Skincare is having a social media moment.

Due namely to an overall increase in activated influencers throughout the category, skincare content has grown 16 percent year-over-year in volume, while views and engagement have grown 82 percent and 26 percent, respectively, per Traackr.

“Without delay, mega-influencers are the highest performers across rising indie skincare brands,” said Therese Little, head of sales, Americas, at Traackr, noting this trend isn’t necessarily consistent across beauty. For prime-performing indie hair care brands, for instance, mid-tier influencers are driving probably the most impact.

“A typical theme amongst top-performing skincare brands is that they’ve built strong relationships with high-performing influencers,” said Little, noting Gen Z creator Katie Fang has been a sustained key voice for Glow Recipe, which tops the list by Brand Vitality Rating (VIT), Traackr’s proprietary metric measuring a brand’s social media impact, reach and trust.

Meanwhile, Caudalie and Versed have benefited from viral PR unboxing videos by mega-influencers like Kristi Howard (@queenofgettingbanned on TikTok).

“For indie brands, budget and bandwidth are the highest two pain points,” said Little, noting the potential upside of those constraints is that they require brands to be intentional about targeted gifting campaigns and other types of influencer outreach. “The indie space is diverse and always changing, so it’s hard to predict who will come out on top next 12 months. That’s also what makes the space exciting to observe; even established brands watch the indie category to see what’s trending since it’s where experimentation and innovation happens first.”

This 12 months’s 10 biggest indie skincare brands by Traackr’s Brand Vitality Rating (VIT), plus their respective year-over-year change within the metric.