The influences on beauty gain momentum from the state of our world.
Social issues and global events have a significant influence on the forward momentum of the beauty industry. We talk to the experts in the field about the current state of our world, and how what’s happening today will affect the beauty trends and practic
SUSTAINABLE BEAUTY
As far as beauty-related topics to get jazzed about go, environmental sustainability might not have the same impact as the latest research around reversing the ageing process, or a weightless new lipstick texture. In talking about the future of beauty, however, it’s precisely this that’s currently dominating our conversations, along with the brands and products leading the way.
The ‘clean’ conversation continues, too – what’s in our products is still of vital interest to consumers driven by the perception (proven or not) that natural is desirable. Increasingly though, the state of our planet and the far-reaching implications for the beauty industry emerges as the more pressing issue.
Zero Waste Week UK estimates that beauty packaging accounts for 120 billion units a year. There’s no question that the detritus left in our smooth-skinned wake is immense, or that as the climate crisis accelerates, every aspect of beauty and personal care production, packaging and waste must be considered. Thankfully, this is something brands are taking seriously.
“Certainly we are seeing more momentum around products and services that are mindful of the environmental impact they have,” says Emma Hobson, Director of Education for Dermalogica in Asia Pacific.
“Every aspect is being put under the consumer microscope – where ingredients are sourced, who, where and how products are manufactured, packaged and transported, how businesses conduct themselves, the social impact they have, what disposables beauty and hair salons choose to use, their recycling processes ... the list goes on. If a business does not already have a sustainability plan in action with goals that they have set for themselves, then they might not be around in the next five to 10 years.”
As ‘doing something’ becomes a selling point, some are ostensibly doing more than others. And while consumers should be wary of greenwashing, positive changes to get behind include simplified packaging that omits non-recyclable components such as cellophane wrap and mirrors; refillable options for makeup, skincare and perfume; fewer singleuse items such as wipes and sheet masks; bioplastics made from plants (look, too, for branding around the percentage of post-consumer plastics used in new packaging), and recyclable glass vessels.
Also beginning to gain traction here is Terracycle, an organisation that accepts and processes beauty packaging that can’t go into kerbside recycling, and rewards consumers for its use.
Online, the impressive claims and innovative production processes of smaller start-up brands are being amplified via social media, where sustainability is a hot topic. Multinational beauty behemoths with decades-old processes face more of a struggle, but many are making significant headway.
Aurelie de Cremiers, from L’Oréal, says given the global beauty group is responsible for 32 beauty brands producing six billion products annually, it takes its responsibility incredibly seriously.
“Globally, we’ve just signed a new sustainability programme that we call L’Oréal For The Future, with very ambitious targets to 2030. Outlining defined, measurable goals which will limit our impact on biodiversity, water, climate and resources, it will ensure our activities are respectful of the planet’s boundaries, and what it can withstand as defined by science.”
As well as pivoting to recycled and bio-plastics, L’Oréal has partnered with start-up brands to speed up development of more pioneering packaging solutions that they hope will then be adopted by the wider industry. Among them are the cardboard bottles and tubes by Paboco which will house products from Garnier and La Roche-Posay. Another just-announced initiative, this one with LanzaTech and Total, will harness captured and recycled carbon emissions in a complex process to produce the world’s first sustainable packaging of its kind.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Evidence that the beauty industry now goes far beyond face value, recognition of the role brands have to play in the wider social landscape is prompting tangible change.
Take ‘diversity’ – little more than a buzzword when beauty brands first began including it in their marketing vocabulary a few years ago, increasingly (and thankfully), many have since realised that simply adding a few deeper shades to a foundation line-up is not enough.
Beauty packaging accounts for 120 billion units of waste a year. “ADDING A FEW DEEPER SHADES TO A LINE-UP IS NOT ENOUGH.”
In June 2020, following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the US and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, there came a groundswell of support for a viral initiative called #PullUpForChange. Launched on Instagram by Black beauty company owner and former beauty corporation executive Sharon Chuter, it asked beauty brands to go beyond performative online posts and publicly release percentage breakdowns of their Black employees, from counter to corporate and executive levels.
“You can’t tell us Black Lives Matter publicly when you don’t show us that Black lives matter within your organisations,” she said at the time.
More than 300 brands responded, including the likes of Revlon, Estée Lauder, L’Oréal and Procter & Gamble. And while many were shown to be falling significantly short in the representation stakes, the tangible changes reported in the months since have been heartening to see.
“A lot of companies didn’t have the diversity, but were willing to engage in that painful moment of self-reflection and are now focusing on the future,” says Chuter.
While the initiative was US-based, its impact was undeniably momentous, prompting beauty brands around the world to address their own attitudes towards diversity, inclusion, representation and discrimination, including deeply-entrenched biases based on race, age, gender, ability, body shape and hair type.
And it’s predicted that philanthropic initiatives to support underfunded and underrepresented charities such as those long championed by brands including MAC, La Mer and Estée Lauder are set to explode this year, as brands seek more visibly to align themselves with causes and donate portions of funds to different communities in need.
“There is a strong shift in this space, especially from brands whose social and environmental approaches are at the heart of everything they do,” says Mecca creative director, Marita Burke.
For its regular philanthropic makeup collections that raise funds for animal conservation charities, and its commitment to ethical and fair trade ingredient sourcing, Burke names Chantecaille as one example. “They recently signed on to the Responsible Mica Initiative, which
supports sustainable supply chains as a means of preventing child labour in India, where most cosmetic mica comes from.” The brand also uses Certified Organic Baobab Oil that pays its harvesters – mostly Zimbabwean women – a fair wage for their work.
STEM CELL PROTEINS
“Skincare will continue to trend towards research-backed and sciencebased ingredient innovations,” confirms Nick Lang, CCO of Calecim Professional. “Patients want to see real results without compromising the health of their skin.”
Lang also believes that posttreatment skincare will increase in importance. “With non-invasive procedures gaining traction, a skincare range that can minimise downtime and be incorporated into a daily skincare regime will be of value in years to come.”
Calecim Professional features a new type of technology derived from ethically sourced red deer umbilical cord lining – a patented source of stem cells from which proteins are cultured. Produced in a certified stem cell laboratory, the stem cells secrete a mix of proteins, growth factors and cytokines that work to restore a healthy epidermal cell turnover. Created by Singapore-based biotech company CellResearch Company, Calecim is currently the only skincare to use cord lining stem cells.
BIOTECHNOLOGY & DELIVERY SYSTEMS
When it comes to skincare trends for 2021, founder of Skin Virtue, Nina Gajic says, “I think there will be a shift in focus to skin health, and innovative biotechnological active ingredients and delivery systems will be front and centre for their ability to support the skin’s functionality, and help it to regenerate and repair damage.” Gajic explains that biotechnological ingredients are found in biological sources (living organisms). These include botanical, animal and microbial sources such as algae, or apple tree stem cells. They are cultured ingredients that are the products of bioengineering to make chemicals and products. She adds that the effect of biotechnological ingredients on the skin “is generally scientifically proven through in-vitro and clinical studies”.
These ingredients rely on delivery systems such as liposomes – small capsules that have a similar structure to skin lipids, allowing them to easily penetrate the skin and carry the encapsulated active ingredient to the desired site of action. Ionosomes are another encapsulation delivery technology. Ionosomes are resistant to surfactants and electrolytes and provide protection to encapsulated active ingredients that would otherwise dissolve in water, assisting in their delivery to the desired site of action. “Both of these delivery systems help to increase the active ingredient’s potency up to tenfold,” says Gajic.
ADVANCED PEELS
“At-home skincare became a necessity in 2020, and as a result we’ve seen a huge uptick of interest in exfoliating acids,” says Daniel Isaacs, director of research at Medik8. Adept at addressing more stubborn skin concerns from advanced signs of ageing to hyperpigmentation, glycolic acid is one of the most popular exfoliating acids for a brighter, more radiant complexion. Often a key ingredient in peels, Isaacs says the problem with glycolic is that when it is overused it can sometimes leave skin sensitised. To enable people to experience the benefits of glycolic acid without the downside, Medik8 has recently launched a new, 12-week peel programme that combines six in-clinic peels tailored to your specific skin type and concerns, with an at-home regime of prescribed products. “We foresee room in the market for a product that unlocks the extensive benefits of glycolic acid, while addressing and preventing the downsides,” says Isaacs.
GAME ON
After years of nodding begrudgingly to the growth of online gaming and virtual spaces beyond social media, beauty brands are making leaps in embracing this captive audience, despite its being seemingly far removed from the physical rituals of applying makeup or skincare.
With much of the real world on pause thanks to the pandemic, companies have cottoned on to the sheer number of eyeballs on hot gaming platforms including PCs, consoles and mobiles, and how they might use these to their advantage. The statistics don’t lie, after all. According to respected games market research firm Newzoo, there were 2.7 billion players globally in 2020 and the global games market grew 19.6 per cent to US$174.9bn. Off the back of this pandemic-prompted growth, and despite the arrival of vaccines meaning that we will soon be spending less time at home, the market is still expected to generate US$217.9 billion annually by 2023.
Crucially, too, the gamer demographic has evolved beyond its young, male archetype. Now, nearly half of players are female, their average age 36, with a growing portion aged 50+. As such, 2021 will see more brands leveraging gaming to promote beauty products.
In 2020, early adopters in the corporate fashion and beauty sphere experimented with creating digital ‘add-ons’ for characters within games such as Animal Crossing and Pokémon Go. These add-ons gave players the ability to personalise their avatars with clothing and makeup designed to look like products available in real life. Givenchy was the first luxury beauty brand to create makeup looks for Animal Crossing creatures, based on iconic products including its Prisme Libre powders and Le Rouge lipsticks.
At a time when far fewer northern hemisphere consumers were visiting the beach – the peak season for shaving – Gillette’s Venus razor brand navigated the challenge of summer marketing by sponsoring
a download that gave Animal Crossing players greater ability to personalise their avatar skin tones. The upgrade increased the available selection from just a few shades, to 19 different skin types in eight in-game skin tones, resulting in over 250 different options. Also represented for the first time were common skin realities including freckles, acne, hair, cellulite, scars and stretch marks, as well as more unique and underrepresented skin conditions and features such as vitiligo, psoriasis, tattoos and differently abled bodies.
With MAC, Glossier, Tatcha and Benefit recently offering unique approaches in the gaming space, plenty more are expected to explore real-life tie ins this year.
EMOTIVE FRAGRANCE
With its unrivalled ability to evoke another time or place, or enhance your connection to your current environment, it’s not surprising our fragrance desires have been significantly impacted over the past year, prompting brands to concentrate on seeking out emotive scents.
“Fragrance in 2021 is going to be all about being transported,” explains Mecca’s Marita Burke. “Understandably, people are currently gravitating towards scents that remind them of places they have been or would love to visit, and that they cannot access at the moment. Whether your dream destination is a foreign city, the ski slopes or a tropical island, and whether its scent is a familiar memory or a hope for the future, the right perfume will take you there.”
Burke recommends options such as Diptyque’s Eau Capitale – a tribute to Paris and its history as the birthplace of creativity for artists, writers, architects and dancers – and D.S. & Durga’s Rose Atlantic, which evokes the scent of a sea breeze, intermingled with the musk rose. “It’s reminiscent of sitting by the beach in summertime, enjoying the sunshine with a glass of Prosecco.”
Global perfume developer Firmenich, responsible for some of the world’s most famous scents, is pinpointing nostalgia as a guiding force for upcoming releases, having undertaken a major study to identify the emotional sentimentality we connect with certain notes. Though the results have varied by area – US participants favouring cinnamon and vanilla, and in Germany, gingerbread, nutmeg and clove – the study has revealed that ‘edible’ gourmand notes consistently provoke the most emotional responses.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, as we continue to prioritise the cosiness and homeliness of our own abodes, home fragrance in the form of candles, room sprays, pillow mists and diffusers are having a huge moment. The upshot for consumers and a boon for brands limited in their abilities to offer new releases at this time, is that we are likely to see our favourite, top-selling perfumes transformed into new formats.
Another huge shift acknowledged in research group Mintel’s recent Fragrance Innovation report notes a projected rise in fragrances designed to wear when you are alone. Dubbed ‘loungewear perfume’, the approach being trialled by some brands involves relaxed, soft, clean and understated notes for wearing at home rather than special events.
INGREDIENT INTELLIGENCE
With rapid acceleration in both consumers’ desire for knowledge about the what, why and how of skincare, and an influx of new products on shelves, it stands to reason that for many, skincare has evolved from a simple routine to a hobby towards which we devote great care, consideration, and numerous application steps.
Studying the INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) or a product’s ingredients list before making a selection is becoming a more mainstream pastime, and brands are meeting these new consumer habits by highlighting desirable ingredients like hyaluronic acid or bakuchiol on the front of packaging.
“It can only be a positive that we are making more informed choices about the skincare we use,” says Rebecca Hollowood, Elizabeth Arden field sales and education manager.
“As more skincare brands flood the market, it’s only natural that our interest is piqued and with the aid of the internet, information is readily available to us,” she adds. Her advice is to check in with your skincare expert “to ensure that new skincare products align with the results you want to achieve, and will work together with your current skincare”.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed,
know that the flipside is also an option. ‘Skinimalism’, a term coined by Pinterest in its ‘Pinterest Predicts’ report for 2021, refers to the rising popularity of simplified routines and ‘slow beauty’. The report indicates a huge leap in searches for the likes of ‘face yoga’, ‘how to get glowing skin naturally’ and ‘homemade skincare’.
Of course, if you remain firmly in the camp of skincare devotees intent on gleaning everything they can about formulations and ingredients, here are a few to look out for over the coming year:
• Snow mushroom – offers hydrating properties to rival hyaluronic acid.
• Niacinamide – not new, but leaping to prominence as it addresses a number of skin concerns at once, including hyperpigmentation, elasticity, redness and acne.
• Sea buckthorn – rich in vitamin E, it deeply hydrates and plumps skin, repairs its barrier function and helps with signs of ageing.
• Algae – depending on the type, it has hydrating, anti-ageing, antioxidant, brightening and smoothing properties.
MINDFUL SOUL CARE
With home repositioned as a wellness sanctuary and quality time with a mirror or bathtub increasingly considered a self-care practice, we’ll see more products devoted to the mind-body connection, as the beauty and wellness sectors continue to fuse. Invoking a sense of calm is a top priority for this industry, as is giving consumers something more than just visible benefits.
Integrative beauty respects the connection between skin, body and emotional wellbeing, and encompasses ideas around inner health and supplements, promoting self-acceptance, prioritising rest, the use of adaptogenic herbal and botanical ingredients in skincare designed to help the body deal with stress, and mindfulness rituals to pursue while engaging with products. While a number of brands apply a holistic approach to everything they do, there are still more whose products embrace one or two elements – a scent designed to help you unwind, for instance, or a face oil intended to be applied with a rose quartz Gua Sha massage tool.
Leading fragrance and flavour company Givaudan has just released Vivascentz, a new technology designed to assist in creating scents that positively impact the user’s overall state of wellbeing. It follows the brand’s previous research into how scent can assist sleep, now being used in numerous well-known personal care products.
NECK AND NECK
Local experts are in agreeance with global trend forecaster WGSN, which has indicated that in the coming months and years we’ll be hearing more about treatments for our ‘jeck’ – that’s the jaw and neck area.
“Driven by increased time spent chin-down on devices, jeck ‘tweakments’ will increasingly gain the attention of consumers and specialists alike, leading to products that deliver salon-grade results,” reports WGSN.
TEXTURE TWIST
Lest you think beauty has lost its sense of fun, another of our senses is bringing it back. Touch, or more specifically, texture, is set to drive our product selections as innovative new options budge boring from the shelves and we seek sensorial upgrades for traditionally straightforward products.
Traditional creams and lotions are on their way to being largely farewelled; in their place, modern variations of lightweight gel creams, oils, balms, mists, mousses, jelly, powders, scrubs that fizz, and even colours that transform.
“The feel of a product on our skin is one of the primary reasons we purchase and use it,’’ says Dermalogica’s Emma Hobson. “Scientific innovations mean new textures are emerging all the time that not only feel better, but perform better. Going forward, we will be seeing lighter, softer and smoother products that disappear into the skin.”
Often the downfall of an otherwise impressive product, makeup brands have also been working on textural improvements, such as removing the stickiness from high shine lip gloss.
Skin Virtue now offers their serum as a mist in the Skin Virtue Future Advanced Serumist.
Elizabeth Arden’s just-released Flawless Start Hydrating Serum Primer has forgone a traditional cream or silicon feel in favour of tiny droplets of oil that are suspended within a hydrating gel and burst imperceptibly on contact, offering numerous skincare benefits at the same time as laying down the perfect base for foundation.
It’s not all whizz-bang stuff through. Solid bar soaps are having a renaissance of late, and foam cleansers – previously cast off thanks to their drying reputation – are making a comeback with gentler and all-natural formulations.
SUPPLEMENT BOOM
The beauty slice of the supplements market has been growing apace in the past five years and shows no sign of slowing as the options dovetail with our increased interest in anything perceived to be related to health and wellness. Collagen in general has gained much attention recently. Given that the natural collagen in our bodies begins to diminish with age, the idea of supporting the system with supplementation is appealing to many. However, wider studies need to be undertaken around how much of these supplements are absorbed, and the quantities that reach their intended targets (namely nails and skin), versus being used by other organs. To date, some small studies have shown promising results as far as their ability to support skin hydration, elasticity and smoothness.
“THERE HAS BEEN A HUGE LEAP IN SEARCHES FOR FACE YOGA.”