The complete guide to beauty product photography for entrepreneurs and business owners. Get all the inside scoop on what makes an image convert and all the latest product photography trends in 2021.
Beauty Product Trends
The beauty and wellness industry has been taking the world by storm. Furthermore, the UK is among the three leading cosmetic consumers in Western Europe, reaching a market value of £9.6 billion.
Here are some of the five biggest trends we have seen in 2020/21 so far:
Clean Beauty
We’ve seen considerable shifts in clean beauty. Skincare and cosmetic products are going green. Sustainable packaging and products was a key trend in 2019, but demand for full transparency is the key theme for 2021.
From the ingredients to the packaging, if sustainability isn’t at the forefront of your marketing, you may well get left behind.
Heath & Beauty Fusion
The health and beauty worlds are merging, and with the rise of vegan beauty and the CBD market, it’s going to be bigger than ever.
Hyper Personalisation
It’s not just the packaging that you can now personalise. Advancements in beauty technology now customise products. Swabs can test for DNA and bacterial analysis to advise customers on which products will be most suited to their genetic makeup.
Indie-Brands
The rise of indie brands is challenging big corporations by creating tailored solutions to unique problems identified by their consumers.
Independent beauty brands are encouraging more creativity and entrepreneurship in the industry.
Direct To Consumer
With the decline of major retailers, independent beauty brands have a huge opportunity to take advantage of their ability to sell directly to their consumers.
Indie brands with strong branding, clear messaging, and modern strategies will pave the way for the direct-to-consumer beauty brands of the future.
What is beauty product photography?
Beauty product photography is a type of commercial photography specialising in cosmetic, skincare, haircare, makeup, fragrance, tools and applicators.
Compelling beauty product photography showcases your products. By using high-quality images you can drive conversions based on the perceived value of your products.
Why you need compelling photography for your beauty products?
High-quality product photographs help to:
- increase conversions
- lower return rate
- decrease cart abandonment rate
- boost time on page
- increase click-through rates (CTR)
It’s clear to see that the ROI for every pound invested in professionally executed product photography is one of the highest in digital marketing.
What kind of product images do you need?
Packshot Photography
Packshots are product photographs typically used for eCommerce sites. Usually, packshots are products photographed against a white or coloured background.
ECommerce platforms such as Amazon, Shopify, eBay and Etsy all require products photography on a white background.
Images with white backgrounds keep pages looking clean and easy to navigate. They are also lower in size as there is less information in the photograph. The smaller the image, the faster the web page will load.
Site speed is fundamental for commerce websites and platforms in terms of SEO and conversion rates.
Having a coloured background could be detrimental if companies like Amazon were to lose a millisecond in page loading speed.
On the other hand, coloured backgrounds are perfect for complimenting brand colour palettes, making an impact on social media, and creating striking imagery for glossy magazines.
Flat Lay Photography
A flat lay is an image shot directly from above, often styled with props around a hero product. Not only do they showcase the product, it’s a simple but effective way to tell a story.
Another benefit of a flat lay is their versatility and reducing production costs. If you have a tight budget, you don’t need to spend money on locations, models, hair and makeup etc. You only need a background and the props to accompany the product.
Lifestyle Product Photography
Lifestyle product photography illustrates the purpose of a product and how a potential client may use it.
To create a lifestyle product photo, you need to shoot on-location or create a style scene, often with the use of models.
Lifestyle product images are an excellent way for a brand to sell the experience of using their product. It also promotes a specific lifestyle or aesthetic that will speak to their target market.
With both flat lay and lifestyle imagery, both can also promote and up-sell other products in the brand’s range.
Creative Advertising Photography
Advertising photography captures a particular mood, emotion or feeling that a product can elicit in a viewer. The sole purpose of the shot is to create a need for the viewer to buy the product.
It’s the job of the photographer to tell a captivating story using stylised images, lighting and colours.
Advertising product photography uses advanced retouching and editing skills. Usually, I photograph multiple images to create a composite (layered photo) to produce a truly eye-catching image.
How to optimise images for your store
These three significant features will help you boost your SEO and conversion rates.
File Size
Some interesting facts:
- Almost 50% of consumers won’t wait more than 3 seconds for an eCommerce site to load.
- Google uses page load time as a ranking factor in its algorithm.
- Amazon discovered that if their pages were to slow down by just one second, they would lose $1.6 billion a year.
So, what can you do?
There is always a balance between having stunning high-quality product imagery while also achieving fast page speeds.
I have done extensive research and have found that the sweet spot for having beautiful imagery while maintaining fast site speeds.
If you have Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, you can use the export or Save For Web feature so save down your images.
Alternatively, other online image editing tools will resize your images for you.
As a photographer, it’s super important that I maintain incredible detail in my photos without grounding my site to a halt. I’ve found a good rule of thumb is to try to keep image file sizes below 70 kb.
In some cases, this may not be possible, but I try my best to keep the size as small as possible. You can do this by lowering the quality of the image to around 60/70%.
I also resize my pictures to a specific dimension that is suited to my web page.
File Format
The three common file types that you can use to post images to the web. These are JPEG, GIF, and PNG. However, when choosing file types, it’s important to remember the following:
For eCommerce images, JPEGs will be your best option. They provide the best quality for the smallest file size.
Never use GIFs for big product images. The file size will be too big, and there is not an easy way to reduce it. Only use GIFs for thumbnails and decorative images only.
PNGs can be an excellent alternative to JPEGs and GIFS. If you can only get product photos in PNG format, try using PNG-8 over PNG-24.
File Naming
Using relevant keywords will help improve your SEO ranking. Creating descriptive, keyword-rich file names is vital for image optimisation.
Not only do search engines such as Google, crawl the text on your webpage, they also crawl your image file names.
It’s also crucial to use descriptive titles to the ALT tags. ALT attributes are the text alternative when an image doesn’t load on a page.
The alt attribute is a crucial feature when trying to improve your SEO ranking. It’s also the best way for your eCommerce products to show up in Google image searches.
Why I love shooting beauty product photographs
I love showing the beauty in a product. I enjoy working with companies with innovative new products, stunning designs, beautiful colour schemes, materials, textures and personality.
I have this deep-rooted need to create. So when I have a product to shoot, it lights up all my creative cells. I love the creative process, from conceptualising to shooting.
As a beauty and wellness consumer myself, I always think about what I like to see and what attracts me to buy certain products.
In a male-dominated industry, I think this gives me a considerable edge. I know what works and what doesn’t and I know my target market inside out.
I know what women want
Women want to look and feel younger, slimmer and more attractive. We’re also more than just the way we look. We want to be heard.
Every time I shoot, I treat the product as if it were my own. The perfectionist in me has been my strength and weakness over the years.
However, in product photography, it has always been my greatest strength, and I will not stop until I am entirely happy with the results.
How to book a beauty product photoshoot?
Booking a product photoshoot is simple.
- We’ll first jump on a creative call to discuss your product. We’ll get clear on your ideal client, visual identity and branding. Next, we’ll create a mood board, and we’ll get into the specifics to make sure we both have the same vision.
- Once we have a concept for your product, all you need to do is package up your products and send them to me while I’ll source your backgrounds and props.
- I’ll take care of the photography, styling and editing of your products. Once the images are finalised, I’ll then send your images via WeTransfer in both full and social size, so you’re all set to show to them off to the world!
Beauty Product Photography Studio Near London
I have a photography studio based in Bedfordshire, UK, which is not far from London, Milton Keynes, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
You are of course welcome to come to my studio or if you can simply post your products to me and I will return these as soon as I have delivered your final images.
I also serve an international client base so nomatter where in the world you are, you can simply post your product for me to photograph.
Beauty product photography pricing and packages
Depending on your product range and budget, I have created three product packages as well as a monthly subscription package, The Content Creator.
My beauty product photography packages start at £275. The package includes everything from brand strategy, prop sourcing as well as concept and styling.
During the photoshoot, I usually take multiple images of your product using different light setups to highlight every feature of your product and edit these together to create a stunning product shot.
I then upload the images to an online gallery, and once you approve the photos, I export and send you the final pictures.
All images given in both high and low-resolution formats for both print and web/social formats.
I will then send a WeTransfer link so you can download the photographs to your phone or computer so you can start using them immediately.
The Content Creator – Monthly Package
If you love updating your site and socials with fresh content, I offer a monthly product package.
Every month you send me your products, and I will shoot and deliver ten images straight into your inbox. If it’s the same product every time,
I can store the product for you and once a month we can create a photography brief to match your marketing strategy for the month ahead.
Curious to find out more about working together, or ready to book in your beauty product photoshoot? Get in touch today.
