‘Selfie Beauty’ Pushing Trends in Beauty and Personal Care

Looking at what is moving beauty forward for today and into tomorrow, Euromonitor International released a video titled “Major Trends Driving the Beauty and Personal Care Industry for 2014.”

In the video, Irina Barbalova, global head of beauty and personal care research for Euromonitor, says, “The beauty remained robust in 2013 despite a moderate slowdown—down to around 5% in 2013 compared to close to 6% in 2012. Western Europe actually picked up marginally, while Africa and the Middle East remained fairly steady at double-digit growth rates. But all other regions actually underperformed compared to the previous year, largely due to a dampened expenditure environment in the heavyweights of the beauty industry like China, Brazil and the U.S.

“Despite the slowdown in China and Brazil, emerging markets still represent huge opportunities for the industry, and China and Brazil are now being joined by other new growth frontier markets. Like Indonesia, for example, growing by around 16% in 2013, where we see middle class consumption being pretty resilient. In fact, the power shift to emerging markets will evidence itself by 2018, when over 50% of the global beauty value will actually be in the hands of the developing world.

“Now, when we look at the major themes driving the industry in terms of innovation and product development, we could probably still talk about multi-benefit combinations being at the forefront. BB and CC creams continue to grow strongly; however, the all-in-one concept is now becoming a lot more ubiquitous and is expected for any given product. Despite this, however, I think there’s probably still a room for cross-category convergence and those hybrid type of products on the market.

“Now I think 2014 will actually be probably, from what we can define, about the ‘selfie beauty,’ now becoming quite a common term. This, in terms of beauty, is pretty much defined in a way with the whole preoccupation of consumers about their image, about their needs and how they’re perceived in the outer world and specifically in the social media world, means that innovation will have to be a lot more tailored, personalized and very much solution-based. So, for example, if we take skin care—it’s not just about anti-aging now and wrinkles, but about skin perfection.

“Also, another important area is increased focus on experience and the emotive element attached to products. A lot of brands are already experimenting with novel packaging, application formats, novel formulations, scents and textures—but also, novel retail concepts all about how products engage and excite the consumer,” Barbalova concludes.

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