Product Development Tips: When manufacturing goes wrong

Photo Credit: Cherie Buziak

It’s crazy how much effort goes into getting a product on the shelf. And sometimes, the decisions are never about the product. The decisions are about trusting in the big picture, they’re about trusting yourself and who you have become as a creative marketing product developer, trusting your colleagues and trusting time.

How Things Usually Work

As a product developer, you may be asked to go on the first production run for the product that you and the R&D teams developed at the lab level. This is a great learning opportunity to observe how a product moves from tubs of raw materials and is processed all the way through to a final filled and packaged product.

Generally, attendance isn’t something that is done alone. Production engineers, R&D teams, chemists and QC teams join and meet pre-, mid- and post-production.

The brunt of the manufacturing typically lies in the hands of the production engineers. Raw materials need to be weighed, checked and double-checked for quality assurance. Everything is in their corner. However, depending on the size of the company you work for, the marketing product developer may need to approve the final produced bulk. That's where I came in.

When Things Go Wrong

I was three months into a new position running my first manufacturing batch. I was faced with a scaled-up bulk that, well….didn’t look right.

On this first production run the product, a moisturizer, formed a slight liquid on the surface after being filled—not a good sign. We never saw this type of behavior of the bulk at the lab level. It wasn’t a large amount of liquid. I actually had to tilt the jar on its side, and look pretty closely, but it was there. I thought to myself:  "Will the flaw be significantly noticeable to the customer, or was I just being picky about the formula aesthetic?" 

My first thought was: now what? I’m not a chemist, but I did know enough to understand that this early separation sign could mean that the product would eventually separate once delivered and was sitting on the selling shelf.

My boss wasn’t there to consult with me, and Skype, FaceTime and instant meeting apps were not yet the industry go-to, nor was sending pictures via phone or e-mail.

The engineering and R&D teams were there, but, since I was representing the marketing team, I had to make the multi-million-dollar decision of how to proceed.
 

Questions I Had to Answer as a Product Developer

1. Do we let these pieces that were filled go to market, and then adjust the formula for the next scale up?

2. Do I hold this batch from being shipped?

3. Will the flaw be significantly noticeable to the customer, or was I just being picky about the formula aesthetic?

4. Do I give the order for a multi-million-dollar do-over by directing the team to trash the bulk and packaging and start over?

What I Did

First, I decided to wait. In a world where speed to market is the norm, doing nothing looks like no decision at all.

And yet, I trusted my gut. At some point in your career, you learn to listen to that inner voice. Gut instinct—it’s not something you can write on your CV as a skill set.

And with doing nothing comes the inner discipline of sitting well with your decision, even while knowing that everyone around you wants you to do something—and what they want you to do is make a decision that they can see. A decision that moves the process forward.

Through the support of my supervisor, I held my ground. I slept on it. Why? I not only trusted myself, but I trusted my colleagues and the wisdom I had gained from the chemists in the labs over time. Sometimes the initial pour of a product continues to change over the first 24 hours. Viscosity can build, and texture can feel different. I wanted to wait and see what would happen. 

Finally, I put things in perspective. I recalled a common internal mantra that we shared in the office to help lighten things up when things got tough: “We’re making beauty products; we’re not curing cancer.”

What Happened and What We Learned

The next morning we realized that the formula had been poured and capped when it was a little too warm, so it formed a slight condensation on the surface of the bulk. It didn’t happen to every piece, but it occurred enough to step back and evaluate the situation.

Some Things Just Need Time

By the next morning, the bulk was back to normal. It was a relief to give the go-ahead to move forward with production. And we learned a few things. We learned that this particular formula had a very sensitive viscosity level.

Viscosity specs needed to be watched closely during manufacturing or else we could end up with a very runny formula coming out of a jar with cap component—not desirable.

A Happy Ending

Today, we run in a fast business of trying to meet consumer demands, and waiting, for time, can be an unheard of concept. But some principles never change: some things just need time.

You can’t force matters if time is needed for a decision to be made, or a process to happen. Experience, trust and diligence yield better results.

Oh, and one more thing. This particular product ended up winning a CEW award. Happy ending!

This article was originally published in Global Cosmetic Industry Magazine.

Product Development Tips: Building your Skillset

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 WOW! Effect

It's said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in a venue like In-Cosmetics, the attention of beauty is captured by those things that sparkle, twinkle, illuminate, glow, bubble, shimmer, shine and beg to be viewed and appreciated by an experience using multiple senses. Among aisles and aisles of new technologies, innovative advancements, presentations, studies, and flashing signage that saturated the space at In-Cosmetics London, one of the common factors gaining attention were booths with engaging displays and eye catching appeal.  

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Photo credit; cherie buziak #in-cosmetics17

In today's Beauty Market, we who are involved in bringing products to market face that same challenge -- catching the consumer's eye, even when the consumer may be quickly walking or surfing by. With more sales completed digitally, how do we connect to the consumer? How do we make that sale? What moves a consumer to the purchase? One piece to consider is the WOW! effect. It's not something new, but it is more important now than ever.

These same things that attract us as product developers, chemists, innovators and game changers are the same things that attract our final customer. The goal is gathering all of the technology available to us to deliver something new, fresh and outstanding.

Yet, the secret sauce isn't always in the perceived visual. While continuing to try to capture the consumer's interests and market share, these eye candy, visually appealing aesthetics as pictured above is the goal. And innovation is key. 

For example, it isn’t really the sparkle that is being presented as the technology in the image; the technology is in the vehicle that suspends the glitter, the clarity of the gel, and the way the suspension of the formula holds the weight of these particles. All of these elements combined are the interrupters of someone walking by to stop, take a look, explore, ask questions and engage with the product.  

Are you interested in adding a WOW! effect to your products? Do you need technology or ideas  that will make your products stand apart and intrigue the consumers enough that they will step in and purchase the product?  If you'd like to learn more about creating aesthetic appeal or a strategy for your brand, contact me to schedule a consultation to talk through your goals. Email Cherie@beautyedgeinc.com  Check out our site www.beautyedgeinc.com

PROTECTING YOUR BEAUTY BRAND AND YOURSELF: 3 KEY THOUGHTS TO KEEP IN MIND

 Imagine this:  You’ve developed your own private-label products, or perhaps you put together a few natural ingredients and are packaging your own custom formula in your facility.  You introduce the product to a long-standing client, and suddenly an allergic reaction occurs with your client or, worse yet, an infection develops after using the product. Now what?  

Having been in the product development beauty industry for years, I’ve been privy to cases where the  end product users will try to gain compensation against products they have tried on their skin, even if the formula is rigorously tested and passes all sensitivity and safety measures.  A reaction can happen. And even if you think a responsible gesture such as paying for your client’s doctor bill will cover you, it won’t. A client can sue you for damages that you never even thought of, even if they misuse the product. And unless you’re ready to back yourself up with a lawyer and court fees, the situation can put you out of business.

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Here’s three thoughts to keep in mind to help protect you when developing your own brand.

Safety. It’s best to have your formulas developed with a  reputable lab that specifically prides itself in using quality-controlled ingredients. Controlled ingredients means that the material used from batch to batch will satisfy testing standards and that there will be aesthetic consistency with your formula from batch to batch.  Once the formula is made, some safety testing measures include checking that your product helps prevent a micro environment that’s ready for bacterial growth, testing for known skin sensitivities, and testing for acceptable use around the eye area.  THE TAKEAWAY:  Test products for safety

Stability. It’s easy to add xyz ingredient to a formula, bottle it, and then put a label on it.  However, consider that each adjustment made to a specific formula will affect your overall formula ingredient list (IL) or formula balance. The product must be tested for stability so that it doesn’t separate in the long term and that it can maintain its integrity in different environmental conditions. Additionally, package compatibility helps ensure that the component will not leak any of your formula and that the formula works with the component materials.   THE TAKEAWAY:  Ensure product stability

Product Liability Protection. Search for insurance companies that not only cover you and your business but also cover you and your products. Ask “what if” situational questions. For example: What if a client decides to sue you because a product that you sold them burned their skin or caused further skin complications? According to Sara Bumby  FirstImpactNY, it’s imperative that Product Liability insurance is purchased because “Most contract manufacturer and distributors will require it to work with you. Although it is not required by  law to have product liability insurance, the importance to protect yourself from a potential lawsuit is critical, or loss of your goods. I think of it similar to Homeowners insurance, it is there to protect me for the just in case situation.”  

According to Sara, “There are two main different types of insurance in the cosmetics industry which I would recommend researching, Product Liability and Professional Liability. Product Liability for cosmetics, which includes all personal care, is a specialty insurance that not all insurance carriers cover. When researching the right company for you, let them know the type of products you want to cover with your policy first thing. This insurance is for the physical goods. It not only can help protect you from a lawsuit, but will also protect your goods in case something happens and you are in need to replace them. (Every policy is different. Reading the fine print of what will and will not be covered is critical.)”    

“Additionally, Professional liability is for people who give advice. Are you directing people on the use of the products? Could you, by an error or omission, misdirect someone in the use of a product? If so, then this may be another insurance you need to look into for yourself. Be sure to research whether this will cover you if you have a blog.” THE TAKEAWAY:  Protect yourself and your business  

Bonus point: Hire an expert to help you. Can you launch a brand on your own? Sure, yes, you can. However, like everything else, is this really the one more thing that you want to add to your plate? And how are you going to protect yourself and your brand against any potential mishaps? If you want to get your product or brand launched in a timely fashion and ensure that it is safe and stable, don’t hesitate to bring on the extra help you’ll need to source vendors, finalize the technology and formulas, and to speak in chemists’ language.

If launching your own private label brand is in your plan for 2017 or if you’d like to learn more, contact me to schedule a consultation to talk through your goals. Email Cherie@beautyedgeinc.com  Check out our site www.beautyedgeinc.com

If you’d like to learn more about quality control and global regulatory requirements, contact Sara Bumby Sara@firstimpactnewyork.com  Or visit her site FirstImpactNY

Stay tuned for the next post in this series on  “product and formula development.”

LAUNCHING A PRIVATE LABEL BRAND: 3 KEY THOUGHTS TO KEEP IN MIND

It’s 2017 and perhaps you’ve thought “I want to launch my own skin care/cosmetic collection.” If you are a small business owner, an esthetician, or a cosmetic medical or spa owner, launching a new product brand is a great way to establish yourself in the marketplace and gain additional income for your business.

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If a new brand is in your future, here are a few things to consider.

1.  Have a plan. Start out with a  business plan supported by a marketing plan. Your plan is adjustable and you can change it along the way. Consider it almost like a living document. In the plan, consider your mission statement, your goals, the financial commitment needed for your brand for development and sell-through, your target market, pricing strategy and competitors. It doesn’t take a long time to create a plan, but you need to know where you are going and how much this will all cost. And consider the extra help or expertise that you may need to hire on, even if temporarily, to get your brand launched. THE TAKEAWAY: Create a business plan.

2. Marketing. Alongside a business plan is a marketing plan. Sometimes marketing plans are included at the end of the business plan as an addendum. However you treat it, it’s best to have a marketing plan in place. Once you have thought about your products and created your business plan, how are you going to sell the product through? What PR support or other media will you use to promote your collection? How will you plan new product launches or introductions? This, like the business plan, can have room for adjustments along the way. THE TAKEAWAY: Create a marketing plan as you create your business plan.  

3. Start small. Depending on the size of your facility, there is no need to rush into launching a 10 to 20 sku collection. Start with just a few key pieces to give you the opportunity to introduce the products and its special features to your clients. Also, launching with only a few pieces allows room to spare for new product launches in the future. THE TAKEAWAY:  A conservative launch is okay.  

Bonus point: Hire an expert to help you.  Can you launch a brand on your own? Sure, yes, you can. However, like everything else, is this really the one more thing that you want to add to your plate? Adding product development can be a great note for your CV, but if you want to get your product out in a timely fashion, don’t hesitate to bring on the extra help you’ll need to source vendors, finalize the technology, develop formulas, speak in chemist language, or to use as a second eye for design, copy, and marketing.

If launching your own private-label brand is in your plans or if you’d like to learn more, contact me to schedule a consultation to talk through your goals.  Email Cherie@beautyedgeinc.com  Check out our site www.beautyedgeinc.com

Stay tuned for the next post in this series: “Protect yourself against possible product liabilities.”

CHALLENGE YOURSELF !

 Do you challenge yourself and the level of work that you produce to refine your product development skills?

Let’s talk about concept development writing for a moment.  An integral piece to product development.

I was fortunate to have one particular employer during my career (a boss), that encouraged me to look more outside the box, than within the box, when developing concepts for products. 

Outside the box, innovation, forward thinking, thought leader - they’re all clichés.  Yet,  they’re also the terms we use to get out of ourselves and our normal approach to doing things in order to better refine and solidify our skill sets.

I’ll never forget the incident that pushed me out of my usual approach to concept development, the moment that made me stop and take a closer, more critical look at my work. After submitting a skin care concept to my boss, it was returned with massive comments all over the ideas I worked so hard to develop! I recall looking at the paper, and saying “wow” out loud !  I was surprised.  I really thought that I had turned over a pretty good concept.  In that moment,  I was immediately transported back to the days of being corrected by my elementary school English teacher.

What did I do?  I said - “I’ll do it again." I pushed past my hurt pride and began an intense revision process. And then, the “aha!” moment I was hoping for...I understood that the product needed to have “life."  I was very good at technical writing, but this needed more...it needed to be told from a deeper or inner place that was relational to the consumer.  It needed a romantic story that captured people’s attention and opened up their senses to want to explore the product more!  I began to dig deeper, carefully selecting words that were emotionally connected, while at the same time incorporating high-end technology in simple terms.

While the push to continuously revise concepts was a challenge for me at first, I continued to listen to my boss’s feedback and to work on my skills. I would rewrite concepts over and over, read them forwards, backwards, share them with coworkers for feedback  and change sentences around   until they clicked and had the magic that gave them life.

This sincere mentoring of my boss — and my reaching out for constructive criticism—paid off a few years later as I took on a new role for a brand that allowed me to proactively develop products for the skin care, color, and fragrance categories.  It’s a rare opportunity in the beauty industry to be given a role to develop cross-category.  Had I not stuck with pushing through the learning curves—risking being wrong, and using  constructive criticism to my benefit —my creative growth would have been stunted.  

What's your biggest challenge during concept development?

a) using romantic language to bring the product to life

b) writing about high-end technology in a consumer-friendly way

c) asking for and using constructive criticism to make your concept stronger

Want to challenge your work?  Ask for feedback from team members that you normally would not approach to critique it.  See what new ideas you can develop from taking a risk and challenging yourself.  

Need assistance or fresh ideas with concept  writing  ?  Contact cherie@beautyedgeinc.com   

 

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. 

Missed the last update?  Check out what we’re up to at www.beautyedgeinc.com - click on the InnerEdge tab.   

NYSCC - Presentation: The Science Behind Beauty, - Why We Spa!