The digital landscape is a central premise of the beauty industry, defining the industry and its brands by virality, visibility, and a sort of religious devotion to skincare routines. However, a quiet revolution, de-influencing, is reshaping the industry. Mega beauty influencers like OvercomingOverspending, Chelsea Vanity, Aiza LC, and many others have jumped on this trend, taking to their accounts and beginning videos with the scroll-stopping, “let me de-influence you for a minute.”
Audiences are becoming increasingly skeptical of curated content and are more resistant to overt product promotion. There’s a growing appetite for authenticity, simplicity, and content that feels more real and less rehearsed. This shift is giving rise to the de-influencing trend—a movement where creators are pulling back from excessive recommendations, encouraging more mindful consumption, and rethinking how they engage with beauty products online. As brands grapple with this shift, they’re discovering that success now demands presence, not performance.
This transformation is not anecdotal—it’s measurable. According to the latest report from Jellyfish’s Social Agents, a proprietary AI-powered social insight tool, the most engaging beauty content of 2025 is quieter, more emotionally intuitive, and rooted in moment-driven storytelling rather than step-by-step how-tos. For brands, this moment presents both a challenge and an opportunity. As the rules of engagement evolve, businesses will need to rethink how they communicate value, build trust, and remain relevant in an industry where influence no longer looks or works as it once did.
From Routine to Rhythm: A Shift in Beauty Logic
“People are fatigued—visibly, culturally, emotionally,” said Rhiannon Davies, VP of Creative Strategy at Jellyfish and product lead for Social Agents, to BeautyMatter. “They don’t want to be sold to anymore. What they want is to feel something,” she continued. This craving for presence over polish is playing out in real time, and as Davies explains, “There’s a shift from ‘Here’s how to glow up’ to ‘Here’s how I’m glowing today.’ And that subtlety changes everything.”
Jellyfish’s data reveals a sharp decline in captions anchored by terms like “routine” or “glam,” replaced by keywords like “on-the-go,” “sun,” and “hydrated.” Content is increasingly shaped by intuition rather than instruction.
Beauty’s visual signature is also undergoing a profound recalibration. In 2024, high-production content, including tight framing, text overlays, and scripted tutorials, was the norm. Today, audiences are gravitating toward what Davies called “emotionally louder” visuals, including natural shadows, tactile gestures, blurred close-ups, and unfiltered lighting.
This aesthetic doesn’t signal a decline in production quality. Rather, it reflects a deliberate loosening of control. “It’s not that people don’t care about how things look,” Davies noted. “It’s that they don’t want to feel like they’re being manipulated.” Texts have become lighter, overlays are becoming more minimal, and transitions—once hyperstimulating—are increasingly absent, with the ultimate goal of sliding seamlessly into the scroll, rather than stopping it with spectacle.
Influence Without the Influencer
Perhaps, the most striking shift is who is or isn’t at the center of the frame. In 2024, named influencers dominated top-performing posts. In 2025, Social Agents reported a significant increase in content tagged “in-house” or “no talent.” Faces are blurred or omitted altogether, hands apply serum, voices fall silent. “We’re seeing a decentralization of influence,” said Davies. “It’s no longer about the person selling the product. It’s about how the content makes you feel.”
Anonymous, low-effort content often outperforms polished influencer campaigns. For brands, this democratization of influence is both liberating and unsettling. It signals a cultural fluency among consumers who can now spot the sell, and who are increasingly rejecting it. As Davies put it, “Audiences today don’t want to be influenced. They want to choose.”
Despite its name, however, de-influencing isn’t anti-commerce. On the contrary, Social Agents revealed that calls-to-action, such as “shop,” “link,” and “tap,” remain prevalent. What has changed is the delivery. “It’s not just what the product does,” Davies explained. “It’s how it feels—how it moves.” These products also lend themselves to low-effort demonstration. For example, a swipe, a glisten, or even a mood. There’s no need for a ten-minute breakdown or a seven-product lineup. In today’s feed, one good moment is worth a thousand steps.
At its core, de-influencing is a cultural response to the exhaustion of traditional influencer culture. It echoes wider trends like quiet luxury, dopamine dressing, and AI fatigue, arising from a landscape flooded with noise, commerce, and curated perfection.
The result is a collective craving for slowness, texture, and truth. “Beauty doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” Davies said. “It reflects how we feel. And right now, people feel tired. They want control, choicefulness, and clarity.”
That desire is evident in data-driven skincare captions, increased demand for dermatological expertise, and a renewed emphasis on science-driven storytelling. Brands like The Ordinary, for example, once seen as niche, are now resonating anew, thanks to their accessible language and clinical positioning.
What Brands Need to Do Next
In the very saturated creative landscape, clarity of brand mission is everything. “Know who you are. Know who you’re speaking to,” Davies urged. “That way, when a trend comes along, you know whether to engage or let it pass. There’s also gold in the gaps. That’s where brands can meet real needs, not just create more noise.” The beauty brands that thrive in this new climate will be those that trade scale for specificity, presence for performance, and sell not with spectacle but with sincerity.
Davies is pragmatic about the road ahead. “It’s like fashion. The pendulum swings. But even if we swing back to maximalism, the muscle memory of this moment will remain,” she said. What’s likely is a future where influence becomes more niche, more community-driven, and more emotionally resonant. Broad-based UGC might fade, but creators with deep expertise—think dermatologists, celebrity artists, or identity-driven voices—will endure.
“Human influencers aren’t going away,” Davies concluded. “But the ones who last will be those who offer more than just a face—they’ll offer perspective, precision, and trust.” In the end, de-influencing isn’t about abandoning influence, but about earning it back—one swipe, one soft light, and one unsponsored moment at a time.
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