Make The Best of 2021 - with lessons learned from 2020

In a few years, we will look back at this time and say: that was the moment where everything changed – in our world, our lives, and our industry.

2020 was quite the year. We lived, we learned and we walked the year through with you. We covered a tremendous amount of ground in beauty and wellness in order to keep ahead of the curve and provide you with insights to help keep your brand and product development process flowing.

If you are uncertain about what to do with your brand or product launches this year, reach out to us. We can come up with answers with you to respond to the world we live in today. We’re here to help you navigate this uncertain territory.

In case you missed any - here are our articles, podcasts, and webinars from 2020 to help you plan out 2021 as we continue to gain opportunities and insights.

Beauty & Wellness in The New After

Beauty and Wellness in The New After

Women Warriors in Business Series

In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, Women Warriors in Business (WWB) was born. WWB is an interdisciplinary team of industry marketing experts. Their collective expertise in market research, consumer insights, brand positioning, product development, and omni-channel marketing ensures brands respond quickly and successfully to today's evolving business opportunities. Below are the insights and opportunities we followed during 2020 with a look into 2021:

What’s Next in The New Normal
8 Tips Brands Need to Know Now
6 Ways to Reinvent Marketing in the New Era
How to Reinvent Beauty & Wellness Brands for this New Marketing Environment Video
The World After: A Beauty Renaissance Video

Beauty Responds to COVID

Global Cosmetic News podcast

Neuromarketing & Product Development

A deeper engagement with consumers mindset in the new normal.
The Beauty Experience Part 3 of 3
Neuroscience and the Skin - The Brain - Skin Connection
The Beauty Experience Part 2 of 3
The five senses and product development.
The Beauty Experience Part 1 of 3

Product Development Tips, Trends & Insights

Launching Your Own Brand
How to Market Ingredients in the New Now: The Fall Edition

Trends, Technologies, Textures & Concepts

BeautyEdge & Gattefosse - Trends, Technologies, & Textures in a Post-Covid World Video
BeautyEdge & Gattefosse - Get Fresh! Concepts for Skin Health Video

BeautyEdge New Collaborations

BeautyEdge & MANE
What Have We Done With Our Sense of Smell
MANE's Studio M & BeautyEdge Collaborate

BeautyEdge & The Digital Wellness Institute

BeautyEdge LLC has teamed up with the Digital Wellness Institute to offer a 10% discount on the 10 week certified course. "Our course gives individuals and coaches the tools to take back peace of mind & time when using technology."

Use this code BEAUTYEDGE to receive 10% off ($150 value)

SIGN UP FOR DIGITAL WELLNESS HERE

Our goal is to provide the best information about the beauty and wellness categories, and to help you launch innovative concepts, ideas, and products in 2021. cherie@beautyedgeinc.com is the best place to reach out for inquiries regarding help with your new product and brand launch projects.

8 Tips Brands Need to Know Now 10/2020

2020 continues to be a turbulent and unsettling year with social and economic unrest as well as general global uncertainty. 

Women Warriors in Business (WWB)* shared their tips and thoughts with BeautyMatter on what brands need to know in this continually changing environment. 

Click Here to Read the 8 Tips

 **Women Warriors in Business (WWB) Women Warriors in Business is an interdisciplinary team of industry marketing experts. Their collective expertise in market research, consumer insights, brand positioning, product development, and omni-channel marketing ensures brands respond quickly and successfully to today's evolving business opportunities.  The WWB consists of - Cherie Buziak, Roben Allong, Janice Hart, Kathleen Carroll, Sheri Koetting, Joi Ruud     

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 New goals for 2021?

 How to Market Your Ingredients in a Way That COMPELS and SELLS

Product Development Tips 1/2020

Building Your Beauty Product Development Skillset

in-cosmetics 2019 N.A. is behind us, and we continue to relish the memories and learning moments from the conference!

Below is a fun, video highlight, from the Sensory Bar featuring science and beauty YouTuber, and new friend, Trina Espinoza.  (Trina hosts a YouTube channel called Ms. Beautyphile. Read more about her at the end of this article.)

Re-watching this video featuring formulas that sparkle, bounce-back, and transform, emphasizes the importance of innovative technology and how to create a sensorial experience that connects with the consumer.

Click the image to view the video.

The Importance of Beauty Product Aesthetics

Products are designed to delight, enhance, and beautify the body while creating an enjoyable product engagement experience for the consumer. Aside from product performance, product experience motivates the consumer to return and repurchase products time and again. 

Research backs this up. Facebook IQ hired Accenture to study the shopping habits and preferences of American adults that purchase beauty products. When asked how they research and evaluate beauty products, 61% of make-up and 55% of facial skincare shoppers reported relying on physical locations for in-person evaluations.  Although consumers are active with online purchasing, real time product and textural engagement is key. And in the digital age, we have yet to offer a real life textural and sensorial experience through a screen that goes beyond the visual.

The Art of Aesthetic Product Development

Evaluating beauty products tactilely is an art.  It’s a talent that is developed through years and years of working with hundreds of product textures, and from learning from cross functional team members.   
 

Cross Functional Teams:  

Chemists: Understanding how raw materials work within a formula requires developing products alongside seasoned chemists. Chemists offer education on how ingredients will affect the product’s aesthetics and performance. 

Consumer Science: Developing desired claims with consumer science teams brings an understanding about how aesthetic texture and product performance will translate into claims based on the appearance and sensorial engagement of the product. 

Raw Material Suppliers: Reviewing new raw material product launches and new textures with suppliers will keep you current to industry trends. 

Learning from these teams, tracking and evaluating hundreds of products, and understanding aesthetic product development language will create a visual aesthetic library in your mind.  
 

Develop the Aesthetic for The Final User

When developing a product from an aesthetic perspective, the final consumer is who the product developer has to keep in mind.  It doesn’t really matter much if you, the developer, personally “love” the aesthetic of the product you’re developing. Put yourself in the mindset of the final consumer and make decisions based on that perspective. 

For example, if the final user that you're developing a product for has very oily skin, and the product is developed with a thick, aesthetic texture, that leaves behind a rich, dewy after feel, that person is most likely going to be turned off by the product aesthetic. The formula will need to be adjusted if it doesn’t rub in to their liking, transition quickly, and dry down in accordance to their desired after-feel. 

The Love Language of Aesthetic Product Development

Aesthetic product development is also attained through very technical guidelines and language in the laboratories. When speaking with chemists, we use specific terminology to communicate about the texture and performance that needs to be achieved for the final consumer experience.  Dedicated chemists will go the extra mile and apply the product on their own skin to experience the product and determine if it is in alignment with the aesthetic requirements set forth from the marketing brief and product benchmark. 

Below is a short list of aesthetic terms. You may want to practice using these terms in order to enhance your aesthetic development skill set.  As a quick lesson for yourself, line up 15 different cream textures. Then label the aesthetic descriptors to each product using the below terminology.

Image copyright: BeautyEdge LLC

A Technical View of Aesthetic Qualities

Did you know that Gattefossé, a designer and provider of innovative technologies, has an expert sensory panel of evaluators?  Yes, it’s true! 

Their 15-person panel, established in 1996 and headquartered in France, continually touches, feels and evaluates finished skincare formulations. What an awesome job! If evaluating only 100 products per year, someone on the panel since the founding would have evaluated approximately 2,400 products to date!  Now that is how you build a mindful aesthetic library: by constantly sampling and experiencing hundreds and hundreds of products.   

The graph below is just 7 out of the 18 or so criteria that the Gattefossé expert panel evaluates against. 

Image Copyright: Gattefosse’

My friends at Gattefossé sometimes offer a half-day evaluation session at their Paramus, NJ location.  You can contact Lauren DelDotto to inquire about any upcoming evaluation dates for 2020.

It’s OK to be a Beginner

I recently had a moment of deep empathy for a young makeup artist. From a distance, I was watching her apply makeup on a customer in a department store. Both she and the customer appeared to be enjoying this time of makeup application. However, when 30 minutes of application turned into 45 minutes, a second makeup artist came in to apply makeup to the customer. Out of curiosity, I stepped over to where they were to see why the switch in artists.  

The young artist was beside herself and immediately blurted out, “I did a horrible job. I know my own facial structure and how to apply cosmetics, but I don’t always know how to apply cosmetics to other people’s facial structure.” She was obviously being overly critical of herself and her talents. To ease her stress, I put my hand on her shoulder, did an imaginary motion of brushing something off her shoulder and advised her to shake it off. 

All was not lost. The second artist was able to remedy the issue. This young artist was in the beginning stages of developing her make up artistry skills and was experiencing growing pains. Should that makeup artist step away from her skill set of artistry? No. Does she need to practice more on applying makeup on other people? Yes! Would it have been a better experience for her, and the customer had she asked for supervision and assistance from a senior artist before it became an emergency? Definitely. 

Seeing her experience was a reminder for me that we all continue to evolve with our talents. This applies to all careers and it’s the same with cosmetic/beauty product development. It’s not something that anyone can just jump into and expect to instantly succeed with no prior experience. To evaluate a product well without experience is impossible. Just as it’s impossible to become an Olympic gold medalist on your second day ever playing tennis.

If you’re looking for more information on product development, or need the guidance of a seasoned expert to help you with your process, contact me at cherie@beautyedgeinc.com.  We can work through your development needs together.

Until then, keep mastering your craft!

About Trina Espinoza: Trina shares the science behind beauty and personal care products that appeals to a consumer-based audience. Her accomplishments include being featured on Mashable as one of “six YouTube channels that make learning about science fun”.  She has been nominated for a Regional Emmy and has made guest appearances on the American Chemical Society’s Reactions series.

If you want to know more about Trina, you can find her on FB, YT, Instagram, and Twitter @msbeautyphile.

The Edge on Tropical Trends

It’s mid-summer – that means adventure and travel! 

At BeautyEdge, we mixed in a little inspirational exploration to our travels of the shimmery white sands, and electric blue waters of the Caribbean!

Where did we land?  A Perfume Factory!  Check out our tropical journey in the video below.  

We were welcomed by a cozy porch upon arrival to this quaint, pink seashell colored building.  Greeting us were familiar names of raw materials, like English lavender, jasmine, coconut, amber and roses.

Once inside the inner workings of this island gem, beachy décor accented the retail displays as the guide explained what made their fragrance blends unique. A quick tour took us through laboratory spaces where oils are compounded and stainless steel mixing vats blended choice perfumery materials.

The finished juice is presented in decorative bottles with whimsical names drawn from the fragrant Bahamian life: Bahama Blue, Goomba, Island Promises and Pink Pearl to name a few.  Base notes of vanilla, light cream and amber in some of the creations offer a comforting Caribbean twist seasoned with peach, plum and coconut.    

We couldn’t walk away without purchasing a little something for ourselves, and, of course, a little treat for our newest canine addition, Checkers.  What was her treat?  Bahama Mama pet fragrance, fitting for a female Boston terrier!  A little spray on her sleeping pod lulls her into a dreamy wonderland and softens her fur at the same time.

How does a trip to a perfume factory in the Caribbean offer inspiration?  By offering insight into current trends.  According to Janice Hart, Sr. Manager, Bell Flavors & Fragrances, “We see a trend with our customers wanting to use more essential oils in their fragrances. - Customers are demanding purity and simplicity of pure essential oils.”

Cynthia Keeting, Global Account Executive at CosmoInternational Fragrances contends that  “ fragrance trends in personal care are exploding with scents centered around coconut - widely used in products positioned for moisturization, damage repair for hair,    adding luster, promoting scalp/skin health and stimulating hair growth. Other hot trends:  tropical/sunny island concept fragrances based on seaweed, hibiscus, passion fruit, guava and Brazilian citrus.”  

When thinking about your next product launch, what type of experience can you offer your customer? -  Need inspirational help creating that memorable product for your brand? Contact Cherie@beautyedgeinc.com  and check out our site at www.beautyedgeinc.com  view the “InnerEdge” tab to see what we’re up to!