Trend Spotting: What’s happening with blue skin care?

Visual and vibrant by nature, color cosmetics was the first beauty category to really win with consumers on Instagram. Thanks to stylish dollop photography and intriguingly formulated products (featuring dynamic textures, nuanced shades, and captivating applications or transformations) skin care has caught up.

Now there is space for single colors, concepts, and esthetics, to dominate any given social / retail moment. And while it’s not likely that blue personal care will eclipse millennial pink or influence the Pantone of the day, something is certainly going on with blue skin care—an incidental survey of the industry suggests it’s faring quite well.

Ingredients​

Cosmetics and personal care ingredient suppliers, distributors, and contract manufacturers have been showing blue raw materials and formulations at several recent tradeshows and industry exhibits.

At this year’s NYSCC Suppliers’ Day event in New York City, beauty ingredient maker Premier Specialties featured blue matcha powder as part of their tabletop exhibit. The purpley navy blue ingredient is made from dried Butterfly Pea flowers. And according to the Premier Specialties site, “in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine…blue matcha has been consumed in herbal tea drinks and used in other culinary applications, not only to impart a wonderful blue color.”​

Green matcha is tremendously popular in the beverage and food space just now; and since beauty often follows food trends, it’s quite likely that blue matcha and its concomitant skin care formulations will be well received by the consumer public.

Hand-harvested blue oolong tea is a key ingredient in this year’s innovative skin care collection from Capsum​. The contract manufacturer is, in fact, showcasing its newest microfluidic prototypes made with the tea in LA this week. Capsum formulated an Artisan skin care regime with the beautiful, beneficial blue ingredient—and, the full collection is shaded a sort of sea mist blue (a color that is both camera-ready and evocative of the tea within).

Products​

Countless skin care, sun care, and even fragrance products on the market now are blue. The Tula probiotic skin care line includes at least one subtly blue product; and the whole assortment is branded in blue packaging, messaging, etc.  

Blend-it-yourself skin care brand Loli has a transparent Blue Cornflower Water toner / cleanser as well as an Aloe Blueberry Jelly  moisturizer in its natural product lineup. And It Cosmetics’ Bye Bye Undereye cream is tinted light blue, as is Neutrogena’s Hydro Boost water gel product.  

In sun care, Shiseido’s Clear Stick UV Protector Broad Spectrum SPF is actually fairly clear, but is packaged in blue—and somehow manages to trade on the value of an SPF protection product in an intensely blue deodorant-style tube. All the while, niche brands like Acure Organics are doing well with blue skin care products such as Acure Seriously Soothing Blue Tansy Night Oil (a product formulated with the essential oil of Moroccan chamomile).

So while it's true that the 1980’s lay claim to blue eyeshadow, blue skin care ingredients are undoubtedly leaving their mark on beauty today.   

---

Deanna Utroske, CosmeticsDesign.com Editor, covers beauty business news in the Americas region and publishes the weekly Indie Beauty Profile column, showcasing the inspiring work of entrepreneurs and innovative brands.