Is Project Pan Actually Changing How Beauty Consumers Buy?

What Is Project Pan and Why Should Beauty Brands Care?

Project Pan is a consumer movement in which beauty buyers commit to fully using up the products they already own — "hitting pan" on a compact — before purchasing anything new. What began as a YouTube challenge has matured into a durable depletion-first mindset, amplified by deinfluencing content on TikTok and by economic pressure on discretionary spend.

For brands, the threat is structural rather than seasonal: a consumer who has decided to finish what they have is invisible to most demand metrics until the repurchase simply never arrives. Predict's behavioral panel — which observes actual purchase events, not claimed intent — shows how this behavior is surfacing in the data, and why category averages are hiding it.

Is Project Pan Changing Beauty Purchase Frequency?

At the category level, no — and that is exactly the problem with category-level data. US beauty purchase frequency averaged 3.82 purchases per buyer over the last 12 months versus 3.90 the prior year, a ~2% dip well within normal variation. GB shows the same picture: 1.34 purchases per buyer versus 1.35, with the more notable shift being a modest contraction in active buyer reach rather than in how often committed buyers purchase.

The movement appears one level down. Among US buyers who purchased beauty in both 12-month windows, 43.4% bought fewer items in the recent period — and their pullback was not a trim. That cohort averaged roughly 7.3 items in the prior year and only 3.3 in the recent one, a ~55% drop in purchase volume per buyer. Depletion-first behavior doesn't lower the average; it hollows it out, because the majority who held steady or increased (56.6%) mathematically offset a large cohort that cut its buying in half.

Which Beauty Brands Are Most Vulnerable to Depletion-First Consumers?

The most exposed brands are those that depend on frequent, loyalty-driven repurchase rather than functional replenishment. In Predict's US panel, repeat-buyer rate declines are brand-specific rather than category-wide — and the brands losing repeat engagement fastest share a profile: DTC-led, personality- or hype-driven, and reliant on customers rebuying items they haven't finished.

The pattern is telling. Jones Road — a founder-loyalty DTC brand whose growth depends on fans expanding their collection — lost repeat engagers faster than any tracked beauty brand, even while expanding into retail. Meanwhile the brands gaining repeat engagement (TRESemmé, Bioderma, Gold Bond, Schwarzkopf) sell products consumers run out of on a fixed cadence. A Project Pan consumer cannot pan their way out of shampoo. Discretionary color cosmetics with large, half-used inventories at home are the first purchases a depletion-first buyer defers; functional replenishment is the last.

Genuine Slowdown vs. Spend Redirection: What Cross-Purchase Data Reveals

The volume-cutting cohort is not one consumer — it is two, behaving in opposite ways behind the same top-line signal. Among US beauty buyers who bought fewer items year over year, 45.6% raised their average unit price: they cut trips but redirected spend into fewer, more considered purchases. The slightly larger group (54.4%) held or cut per-item price as well — genuine budget reduction, not a trade-up strategy.

At the cohort level these two behaviors cancel out almost perfectly: item counts nearly halved (7.8 → 3.7) while mean unit price stayed essentially flat ($13.42 → $13.15). A brand looking at aggregate AOV would conclude nothing is happening — which is precisely how a premiumizing consumer whose total spend lands in the same place as before stays invisible in standard reporting.

What Should Beauty Brands Do About Project Pan?

The depletion-first consumer punishes brands that market to averages. Because the same volume decline can mean opposite things, the response has to start with behavioral segmentation rather than blanket promotion.

FAQ: Project Pan and Beauty Consumer Data

What is the Project Pan movement?

Project Pan is a beauty minimalism movement in which consumers commit to completely finishing products they already own — "hitting pan" — before buying replacements. It originated on YouTube and has been amplified by TikTok deinfluencing content.

Is beauty purchase frequency actually declining?

Category averages look flat — US frequency dipped only ~2% YoY (3.90 → 3.82 purchases per buyer). But 43.4% of repeat US beauty buyers cut their purchase volume by roughly 55%, offset in the averages by the 56.6% who held steady or bought more.

Which beauty brands are most at risk from depletion-first consumers?

Brands that rely on discretionary, collection-expanding repurchase. In Predict's US panel, Jones Road (−6.1pp repeat rate) and Manscaped (−4.9pp) showed the steepest repeat-buyer declines, while replenishment staples like TRESemmé, Bioderma, and Gold Bond gained repeat engagement.

How can brands tell a genuine slowdown from spend redirection?

Compare each buyer's unit-price trajectory against their volume change. Among US buyers who cut volume, 45.6% raised their average unit price (spend redirection), while 54.4% held or cut price too (genuine reduction). Aggregate AOV masks the split — it stayed essentially flat ($13.42 → $13.15).

Does Project Pan reduce total beauty spending?

Not necessarily. For nearly half of volume-cutting buyers, total spend is redirected rather than reduced — fewer, pricier, more considered purchases that can total the same amount. The revenue risk is concentrated in which brands capture that consolidated spend, not in the category shrinking.