19 May 2021 7 min read
This article is the final installment in a four-part series by Carat, examining the beauty industry. Read part one, part two or part three.
Conscious consumers are becoming more educated when it comes to products. Beauty movements, like clean beauty, sustainability and the biotech boom, have led to an industry push for groundbreaking solutions in the form of product innovation.
The beauty industry has long been at the forefront of science and technology. And as global events drive people to become more concerned about the health of the planet and its people, beauty brands are innovating to deliver products that are safe and sustainable, multi-purpose and personalised.
Givaudan Active Beauty tackles oily skin issues and outperforms retinoic acid with Mangixyl cosmeticsbusiness.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cosmeticsbusiness.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Unilever beauty business reshuffle
Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever, told attendees at this year’s online Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) 2021 conference that the company would make some
“strategic choices” in the months and years ahead, and had already formed a
“dedicated management team” to start the process of separating out certain, smaller beauty and personal care brands.
Alongside these divestments, the company would also seek potential acquisitions in the prestige beauty space – a division Unilever wanted to grow to €3bn in the next few years, he said.
Natural CBD enters the EU CosIng database
News that the European Commission had added natural whole-hemp cannabidiol (CBD) to its cosmetics ingredients CosIng database sparked plenty of interest in the beauty world.
Skin care consumers are now looking for products and brands that they consider safe and highly efficient in plugging new skin health needs during the crisis (Getty Images) The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has propelled skin health to the top of the beauty agenda, as consumers seek out brands that plug new needs around skin barrier protection, hydration and cleansing, says the president of L’Oréal Active Cosmetics.
Earlier this month, L’Oréal reported a 5% net profit drop for 2020 despite significant success in its Active Cosmetics division – the only business unit to grow in sales for the full year, up 18.9% on a like-for-like basis versus 2019. The division also saw the largest spike in sales for the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2020, up 30.7% like-for-like.
Writing in
Chemistry & Biodiversity, researchers from the Italy’s University of Florence and Poland’s University of Science and Technology in Wroclaw reviewed the cosmeceutical peptides market, identifying methods and technologies from scientific literature and patents used to overcome bioavailability and stability challenges.
Peptides are interesting ‘bioactive cosmeceutical ingredients’
Peptides, the researchers wrote, could be considered
“an interesting group of bioactive cosmeceutical ingredients” that had garnered rising attention in recent years. However, bioavailability and stability of these peptides when used as actives remained
“one of the most relevant problems in both drugs and cosmetics”, they said
.
“Although in the past five years, nearly 200 review articles dealing with cosmeceuticals appeared in [the] PubMed database, only six of them address the problem of active ingredient permeation.”