Cosmetic Chemistry: What's Food Got To Do With It?
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Beauty: What's Food Got to Do With It?
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PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT - FIRST TO MARKET
/Product Development – How a Setback Became a First to Market Product
first to market concealer
Speed to market, first to market … to market, to market, to market … how fast can we get there, and can we get there first?!
A number of years ago, I was working with a third party lab on an under eye concealer project - one texture and five shades. While this type of out-of house development was unusual for my employing company at that time, the brand I worked on opened doors to collaboration with outside manufacturers.
Mid-development, a financial issue arose between the vendor and the corporate company. Long story short, I was blocked from doing any further development work with the vendor. My dilemma: I still needed to deliver a product to meet the calendar dates for Marketing - five skus for 4th quarter. The products were scheduled in the calendar, they were in the budget, and development started—there was no time to rework the product calendar at this point. What to do?
And then—that aha! moment. I thought outside of the normal color cosmetic development process and re-evaluated an anti-aging skin care formula that I helped develop a few years earlier. It contained an encapsulated retinol release technology.
My questions were:
1.) Can I use the skin care bulk as a concealer base?
2.) The bulk was white. Will it hold enough pigment/color without drastically changing the texture?
3.) Would the retinol technology in the skin care bulk still perform if pigment was added to the bulk?
4.) Could the product maintain anti-aging skin care claims and deliver color performance?
5.) Could this be first to market???
With time tight and preliminary stability testing on its way, the R&D team bought into the idea immediately and started testing the product with pigment. And voilà! We had a remarkable product to deliver that was better than the first concealer concept originally slated on the calendar!
The final product was innovative, with skin care performance claims and color payoff. The legal team confirmed that there was no other product on the market at that time with this type of performance. You could say it was a CC under eye concealer way before its time!
Are you looking for innovation? Think about ways you can turn your current product development projects around to make them something even greater than your original concepts!
If you liked this post, keep an eye out for future posts on first to market product development.
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PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT - THE FIRST WIN!
/Product Development – The First Win!
Winning a CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women) product award is like winning an Oscar in the beauty industry. It’s a big deal! One thing to understand about product development is that the win is the result of a team effort. When the product wins, all teams win.
First Win Cream
How to get a winning product? Easy question—not so easy to answer.
My best recommendation is that when starting with the concept, think of ways that might give the product an edge, that makes the product first to the market in its performance, something that no other product has addressed: a new technology, a new texture, a new way to fit into today’s lifestyle, a unique color, a new way of dispensing, a nuance that might be a slight change, prompting someone to say “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Luminosity (Avon) was one of those award winning products. I joined the marketing team at the mid-development point. My contribution included working with teams to complete the aesthetic development and texture, product performance, claims development, training and copy development.
The story doesn’t end here. In an upcoming post, I’ll share my experience about attending a first production run on this product.
NY NOW, Let's Get Happy!
/BeautyEdge visited the NY NOW show in New York City's Jacob Javits Center.
Some of you may be asking, “What is NY NOW?” From our point of view, it is a tremendous collection of U.S. and global-based manufacturers, exhibitors, and distributors with commercialized products that range from personal care to baby clothes, stationary to home goods. The exhibitors provide “first look” exposure to new launches along with their full brand line-ups that are available for retail sales in various selling channels.
Key Trends:
>>Though living green and sustainability are becoming more of a lifestyle than a trend, we continue discovering new ways to use our resources wisely and safely.
>>Strong evidence in men’s luxury personal care was apparent, along with the need and clear message to love others and ourselves, to celebrate, to indulge in the little things and enjoy happiness.
While many trends themed throughout the show, we chose happiness as a grounding point. We won’t claim to know the answer to everlasting happiness at BeautyEdge, but we do know that as humans we seek an experience, whether inside or outside of ourselves, to which we can say, ”That makes me happy!”
Take a look at what we saw at NY NOW!
TheHappyEdge: fun products
eco-kids® launched 2008
Although they have been around since 2008, Kip and Cammie Weeks continue to bring fun, creativity, and a breath of fresh air to a lineup of 13 eco-kid products, including molding dough, crayons, finger paints, and egg-coloring kits. The company began with a recipe for molding dough that Cammie Weeks’ mom made for her as a child. After incorporating natural ingredients into the recipe, the dough was named eco-dough. With the slogan “creative play the natural way,” eco-kids’ products are developed with non-toxic natural ingredients and packaged with environmentally friendly supplies from around the United States.
Bead Bottle™ launching Spring 2014
Beach
Sentiment
Bead Bottle is a distinctive and creative product that was designed to honor important memories and milestones in life. From family vacations to special friendships to personal mantras, Peyote Bird has developed numerous stores that appeal to a wide range of customers. Each bead bottle contains various semi-precious stones, as well as metal charms, glass beads, and leather cording, accompanied by two lobster closures to make one necklace and one bracelet. A story card with simple instructions is provided with each purchase and includes a QR-code to YouTube videos for additional information.
Buff-Her House of Exfoliation launched May 2013
The time spent with these three sisters and founders—Regina, Cheryl, and Stephanie—was delightful. They are all experts in natural skin remedies, and two of the sisters are aestheticians. We’re happy to hear that, because it is particularly important to understand how a product works on skin and what to look for performance-wise during and after use. Buff Her House of Exfoliation is a collection of exfoliating facial scrubs made from organic and naturally grown fruits and vegetables. According to the company, these gentle exfoliants will restore your skin’s natural and radiant beauty with nature’s help! Their goal is to provide women with a natural way to exfoliate by using all-natural and organic foods. Each shaker is claimed to provide two hundred exfoliating applications, and can be used mixed with water, or added to your favorite cleanser!
Final thoughts: As colleagues in marketing, product development, and trend seekers, explore with us these new ideas! Let's use these infusions of inspiration as stepping stones creating happiness for our consumers while designing a better world of products.
Need help creating a Happy or Experiential beauty care product or brand with an edge? Connect with BeautyEdge LLC at Info@beautyedgeinc.com We’re also available for category analysis to identify the white space for your new product or brand.
TheEdgeOnPurple: Color Trend Walk, NYC
/TheEdgeOnPurple When you think of “purple,” what comes to mind? Royalty? Passion? Romance? Its richness, its lushness?
BeautyEdge strolled the streets of New York City and vicinity, seeking shades of purple.
The color purple is not just on trend, in fact, it invades our world — our world of food, our art, our environment, our homes, our decor and adornments, our fashion, our beauty products.
Its tones and hues, its nuances, are everywhere. It’s almost as though the color shouts out to you, commanding your attention. The color captures every mood, with abstract applications, and lush textures in jewel-like, brilliant finishes and vibrant opulence. Plum, lavender, amethyst, violaceous ... the variations in value offer endless options in our world.
Wander with us, and come, see what we saw ...
The color purple is not just on trend, in fact, it invades our world - our world of food, our art, our environment, our homes, our decor and adornments, our fashion, our beauty products. BeautyEdge strolled the streets of New York City and vicinity, seeking shades of purple.
BeautyEdgeTip: click >>Purple Eye Shadow
