With the advancement of digital technologies, visual experience has become a key factor in consumer marketing decision-making. In the beauty field, visual elements such as advertising images, package design, and online product information directly influence consumer perception and purchasing behavior. Eye-tracking records gaze paths and attention distribution in real time, allowing quantitative exploration of unconscious visual mechanisms; however, its application in the esthetics field remains limited. This study systematically reviewed eye-tracking literature published between 2015 and March 2025. From 40 highly relevant papers, seven representative cases were analyzed in depth according to representativeness, methodological diversity, recency, and academic contribution. The results showed that while eye-tracking research has been widely applied in advertising, design, online shopping, and education, relatively few studies have focused on beauty. Fixation-based metrics were most commonly used, and mixed-method approaches combining surveys, interviews, or EEG were frequent. Research trends differed by country: studies in China were concentrated in education, while those in Korea focused more on advertising. Representative case studies confirmed that diverse visual stimuli—such as advertising models and copy, package brand names and functional information, product images in online shopping, and instructional cues in educational settings—significantly influence consumer attention, cognition, and behavioral intentions. These findings highlight the considerable potential of eye-tracking as a research tool in future esthetics studies, offering both academic insights and industrial applications.
Hao et al. (2025) studied this question.