The natural look is a huge makeup trend for Fall 2010, but it looks like we're been preparing for it for a couple of years now.

A recent survey conducted by the NPD Group found that makeup usage in women between the ages of 18 and 64 is down five percent compared to what it was in 2008.

One hypothesis as to why: Since many women have found themselves jobless due to the recession, they don't bother to apply makeup.

"Potentially, with the increase in unemployment and resulting decline in the number of women going to work, more women did not have a need to wear makeup. The recession, and unemployment, may have exacerbated the trend, but we began to see declines in usage prior to the recession," said Karen Grant, vice president and global beauty industry analyst at The NPD Group, in an interview with WWD.

"For some women, with the emergence, acceptance and popularity of a more casual and natural look, makeup becomes more optional. Staple products tended to perform better, such as foundation, particularly mineral foundation, in prestige, and in the mass arena, mascara was a strong performer," said Grant.

Even more interestingly, the study found that 86 percent of women have used makeup with skincare benefits such as SPF, moisturizing, oil-free and wrinkle-reducing, in the past year.

A recent trend in skincare (in fact, StyleList beauty editor Laura Kenney recently spoke about it on Sephora's Blog), this finding doesn't surprise us, as we're all about multitasking when it comes to beauty, but what is unexpected is the finding that more than half the women who use makeup with skin care benefits use it in addition to using skin care products with the same benefits, in comparison to the almost 40 percent who use makeup products with skin care benefits instead of treatment products with the same benefits.

Hmm, that means more women are doubling up on skincare than not. Guess we're all a bit obsessed with every pore, line and furrow.

Besides the natural look, see more Fall 2010 Beauty Trends.