NeoDropper Autoload is a recent addition to Aptar's dropper offer ©Aptar Beauty
What other areas of dispensing innovation are you targeting?
Previously, Aptar Beauty wasn’t present in the dropper market. This segment is gaining share from pumps, so we are developing a portfolio across different price points, be it mass, masstige, or prestige. NeoDropper Autoload is one of these. Our strategy has always been to maintain a leadership position through innovation, but not to come out with me-too products.
How do you see the fragrance refill market?
I’d say it’s not just black and white. There are some questions, such as the logic of selling fragrances priced well above €150 with a refill at around €100, for example. And a fragrance, even with daily use, lasts quite a long time.
I think fragrance refills will really take off with innovative formats, such as Nomad Refill. But not necessarily through a standard-sized bottle that must be refilled in-store, where the pump needs to be disassembled and again with a refill that is quite costly... Refills will likely be more focused on larger containers, such as for shampoo, etc. They might also soon be challenged by powder or dry formulations.
What can you tell us about Aptar Beauty's connected solutions?
Our group ecosystem invests heavily in digital mainly within our Digital Health Division, and some of these technologies cross over into beauty. Our Connected Airless systems via an app are just one example. [Bluetooth or NFC provide connection with the consumer's phone allowing for services including an application diary, view of before/after results on the skin, recommendations, communication with a dermatologist...] Some clients are starting to be interested in this type of innovation, but the product must be designed with connectivity from the start. Add-on components don’t make sense. But one thing is certain: when we talk about innovation, digital is an important part of the equation!
