The Wellness Divide: Young Men Outspend Everyone on Beauty

Something big shifted in how Americans spend on beauty, health and wellness this year, and the numbers point to a wellness divide between what the industry believes and what consumers actually do. According to a new report from consulting firm AlixPartners and Cosmetic Executive Women, Gen Z and Millennial men are now subscribing more and spending more time and money on beauty, health and wellness than any other demographic. At the same time, the executives running these brands are fundamentally misunderstanding the people they sell to. That gap is the story of wellness in 2026, and it runs through every aisle of the pharmacy, every medspa storefront and every subscription offer.

The research, released in late September 2026, surveyed 1,000 consumers alongside 127 beauty, health and wellness executives to compare what each side believes. What emerged is a portrait of an industry running old playbooks while its customers move on. As the report's co-lead Lindy Firstenberg put it, beauty, health and wellness are no longer a treat or mere self-care; they are an ongoing project for the consumer with its own standalone budget line, according to reporting on the release. For Gen Z, wellness stopped being a luxury purchase and became an identity project, complete with subscriptions, protocols and routines. Browse our Mind & Body coverage to see how deep that identity shift goes.

Young men are the new power spenders

The headline finding flips the oldest assumption in beauty. Young men have gone from an afterthought to the super users of the entire sector, according to analysis by AlixPartners. They subscribe to wellness products at higher rates than any other group, stack services and products across categories, and treat regimens like training programs rather than pampering. The report calls this the male revolution, and the engine pulling young men in is wellness protocols: peptides, at-home devices, medspas and performance supplements all blurred into one continuous project. That is the wellness divide in its purest form, because the industry's marketing was built for a completely different customer.

The disconnect shows up in what brands sell to women, too. The report found that the beauty industry is ignoring what women actually want, leaving huge demand on the table. And the numbers behind that claim are stark: 40% of consumers surveyed said they want traditional beauty companies to expand what they offer, while 42% of executives said they want their companies to stay in their lane, according to the AlixPartners findings. Consumers are asking for more and for different; executives are saying no. When your audience has reorganized its entire budget around a category, telling them you will stay in your lane is a choice to lose them.

The gap shows up physically on main street. There are now nearly 13,000 medspas across the United States, a count that matches the number of McDonald's locations nationwide. Walk any downtown and the storefronts confirm the data: facials, Botox, laser treatments and IV drips sold next to the coffee shop. The medspa boom tells you that wellness spending has moved from the drugstore shelf into services, appointments and subscriptions, exactly the budget line the report describes. Yet industry strategy still leans on old-school tactics like influencer partnerships to reach consumers, even though consumers keep saying the brands should sell to them directly instead.

Doctors and friends beat influencers every time

Here is the finding that should worry every marketing department. Physicians rank as the second-most important referral channel for beauty, health and wellness purchases, behind only friends and family. Influencers rank last. Read that again: the channel brands spend the most on sits at the very bottom of what consumers trust. The wellness divide is not just about who spends; it is about who consumers believe, and the industry has its money on the wrong horse. Consumers asking brands to skip the middlemen and sell to them directly only sharpens the point.

This trust gap connects to another force the report names: the pharmification effect. GLP-1 weight-loss drugs changed what consumers expect from every category, because a treatment that shows measurable results reset the clock on patience. When one product delivers visible change, everything else starts getting judged on time-to-results. Brands selling a moisturizer or a supplement are now competing against the speed of a pharmaceutical, and most of them have no answer for that expectation.

Put the findings side by side and the pattern is unmistakable:

Subscriptions ate the beauty aisle

The discovery channels flipped while brands were not looking. When consumers were asked how they find beauty, health and wellness products, influencers ranked fifth, at 32% — essentially tied with a simple online search — yet influencer deals soak up some of the industry's biggest marketing budgets, according to the report's findings. Executives, meanwhile, ranked influencers as a top discovery channel. Who do shoppers actually trust? Friends and family, named by 45% of consumers, followed by healthcare practitioners, whom executives ranked far lower. Brands are spending heaviest on the channel consumers trust least.

The deeper problem is that the playbook itself is stale. The report says executives are fundamentally misunderstanding their consumers: consumers are way ahead, and executives are struggling to keep up, relying on old-school tactics like partnerships and influencers "when consumers are asking the brands to do it themselves." Shoppers want brands to skip the middlemen and sell direct. And they are spending like it is a necessity, not a treat — the category is now "competing with the mortgage and the grocery bill," in the words of AlixPartners co-lead Catherine Nekavand. Nearly two-thirds of consumers rank health and wellness as their top discretionary spending priority, above travel, fashion and entertainment.

This is the wellness divide at its most expensive: marketing built for 2019 chasing consumers who have already moved on. Meanwhile, the buyers now driving the most growth are not dabbling. Young men are powering the market through subscriptions and protocols, treating wellness as a system, not a shopping trip. If the industry wants their money, it will have to meet them where they actually discover, trust and buy — through people and practitioners, not paid posts.

How to navigate the divide without getting played

The practical takeaway is simpler than the data. First, audit your own wellness budget the way the report describes it: as one line, not three. If a new serum, supplement and spa visit all draw from the same pool, trade-offs become honest. That is exactly the calculation consumers are already making, whether brands recognize it or not. For a related look at how wellness framing shapes behavior, read Why Meal Timing Is the Wellness Story of 2026.

Second, weight your sources the way the data says to. A recommendation from your doctor or a friend who actually uses the product carries more signal than a sponsored post from a creator paid to hold it. Ask for time-to-results evidence before buying into a protocol, especially now that GLP-1s have warped everyone's patience. And if a medspa pitches you on the high street, check credentials and independent reviews before you check out; the boom means quality varies widely. The wellness divide rewards consumers who think like the data says they already do, and punishes brands that do not. That is one market correction worth rooting for.