QUARANTINE STINKS. LITERALLY.

Over the past eight weeks, life as we know it has been dramatically altered. We’re holding our collective breath as we anticipate the “new normal,” already experiencing lifestyle changes we hope will be long-lasting (and some we can’t wait to end).

As much of the world’s professional population transitioned to working from home and countless others have lost their jobs, personal care has dropped a few rungs on the ladder of priority.

We’ve all seen those memes about crazy quarantine hair. It turns out, our hair-do isn’t the only thing we’ve been neglecting. Fragrances, cosmetics, shaving supplies and underarm deodorant are among several other CPG categories that have dramatically decreased in importance to the American household, according to in-store sales. On the bright side, even when we’re not mingling with folks outside of our household, we’re still brushing our teeth and using shampoo. These two categories haven’t seen as big a drop as other personal care categories, showing just where we draw the line.

Of course, products in these categories aren’t purchased weekly. At any given time, it’s likely that most households have enough shampoo, makeup and lotion on hand to last for several weeks. But when compared to sales for the same time period last year, we’ve seen significant decreases across the board.

Although we haven’t seen a significant uptick yet, after eight weeks of radically altered buying behavior, we expect to see many of these categories begin to climb the ranks. Especially as we near the end of April and many states anticipate a slow return to social interaction. One outlier is cosmetics: dollar sales rank for this category has steadily increased for the past four weeks.

For all our sakes, this is one of those trends we hope is short-lived and not part of the “new normal.”