Body creams aren’t just body creams anymore. More and more brands are launching options infused with active ingredients that have long been used in facial skin care. Labrecque refers to this movement as the “faceification of body care,” noting that it’s one of Unilever’s top product-development priorities for 2025. Unlike the “skinification” of body care, which Labrecque says involves the awareness of simply developing a care routine for body skin, faceification takes the process a step further and delivers targeted benefits and personalized solutions for consumers who are looking to upgrade their body-care regimen.
“We can see that this level of intention people take with body care is here to stay,” Labrecque says. And Dr. Gohara predicts we’ll see a “more sophisticated approach to body skin care” overall through advanced ingredients like body-specific retinoids and barrier-repair components. She also expects an upgrade in the body-cleansing category. “We will see ingredients that benefit skin texture, tone, wrinkle reduction, hydration in body washes,” she says. “Body is finally having the moment it deserves. It is the majority of our skin, after all!”
But Dhaval Bhanusali, MD, a board-certified dermatologist, says the skin on the body and its pathology is different from skin on the face. “We look at different actives at different strengths for the body, where skin can be thicker or more sensitive,” he says. For example, effectively exfoliating dead skin on the body may require a higher strength of salicylic acid than what’s found in facial products, or an entirely different ingredient that isn’t recommended for the face.