L'Oreal, the cosmetics giant, posted its first quarterly decline in sales and stayed silent on guidance for the year ahead as the downturn forced women to cut back on grooming.

The cosmetics group, the world's biggest, saw its year-on-year profits tumble 27 per cent. Sales in the fourth quarter slid 0.6 per cent — the first drop in the company's recent records.

L'Oreal, whose portfolio includes the Kiehl and Lancôme brands, was particularly hard hit in sales of hair salon products and perfumes.

Sales in Its 'luxury products' division fell by more than 6 per cent in the fourth quarter with particular difficulties in the US where tightened budgets saw less women enjoying trips to the shopping malls.

Times Archive, 1932: Morale and make-up

Nothing is going to enhance mental gloom more than the sight of women unadorned

• Maintaining good looks, 1939

• Toilet preparations, 1947

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Sales at the Body Shop, the chain founded by the late Anita Roddick and acquired by L'Oreal for £800 million in 2006, also fared badly in the UK and elsewhere.

More mass-market products, including some of its lipsticks, were faring well the group said.

Sales of lipstick are known to rise during recessions as it is the one luxury that women do not cut back on. In 2001, when the economy deteriorated after the September 11 attacks, lipstick sales in the US jumped 11 per cent.

Also during the Depression, cosmetic sales leapt more than 20 per cent and lipstick was also one of the few treats not rationed during the Second World War.

The company, which posted its figures late on Monday, is now scrabbling to improve its fortunes promising cut-price products to help boost sales during the downturn.

Jean Paul-Agon, L'Oreal's chief executive, said: "Even if cosmetics are not completely immune to the crisis, we are not in a brutal market contraction. I think consumption will stabilise in 2009." However he declined to giver further guidance

The group had suffered from negative currency effects, he said, as well as from the general consumer spending downturn.

The worst-hit market was the US, where like-for-like sales slipped 4.8 per cent. In contrast, sales in Asia leapt more than 16 per cent. Sale in Eastern Europe leapt more than 20 per cent.

Andrew Wood, an analyst at Bernstein, said: "The results are far worse than the already-very-low expectations of the market."

Total profits at the make-up company tumbled 27 per cent in the year, from €2.7 billion (£2.4 billion) to €1.9 billion.

Sales, though up 2.8 per cent to €17.5 billion, failed to hit the group's already twice revised target. The company had set itself a target of 4 per cent sales growth in October, down from a forecast of about 6 per cent in July and 6-8 per cent before that.

This month rival US beauty groups, Estee Lauder, and Elizabeth Arden, announced restructuring plans aimed at helping them to weather the downturn.

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