Beauty Holiday Campaigns 2025: What This Year’s Creative Says About How Brands Want to Show Up

Holiday campaigns in beauty used to follow a predictable formula: metallic palettes, a few product close-ups, and a safe emotional arc. In 2025, that template noticeably loosened. Brands approached the season with a clearer view of who they are, and an equally clear idea of what they don’t need to pretend to be.

Taken together, this year’s work shows an industry getting more comfortable with identity, more open to cross-category influence, and more confident about meeting audiences where they actually are, not where seasonal advertising insists they should be.

Below are eight campaigns that illustrate that shift, each in its own way.

Refy — “Iconic Never Gets Old”

Refy enters the season with unusual restraint. Instead of creating a decorative holiday layer over its core identity, the brand makes a case for the value of staying exactly as it is. The campaign’s visuals echo the clean precision that defined Refy from the beginning – no festive reinvention, just a steady return to the brand’s foundational aesthetic. There’s a confidence in that choice. Young brands typically overextend during the holidays, eager to demonstrate momentum. Refy does the opposite: it chooses continuity over spectacle, signalling that the identity it established early on is not a phase or a trend, but the shape it intends to hold. In doing so, it exposes an emerging preference for consistency at a time when consumers are overwhelmed by seasonal sameness.

Mariah Carey x Sephora — “It’s Time”

Sephora taps into something advertisers rarely get to use: a cultural reflex. Mariah Carey’s annual reappearance marks the unofficial start of the season, and the brand positions itself right inside that moment. There’s no reinvention of Carey’s persona, no attempt to stylize her into a Sephora aesthetic. The campaign works because it doesn’t interfere. It simply joins an event that already activates millions of consumers.

It’s a reminder that some partnerships succeed because the cultural work is already done. Sephora just steps into the frame at the right time.

Kérastase — Holiday Short Film

Kérastase chooses pace over volume. While many holiday campaigns lean on fast edits and spectacle, the brand’s short film slows everything down. Long shots, intimate framing, and an emphasis on haircare as a personal ritual give the work a quiet confidence rarely seen in December advertising. The film shows a brand comfortable operating on its own tempo.

@kerastase.official

This holiday season, Paris awaits wherever you are.  Step inside a miniature City of Light and discover our limited-edition hand-drawn gift sets inspired by Parisian streets and iconic architecture, glowing under the festive golden light.  #Kerastase #HolidayGiftSet #HolidaySeason #GiftIdea #HairTok

♬ original sound – Kérastase

Gap — “Give Your Gift” (following a year of movement- and music-led creative)

Gap is not a beauty brand, but its recent creative trajectory offers a valuable lens for understanding where youth-oriented sectors – including beauty – are moving. Across the year, the company has built campaigns around forms of expression rather than product: first with choreography-driven denim work, later through K-pop-inspired formats, and now through a holiday film anchored in a reimagined version of “The Climb” performed by Sienna Spiro. The continuity lies not in what Gap shows, but in how it chooses to participate in culture.

In beauty, where brands often struggle to differentiate tone from message, Gap’s approach is instructive. Each campaign carries the same underlying premise: style as expression. The holiday film fits seamlessly into that framework. Instead of shifting its voice for the season, Gap extends the artistic vocabulary it has been shaping all year. The brand’s progression shows what it looks like to evolve without fragmenting identity.

Charlotte Tilbury — Holiday 2025 With Céline Dion

Charlotte Tilbury continues to anchor its storytelling around Charlotte herself, even when partnering with a global star like Céline Dion. The founder’s presence has become part of the brand’s narrative architecture – she appears consistently enough that campaigns feel authored.

Dion brings scale and emotional range, but Tilbury keeps the center of gravity in the same place. It’s a structure that protects the brand voice while still allowing for high-profile collaborations.

Maybelline in “Maybe This Christmas”

Rather than produce its own holiday universe, Maybelline inserts itself into a genre that already commands attention: the holiday romance film. The placement inside a Hallmark-style narrative gives the brand access to a loyal audience segment that isn’t necessarily immersed in beauty content but shows up for seasonal storytelling year after year.

The integration feels natural partly because the genre is so established. Viewers aren’t being asked to adopt a new visual world; the brand is stepping into one that millions already treat as tradition.

Maybelline’s integration into a Hallmark-style holiday film shifts the brand into a cultural environment where viewers are already emotionally receptive. Rather than building its own festive world, the brand takes advantage of a genre that occupies a specific place in people’s seasonal routines. The placement feels natural because it doesn’t interrupt the narrative; it sits alongside it.

This move indicates a recognition of audience segmentation that often gets overlooked in beauty. The viewers most invested in holiday film traditions are not always the same as those engaging with beauty content on short-form platforms. By embedding itself in this format, Maybelline reaches a demographic that responds to familiarity and narrative warmth rather than high-production spectacle.

Bath & Body Works — Holiday 2025 Commercial

Bath & Body Works embraces an unapologetically festive identity that has defined the brand for years. While competitors often use the holidays to signal sophistication or minimalism, Bath & Body Works leans fully into sensory abundance. The commercial is bold and intentionally maximal – rooted in the emotional experience of scent and the nostalgia of American retail culture.

What sets this approach apart is the lack of hesitation. Many brands soften their tone in an effort to appear elevated. Bath & Body Works moves in the opposite direction, reinforcing its position by staying close to what has always worked. The clarity of intent gives the campaign its confidence.

A Pattern Underneath the Noise

Across categories and creative styles, a shared theme runs through this year’s beauty holiday campaigns: brands are choosing to reinforce identity rather than perform seasonality. Some do it through consistency (Refy, Charlotte Tilbury). Others through cultural alignment (Sephora, Maybelline). And some rely on the strength of their long-established tone (Bath & Body Works).

The more confident the brand, the less it feels the need to “do a holiday thing.” Instead, the season becomes another moment to show what they already are – with a little more sparkle, perhaps, but not a different face.