Milan Beauty Week is not Fashion Week Perhaps it's more like Design Week.
From 16 to 20 September 2026, Milan Beauty Week took place in the city, an annual event conceived by Cosmetica Italia in collaboration with Cosmoprof and Esxence, created with the aim of enhancing the economic, scientific and social role of the Italian cosmetics sector.
Milan Beauty Week in theory
Now in its fifth edition, the initiative aims to make the entire national supply chain known up close - from large multinationals to small and medium-sized enterprises, to producers of raw materials, machinery and packaging - promoting greater awareness of the importance of products for hygiene, prevention and personal care. The event program unfolds through experiential activities and meetings spread throughout the Milanese territory, but something cannot convince.
The general public vs the insiders
Pop ups, talks, newsstands, kiosks, trams on every corner of Milan, in Piazza San Babila and in Piazza Castello. The city is filled with new and colorful, shiny and technological boots and places, built during the night, in which to discover things. We talk about creams, ingredients, textures, perfumes, colors. Samples are given away, their hair is styled and their skin is analyzed, smelled and compared. The result? Long, very long lines that go around the block and complicate the viability of space. Hot, very warm rows, in cramped spaces. To discover, of course, but above all for the gift. What about the insiders? In the institutional buildings - Palazzo Giureconsulti, Palazzo Castiglioni, Palazzo Bovara - where talks and charitable initiatives alternate and where you can collect the official gazette of the Milan Beauty Week in free press powered by the media partner RCS (with all its newspapers).
A target issue?
So, perhaps, in the light of these considerations (collected in the field, mind you) it is necessary to reduce the purpose and the target of this young Milanese week that risks being lost in the group of a thousand weeks in Milan. Not a beauty Fashion Week, but a Design Week of beauty, in which cosmetic institutions and the general public remain far away, but in which there is not the same exclusivity that symbolizes the highest fashion events, both Italian and international. A sort of great fair, free of charge, that brings people closer to the world of Italian cosmetics but in which, what wins, is not the local cosmetics supply chain, behind the scenes, the hidden backstage, but the brands that create the most hype, more files, more giveaways, more activations, more content on TikTok. Exactly like the rest of the year.