Dear recipient,

This week is a little different.

A year ago, we sent the very first edition of Trending Tuesday. Since then, every Tuesday has been spent exploring creator conversations across the Nordics, looking at millions of interactions, thousands of posts and hundreds of emerging trends.

Some trends stayed for a few days, others for months, and some quietly evolved into something much bigger than a single moment on social media.

So before we head into summer, we wanted to take a step back and ask:

What has a year of Nordic social media actually taught us?

One thing stands out above all else: People are finding joy in the everyday again.

Across beauty, fashion and food, we have seen audiences move away from excess and aspiration and towards something more personal, comforting and attainable.

Every newsletter was made using TRNDSET, and our Insights Assistant. If you want a more personalized update tailored to you and your business, try our AI Agent. It automatically monitors Nordic social media, captures the insights that matter most to you, and delivers them straight to your inbox.

💄 Beauty: We stopped chasing perfection.

If there has been one recurring theme in beauty over the past year, it has been the desire to feel like ourselves - just slightly enhanced.

Again and again, we saw creators return to dewy skin, healthy hair, blush, SPF and simple routines that fit into everyday life. The most engaging content wasn't necessarily built around expensive launches or complicated techniques. Instead, it was affordable recommendations, skincare routines for sensitive skin, GRWMs and products that made life feel a little easier.

Even when beauty became playful again with the return of 2016 makeup nostalgia, colourful looks and dramatic transformations, the conversation still centred around personality rather than perfection. Perhaps that's why GRWM has remained one of social media's strongest formats.

It isn't just a makeup tutorial. It's a conversation.

It's someone inviting you into their morning, their bathroom or their car and saying: "Come get ready with me." Beauty became less about looking flawless and more about feeling relatable.

👗 Fashion: Simplicity became aspirational.

Fashion also told a very different story than it did just a few years ago.

Throughout the year we repeatedly saw creators embrace second-hand shopping, capsule wardrobes, outfit repeating and pieces that felt timeless rather than trendy.

The rise of slow fashion was particularly interesting.Not because sustainability is new, but because it stopped feeling like a campaign message and became behaviour. Creators proudly showed jackets they had owned for years, shared how they repaired their clothes and demonstrated five different ways to style one piece.

The aspiration quietly shifted. Owning the newest thing became less important than knowing your own style.

Even some of the year's biggest aesthetics reflected this desire for comfort and familiarity. Chocolate brown, oversized blazers, pyjama-core and soft layering all had one thing in common: They felt good.

Fashion became less about impressing others and more about creating a wardrobe that genuinely fits your life.

🍓 Food: Comfort became culture.

No category captured the mood of the year quite like food. Again and again, creators returned to recipes that felt familiar, comforting and achievable. Lasagna soup. One-pot meals. Semlor / Cinnamon buns. Budget dinners. Burrata. Homemade döner. At first glance, these trends seem completely unrelated.

But together they tell a very clear story. People are craving comfort.

The recipes that performed best weren't the most advanced. They were the ones that made people think: "I could make this tonight." Food became deeply participatory. People weren't simply watching content. They were saving recipes, sharing them with friends, recreating them and adding their own twists.

Perhaps that's why food content remained one of social media's strongest community builders throughout the year.

✨ So, what have we learned?

Across beauty, fashion and food, the same pattern appeared over and over again.

People still want inspiration. They still want beautiful things.

But increasingly, they want those things to feel accessible, useful and grounded in real life. The biggest winners of the year weren't products or aesthetics.

They were rituals. A skincare routine before bed. A favourite oversized sweater. A homemade dessert shared with friends. The small things have become luxurious again. And perhaps that's the biggest trend we've observed all year.

We're all learning how to romanticise everyday life.

Thank you for following along with us this year.

We'll see you after the summer.

Team TRNDSET ☀️

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