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The class of chemicals which bring us non-stick pans, PFAS, is prevalent across industries, including cosmetics, but regulation and litigation over safety concerns are increasing.
PFAS can be used in cosmetics to make products long-wear, more easily spreadable, more absorbent on the skin and to give the appearance of smoothness or shimmer, according to scientific reviews of the chemical class.
Because of research suggesting PFAS may have serious health impacts, state regulations and litigation are on the rise, and cosmetics brands need to start considering where the chemicals appear in their own products, Ally Cunningham and Matt Walker, partner and associate at Lathrop GPM respectively, told CosmeticsDesign.
In approaching dealing with regulations, litigation or potentially removing PFAS from products, there may be challenges in testing, formulating and avoiding legal action, they said.
Q&A
Technology in beauty is not new, but in a world of virtual tools, augmented reality and virtual reality, new frontiers of commerce may be opening up. CosmeticsDesign spoke with Pascal Houdayer, CEO of Orveon, owner of bareMinerals, BUXOM, and Laura Mercier, about virtual tech in the beauty segment.
Generally, what's happening with AI in the beauty segment right now?
In beauty, on the whole, it's not just now. It has been a trend that has been here for more than 10 years, which is basically touching different things around the IoT, virtual reality and virtual try-on, which are now accelerating with crypto collectibles. The Metaverse has specific parallel realities of shopping.
What we can say is that AI was already extremely used in beauty. Around 2015, we saw a lot of connected devices in hair care and skin care. Some of them were connected brushes, some of them were a personalized way to design a product that is exactly adapted to your skin, or your hair, like sending the hair to a lab to analyze the DNA of your hair so that we can do an exact product for the hair needs.
AI has always been used extensively in beauty, whatever the degree, including in oral care and toothbrushes, and now it's just accelerating in different ways.
Beauty supply chains stretch across the world and end wherever a given consumer decides to throw their product away, but Izzy has a different plan.
Izzy is a prestige makeup brand with three hero products, mascara, gloss and brow gel, but what sets the brand apart is the complete supply chain overhaul they have designed, starting with a local supply chain and ending with consumers returning their used packaging.
Shannon Goldberg, the founder of Izzy and a 17-year veteran of the beauty industry, told CosmeticsDesign she was inspired to start the brand when she read an article stating that the cosmetics industry produces 200 billion pieces of non-recyclable plastic annually.
After reading that article, she said she wanted to learn everything about sustainability in the beauty industry.
Customer loyalty in color cosmetics can be elusive, but a makeup brand built around crayons and sticks has converted to a refillable model to give consumers a reason to come back.
Color cosmetics brand Trestique, based out of New York City, started six years ago built on the concept of a full makeup routine of stick and crayon-format products. Co-founder and co-CEO Jack Bensason said the idea behind the brand was to create a simple, single-brand makeup routine.
While it is common in the skin care market for consumers to purchase a whole routine under a single brand umbrella, Bensason said consumers were significantly less likely to do the same thing with makeup because retailers and brands were more likely to advertise their newest or trendiest product.
“Unlike many other brands, we’re not built around one hero product,” Bensason said. “In makeup, the customer behavior is very different because … the brand never gave them a reason to buy all the products under one roof. Our hero product is basically the makeup routine.”
European cosmetics manufacturer MS Beautilab is moving into the US market with strong R&D and recalibrated formulations.
The manufacturer, a merger of Swiss packaging company Marvinpac and French color cosmetics specialist Strand Cosmetics, has been serving legacy companies like LVMH and L’Oreal in Europe.
Shannaz Schopfer, MS Beautilab North American general manager, said while the company didn’t take into account how the Marvinpac-Strand joint name would translate into English, they determine they could fill sustainability and efficacy spaces in the North American market.
Bringing European sustainability, R&D to North America
With a number of creams, balms, color cosmetics formats and powders already in Europe, Schopfer said the company saw an opening in the US market for a manufacturer with high levels of research and development, as well as clean and sustainable formulations under different metrics.
