There is no shortage of innovative ideas for formulations and product concepts within the beauty industry, ensuring that consumer interest in the category remains at a high level. This article examines trends in new product development and highlights some recent interesting launches.
A key theme that unites many beauty categories is the growth of older consumers who look for products that can offer them antiaging, firming and skin-caring benefits. Originally limited to facial skin care, today skin improvement claims can be found in color cosmetics, body care and hair care. “The addition of firming and antiaging properties to bath and shower products is the latest innovation in this sector,” comments Claire Briney, market analyst for Euromonitor. She cites Unilever’s new Dove firming range which includes a body wash that claims to leave the skin firmer and smoother. “Bath and shower product manufacturers’ aim is to benefit from the very strong growth affecting the firming body care sub-sector,” she maintains.
Innovations in Body Care
Creams and lotions no longer are the only formulation types available within body care as many new launches incorporate new and novel formats. The Body Shop’s Spa Wisdom bath and body range includes a hydrating gel called On a High Hydrating Puree and Purify Me Body Mask, a deep cleanser and intensive moisturizer for body skin.
Origins has launched Spice Odyssey Foaming Body Rub, whose formulation is based on the Moroccan spice mixture for cooking, ras el hanout, meaning “best of the best,” featuring seven herbs and spices, 20 essential oils and four exfoliants.
Body butters are being added to many body care brand portfolios. Examples include Honey Olive Neroli massage body butter within the Boots Mediterranean range, Opal London’s Water Lily & Almond Spa body butter, and Tisserand Aromatherapy Organic Lavender & Bergamot Body Butter.
Oils are another upcoming format, already popular in Germany and quickly catching on as a versatile and less greasy alternative to body creams, butters and balms. The Body Shop’s Monoi Miracle Oil is a light, nongreasy coconut oil scented with gardenia flowers for use as a moisturizer on the body or even as a prewash on the hair. Bio-Oil, from South African skin care company Union-Swiss is claimed by the company to be one of the fastest-growing skin care businesses worldwide. The unique ingredient in Bio-Oil is PurCellin Oil™, a rapidly absorbed “dry oil” that can be used to reduce the appearance of scars, stretch marks and uneven skin tone and is recommended for dehydrated or aging skin.
Energizing Formulations in Skin Care
Mintel* has recorded, via its Global New Products Database, several new skin care launches that claim to energize the skin. French skin care brand Daniel Jourance Océ Vie radiance revitalizing face cream contains the marine active ingredient thermophiline, a smart ingredient that helps protect and revitalize skin, and Rock samphire, a sensory ingredient known for its stimulating properties. It also claims that its texture and fragrance with essential oils infuses the skin with a wave of freshness and well-being.
Another French brand, Mademoiselle Bigondi, has launched a range of moisturizers that can be customized to the user’s needs and moods. Energizer is an energizing face cream that contains botanical ingredients, amino-acids and vitamin B, said to promote the production and storage of energy in the cells. Détoxifiant is a detoxifying cream with ivy, sunflower and rice extracts and is said to protect the skin against urban aggression, leaving a protective veil on the skin. Eclat du Teint is a radiance care cream that contains fermented black tea extracts which claims to give a peach-like complexion to gray and dull skin. Light-reflecting micro-prisms help to illuminate the complexion, leaving it brighter and clearer.
Japanese Mikachan Moisturizing Cream comes in striking packaging replicating a life-size Satsuma orange. It is positioned as a quasi-drug and medicated facial cream containing citrus unshu peel extract, botanical collagen (carrot extract) and botanical hyaluronic acid (okra extract) for moisturizing effects.
Skin care alternatives to Botox® injectibles are a continuing and important trend as women look for kinder, less invasive ways of ironing out expression lines. Mintel’s global new products database recently cited Laboratoire Cosnessens’ Ice Source, an instant lifting cream in an innovative quick-freezing tub. Within the packaging is a mechanism that lowers the cream’s temperature 20 degrees and is enriched with an Arctic raspberry cryo-active. The freeze effect is said to last up to eight hours, but the product should be kept in the refrigerator in order to preserve its hydrating and antiwrinkle properties.
Patch Technology
Patch technology is being used for on-the-spot skin care and body care treatments for a range of purposes. In Japan, Lifecare’s Transepidermal Water Loss Test Patch consists of five skin moisture level checker patches that measure transepidermal water loss. The patch is left on the skin for 5–10 minutes when the moisture level is shown on the indicator. Other patches in the range are the pH Test Patch and Sebum Test Patch.
L’Oréal has launched a continuous diffusion patch to target cellulite as part of its Body Expertise range, on sale in the United Kingdom. The single use patches, which should be worn three times a week for up to eight hours a day, contain caffeine CX, said to promote cutaneous microcirculation.
Patch technology also is being used as a method of measuring the levels of UV rays in a range of products from France called Indicateurs d’Exposition Solaire. Before sun exposure, the patches appear pink on the skin and sun protection then can be applied to the skin and patch. Blue indicates the correct level of UV, brown that the user must reapply sun protection, and orange that the user has been in the sun too long and needs further skin protection.
