This is a joint article written by cosmetic chemists Valerie Patton & Perry Romanowski

This question was tweeted by @beautyscientist and followed up by @thelahobo. I thought it was pretty interesting so teamed up with @thelahobo to tackle the subject.

The original question was posted on a business forum and the questioner specifically wondered, how profitable would a natural cosmetic business (skin care line) that I started in my kitchen be? Many of you may be wondering the same, so here are some key things you need to know.

Cosmetic market

The cosmetic market is a pretty good one as nearly everyone on the planet uses some kind of personal care product. There is a ton of competition of course, but consumers are always looking to try something new and with the right dedication you can create a following of loyal consumers who will be the basis of your business for years to come.

Cosmetic start up costs

Starting your own skincare line from home *can* be profitable, but how quickly profitable is where it gets sticky. If you are a small shop starting out, it is unlikely that you are going to get your products into major retail stores or even mid sized local stores. Your best bet is to begin online where you can build some sales data which you can then take to your local markets to convince them to carry your product. If you take the online route, your key start-up costs will be in three primary areas including product development, marketing, and business expenses.

Of course, these costs can vary widely depending on the formulations you are making but here is a general ballpark for what you can expect.

Product development costs

When people think of starting their own cosmetic line, the product development costs are what they generally think about. Basically, these costs include anything related to creating your product such as raw material costs, packaging, and labeling. It also includes the cost of production activities such as mixing the materials together and filling them into the packaging. Cosmetic formulations can run anywhere from $0.10 per pound to $3 per pound but on average you can guess products will cost about $1 per pound. Packaging & labeling will cost another $1 per unit. Add in production and filling costs and your average per bottle cost will be about $2 – $3 per unit.

But you can’t just make a few bottles at a time as you’ll have to buy minimum quantities of the raw materials and bottles. To get the costs to $2 – $3 per unit you are going to have to make a minimum of 500 – 1000 units. If you make less your costs will go up significantly.

So, figure this part of product development will cost you around $3000.

Hidden product development costs

While $3000 doesn’t seem too bad, the product development costs are not done yet. If you are serious about running a cosmetic business you MUST test your products to ensure they are safe and effective. Preservative Efficacy Testing is a must. It can be a little pricey to start out if you have multiple products, but the one-time cost of this (~$350/product) is far less than payment on a lawsuit. Sensitivity testing should be done too, but can be optional, if your budget is super tight. However, if the product is going to be applied near the eyes or has ingredients like SPF, AHAs or BHAs, etc, you should really consider budgeting this in. These tests start at $800 and go to $1500 at some labs in the California area. If you’re selling an SPF product, don’t forget that SPF testing will probably cost you around $3000-$4000. Note these are ballpark figures.

So, the hidden costs of formula development have now pushed your cosmetic start-up costs to about $6000.

Cosmetic business costs

If you are going to sell cosmetics and you don’t want to lose everything, you should incorporate. In the US you could conduct your business under a Sole Proprietorship, but this makes you completely liable for anything bad that might happen as a result of your products. You would be risking your savings, your car, and your home. You do not want to do this. Incorporate to protect your personal assets from liability. This will cost you about $500.

Business Insurance

Now, you also need to further protect yourself. Whether you’re the formulator, manufacturer, or skincare company, get insurance. There are two basic types to be considered – Property Insurance and General Liability Insurance. Property insurance is just that – it protects your property, like rental insurance would. In the event of, let’s say, a fire, everything related to the retail aspect of your business (computers, your product inventory) are covered. The insurance company will write you a nice, big check for what you lost. This insurance is a great idea for a skincare or hair care company, in the event of misfortune, but if your budget is tight, it is probably not necessary. Formulators and manufacturers don’t necessarily have to have this one, but again, it’s a good idea.

Anyone serious about a cosmetic business should have is general liability insurance. And, unfortunately, this is the expensive one. This insurance is in the event that someone experiences an adverse reaction to your product, or slips and falls on your property. The cost of this insurance is typically based on how much sales your business has during the year. The limits are set so that the insurance company will pay a total of X amount of dollars (general aggregate limit), and will only pay a certain number of occurrences or claims. The higher your sales, limits, and occurrences, the higher the monthly premium. Formulators should have this insurance in case their formulation is the reason for the occurrence, and likewise for manufacturers – if something they did during the manufacturing process contaminates the product and causes the adverse reaction, they are responsible.

Sometimes, if you work with contract manufacturers and or contracted formulators they will “umbrella” the cosmetic company on their policy. This means that the manufacturer or formulator’s insurance company is including your products on the insurance. It does not mean that you are insured individually as a cosmetic company. That is why it is important for your company to have its own insurance. Formulators and manufacturers can be insured until kingdom come, but ultimately responsibility falls on the your company for the safety of the products. If the product doesn’t perform the advertised claim, or you do something to make the product unsafe, you are responsible. Selling homemade products is a huge risk – and any adverse reaction can potentially cost you thousands or millions. So, you just have to weigh the odds.

Finally, the last thing to consider about insurance. If your dream is to get your product into a large retailer – most major companies require proof of insurance before selling your product, as they will assume no liability.  Insurance costs will depend on lots of factors but a rough estimate is ~$100 per month per $1,000,000 of insurance.

There are lots of other business related costs such as fees for lawyers, accountants, employees and taxes but the details will be highly dependent on where you are located and how you run your business. You should just figure on some number for business costs like these.

Marketing & Sales Costs

The final area of start-up costs that we’ll cover is your marketing costs. This represents any money you put out to develop and sell your product. If you begin an online business (which is what we would suggest) the initial costs can be fairly low. Running a website can be done for less than $500 a year. Online promotion can be done for next to nothing and requires mostly an investment of your time. The amount of time you dedicate to online marketing will directly relate to how much product you sell. More time generally will mean greater sales. The activities that you do would be writing blog posts about your topic, participating in social networking sites, commenting on other people’s sites, and conducting online auctions.

Filling orders will be your next significant cost. You will need to have money available for boxes for shipping, people to actually fill the orders and shipping costs. When you are coming up with the price of your product don’t forget to including shipping as part of your costs. This can often be as much or more than the cost of the product. For example, if it costs you $3 to make your product, shipping costs will easily be $3 so you need to charge $6 per unit just to break even.

Another option is to get a booth at a local market and sell your products directly. Booth costs vary but you can get some for between $50 and $125 a day. If you can sell more than that in a day then you’re making a profit. Once you’ve established your brand you may also attempt to get your product sold by some of the local shops in your area. For hair care brands, go see if your local salon will carry your brand. For skin products, perhaps a local spa or specialty gift shop would carry your products. You will have to give up a significant amount of your direct sell profit but you’ll ideally make it up with a high volume of sales.

Cosmetic Start up Costs

A cosmetic business can be profitable but it is much more complicated than making a lotion in your kitchen and selling the product to a demanding public. When you figure in the costs of product development, business, and marketing you realistically need about $10,000 – $15,000 to invest up front. Once you start making sales you can make that money back but understand that this is the minimum amount you are going to need to get started.

Did you know that the biggest brands in the cosmetic industry are some of the biggest spenders on advertising and marketing? And you know what that means? Small, start-up entrepreneurs just can’t compete when it comes to traditional marketing and advertising. You won’t win a war against P&G and their $2 billion plus advertising budget.

But maybe you can win a few battles.

Online cosmetic marketing

While the traditional advertising outlets of Television, Radio and Print are dominated by the Big Guys, they haven’t been able to dominate the Internet.  And they won’t because success in Internet marketing requires more than just money.  It also requires time, passion, and a willingness to experiment.  These are areas in which you as a cosmetic entrepreneur can beat the cosmetic giants.

So how do you do it?  Here is a general plan that should work.

Find a niche consumer

The first step to successfully marketing your own line of cosmetic products is to find a niche consumer that is dissatisfied with the products being offered elsewhere in the market.  We’ve previously written about how to find a niche cosmetic consumer.  The key for successful Internet marketing of your cosmetic brand is that you need to find a niche that is small enough that the big cosmetic companies are ignoring it, but large enough for you to be able to sell products and make money from it.

Set up your website

Next, you’ll need to create a brand name (make sure you can legally use it) and set up a website.  Until you become a gigantic brand sold in stores across the world, your website is going to be your main connection with consumers.  It will help educate them about your brand and also be a place where they can purchase your products.  In the beginning, you don’t need your products on display in stores, you display them right on your website.

Getting customers

After you’ve created your website, you need to get people to come and visit.  Many brands do this via advertising.  They put up a banner ad or a text ad on a website which gets people to click to their site.  This is one method but it can become extremely expensive.  A better method is to start writing a blog about the things your niche consumer cares about.  For example, if your niche consumer is Bald Men, you can start writing about products for bald heads.  You can write about things like famous bald people, why bald men are sexy, what women think about bald heads, etc.  The idea is to create pages on your website that will attract Google searches to your website.

Chemists Corner is a website who’s niche consumer is cosmetic formulators or people interested in cosmetic science.  So, we write articles about cosmetic science, a career in cosmetic science, formulating, etc.  We think about all the things our consumer might care about and write something.

Over time, the blog entries on your subject will start to rank higher when people search Google.  This will lead them to your website which (if properly designed) will inspire them to click around and try your products.

Building your brand

After you’ve generated some traffic to your website, you’ll eventually make your first sale.  Ideally, you’ll capture the customer’s email address so you can periodically communicate with them and encourage future purchases.   Your goal would be to communicate things that they will find useful and to remind them of your brand.

At this point you should also start developing a presence on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  But always remember the goal of social networking your brand.  It is to ultimately drive traffic to your website.  Telling people what you had for dinner might stroke your ego but it won’t do much to build your brand.  Social networking can be a powerful tool however, it can also be a complete waste of time if done wrong.

Beyond the Internet

While you may be able to sell enough product through the Internet alone, ultimately you will want to get your cosmetic products into stores.  This will require you to develop sell sheets and visit store buyers which can become labor intensive.  But it will help exponentially build your brand because rather than just selling single bottles, you’ll be selling cases and pallets of product.  By the time you get to this point you’ll likely need to hire some more people.

I personally think that every cosmetic chemist should at least have an idea for their own brand and should ultimately try marketing it.  Most ideas will probably fail but some will work.  Maybe it’s your idea.  You’ll never know unless you try to make it happen.

To create innovative cosmetic products or to start a cosmetic brand, you need to know about and find niche markets. Since science majors never really learned about this type of marketing information, I thought it would be helpful to give you a quick run down of what they are, why you should care about them and how to find them.

Niche market for cosmetics

A cosmetic niche market is no different than a niche market in some other field. Essentially, a niche market is a sub set of a larger market. In practical terms, it is a smaller group of people with some specific characteristic that sets them apart.

So, if the general market is everyone who uses personal care products, a niche market would be men who use personal care products. Women who use personal care products is also a niche market, but it is so large that almost no one considers it niche. You could find further sub sets of these groups to find even more targeted niche markets. For example, women with naturally red hair color could be a niche market. This group could be broken down even further as women with naturally red, curly hair, a focused niche indeed.

Cosmetic chemists and niche markets

Now that you know niche markets are smaller segments of consumer groups, why should you care? There are a couple reasons that this is important to cosmetic chemists.

First, if you are trying to create innovative new products you will have to make products that solve specific problems. All of the easy-to-solve problems in the cosmetic industry have already been solved. Unless you work for a large company that has a basic research wing you will not likely be able to solve the significant problems like wrinkles, acne, hair loss, hair growth, etc. However, you can solve some of the easier problems that niche markets experience.

Second, if you are going to start your own cosmetic line as many cosmetic chemists want to do, you will need to identify a niche market for which to sell your product. The reality is that you will not be able to compete with the big cosmetic companies for the general market. It is only the niche markets that are too small for big companies to pay attention to that you will have a chance. The fact that big companies ignore them means less competition for your new brand and a greater possibility for your success. Also, niche consumers tend to be more rabid fans of their brands. They like that there is a product made especially for them. This will give you a significant marketing and product development advantage.

Finding niche markets

The key to finding niche markets is to start with a large group of consumers and identify sub sets of that group. Then make a list of all the products in the category and match them up with your consumer group.

Step 1 – Identify consumer groups
In this step you just make a list of all the consumer groups you can think of. Mind mapping can help. It also helps to narrow your list down right away. If you start with a large group like all consumers it will be harder to drill down to smaller groups. So, let’s start with a group like men. Here is a short list off the top of my head of sub sets of the male consumer group.

1. Grey haired men
2. Bald men
3. Metrosexual men
4. Teenage men
5. Boy babies
6. Red haired men
7. Curly haired men
8. Fair skinned men
9. Left handed men
10. Male athletes
11. Male college students
12. Male musicians

And the list could go on. Niche markets can be found among any group. They can be grouped by some physical feature, some hobby, some job, or any activity that groups people.

Step 2 – Identify possible products or problems
Once you have a list of consumer groups, you can list all the types of products that general consumers use. The list might be something like..
1. Skin moisturizer
2. Sunblock
3. Shampoo
4. Conditioner
5. Deodorant
6. Shaving cream
7. Nail polish
8. Hair gel
9. Color cosmetics
10. Anti-aging creams

And this list could go on too.

Of course, rather than listing products you can make a list of problems that your specific niche group has that may not be a problem for the general population. This may be something like Gluten Allergies. A list like this could be more helpful but it could also be more difficult to make.

Step 3 – Match up the who and the what

You have your list of consumer groups and a list of products. Now, just match them up. (e.g. Nail polish for male musicians, Sunblock for male athletes, Shampoo for bald men).

That’s it.

Now, whether your niche market or niche market product is a good idea depends on the size of the niche market and the nature of the market. But we’ll save figuring out these answers for another time.

A few months ago we talked about creating a program to teach people how to launch their own line of cosmetic products. One of the most common questions we are asked is for help in launching a beauty product line so we thought we would put together a free report that tells you just how to do it.

This free report is 44 pages long and is filled with information telling you exactly what is involved in starting your own cosmetic brand. After reading it you will be in an excellent position to decide if this is something you want to pursue.

Cosmetic Launch Coach

The free report is actually part of the start of our next online training program called the Cosmetic Launch Coach. This program will be a 10 week program that goes in detail showing you step by step how to go from the idea of a product to seeing it on store shelves. We are not quite ready to start taking students in the training program just yet but by downloading the free report and signing up for the email list, you’ll be the first to hear about when the program opens. We estimate the start of the course to be in the third of fourth week of March.

To get the free report, just go to this web page and sign up.

Start a cosmetic line free report.

This question was raised on the cosmetic science forum and I thought it was so good that it warranted a full treatment here on the blog. Many of our followers here on Chemists Corner are people who are interested in creating formulas and possibly producing their own line of products. Almost every good cosmetic chemist that I’ve known has said they wanted to start their own line.

But should they?

Reality of the Cosmetic Industry

Before answering this question, it is important to face facts about the cosmetics and personal care industry. Big companies have significant advantages over small and start-up companies.

More money

Big companies have more money than small ones. They can outspend you in every way from R&D to performance testing to safety testing to advertising and marketing. They can use the money to get their products in stores and get price breaks on packaging and raw materials. More money naturally leads to other advantages.

Less expensive products

Big companies can make less expensive products. Even if a small company copies the formula exactly from a big company they will not be able to produce the product as inexpensively as a big company. In fact, the product costs to a small company will be 2 or 3 times higher than a big company. This means that big companies can charge less for products that perform every bit as well as the ones you can create.

More scientists

The additional money available to big companies means they can hire more cosmetic chemists and create better formulas. A small cosmetic company just can not create a formula that will be as optimized and tested for superior performance.

More advertising

More money also means more advertising. Big cosmetic companies will buy TV commercials, magazine ads, and radio spots. They will host events for bloggers & beauty editors and they will have an advertising agency working to promote their brand. A small cosmetic company will not be able to outspend the big guys in advertising.

More distribution

Finally, the additional money and size of a big cosmetic company means that they will be able to get their products on more store shelves and in more locations than a small company. There is just no competition when it comes to mass market and drug stores.

Are big cosmetic companies unbeatable?

With all of these advantages, you might start get the feeling that Big cosmetic companies are unbeatable. You might also think that starting your own cosmetic line is a waste of time.

Well, that isn’t necessarily true. Think of companies like Burts Bees and Aveda who started small and built huge brands. It can happen because small companies have a few notable advantages over big companies.

Small markets

An advantage small companies have is that big companies want to make big money. If a brand is not going to sell at least $100 million with the potential to reach $1 billion, the big cosmetic company won’t even investigate the idea. When I was working in corporate America we discontinued many products that were bringing in over $2 million a year in sales because it just wasn’t enough money. While $2 million in sales is nothing to a big company, to a small company that is huge! Small companies can dominate small markets because big companies aren’t competing. And if you are a small company you can make a great living in a small market.

Niche markets

One problem with big cosmetic companies is that they try to make products which will appeal to as many people as possible. This means that they are going to ignore niche consumers who have needs that are different from most everyone else. Just as a small company can dominate a small market, a small company can dominate a small consumer niche.

Experimental products

Big companies need successful products. They need to justify to their management why they are launching a specific sku and also need to show data supporting the launch. This means that the products they launch are going to be very similiar to other successful products in the past. This is why there has been only incremental change in the cosmetic industry in the last 20 or 30 years. New, innovative products are risky and most of them fail. Big companies don’t like to fail so they try not to.

Small cosmetic companies are in a better position to try new innovations and off-the-wall products. Products like dry shampoos and no foaming shampoos would not be launched by big companies but small companies can do it. This is a big advantage.

Faster development

It takes a big cosmetic company at least a year and a half to develop an idea into a product and get it on the store shelf. Small companies can do this much more quickly. If they have a good idea, they can have a completed product available for sale in 6 months or less. A big cosmetic company can’t.

Online distribution

Right now the Internet has created an even playing field for small companies to compete with big companies. Big companies are good at traditional distribution but they are not good at online sales. A small company can compete and even beat the big guys on things like Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking, and online distribution. Big companies can not afford to put too many resources towards this area of distribution because they have to maintain their presence in big box stores and drugstores. This area is wide open for small cosmetic companies.

Should you start your own cosmetic line?

Ultimately the answer to this question is a personal one and there is no guarantee of success if you do start a cosmetic company. It’s likely that you won’t develop the next Burts Bees or Aveda. However, it is not difficult nor excessively expensive to create your own line of products. It’s also not hard to make products that perform every bit as well as the ones created by the big guys. And it’s not hard to build your brand to a point where it makes enough money for you to pay all your bills and make a decent income.

So, if you have an idea for a cosmetic brand don’t let the fact that the big cosmetic companies have significant advantages over you. Learn what’s involved in launching a product, decide if you have the energy & passion, then go ahead and try.

You just might be successful.

One of the best books on marketing by Seth Godin is his book The Purple Cow. It’s an easy read and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in launching their own cosmetic line. It’s also great for cosmetic chemists who just want to get a better understanding on how you might help improve the marketing of your own formulas.

Being different

The basic thesis of The Purple Cow is that to succeed in business, you have to stand out. And figuring out how to make your brand, your product or even yourself stand out from the crowd is the way to success.

In the cosmetic business, standing out can be difficult. There are thousands of brands and tens of thousands of products. Just getting your product in a store to compete with others is going to be tough. Worse, consumers are not very good at picking up actual product performance differences. So, even if your formulas work better than someone else’s, you’ll have a hard time getting consumers to understand it.

How big brands stand out

The big mass market companies are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their competition. Their biggest weapon is money spent on advertising. This allows them to “tell their story” to hundreds of millions of people. The simple exposure of their story to this many people is going to result in sales. It’s no coincidence that the biggest selling cosmetic brands also spend the most on advertising.

Some big brands that don’t compete with advertising try a different tact. They compete on price. White Rain, VO5 and Suave all shoot for the least expensive products they can create while still getting a decent profit. The profit margin isn’t great but when you are selling 100 million bottles a year, you can still make a lot of money.

How small brands can stand out

For the most part, small brands and independent cosmetic makers can not copy the tactics of big brands. They will not be able to out spend big companies in advertising and also can’t win a price competition.

However, there are still a number of ways that a small cosmetic product / brand can stand out.

1. Unique story. The best way to create a stand out brand is to come up with a unique story. Burts Bees did an excellent job of this and built their brand so large that it got bought for a huge amount by a large company. It should be noted that Burts Bees didn’t simply go for an “all natural, organic, chemical free” marketing position. They had a compelling origin story, a likeable character, some savvy marketing, and fortuitous timing. Beeswax lip balm wasn’t unique at the time but Burts Bees made it unique.

Here’s a company that is trying to stand out. They’ve created a line of nail polish inspired by things like menstrual blood, bruises and famous painters. The kicker is that they sell the polish for $80 a bottle and they are sold out (at least they claim to be). That is impressive marketing.

Action – Find your unique story.

2. Niche consumer group. While it’s critical to have a unique story, it may be easier to stand out by starting with a niche consumer group and creating products specifically for them. The age of the Internet makes it much easier to identify niche groups. These groups are still going to be too small for the big corporations to go after but for small brands, you can make a great living catering to a smaller group.

So, what would be an example of a niche consumer group? Groups like

a. People allergic to Gluten containing products
b. People with psoriasis
c. People who are religious
d. People with a political ideology
e. People who ride motorcycles

Action – Find your nich consumer group.

3. Noticeable differences. The most satisfying way to stand out is to create a cosmetic formula that is noticeably different from all other ones out there. This is exceedingly difficult to do as the cosmetic field is “mature” science and there aren’t a lot of breakthru technologies. But don’t stop looking because you may find something. To create a product that performs better than all others you need to first identify the market leaders. Do some research to find out who actually has the best performing technology. And test it yourself. Then start creating formulas that work better.

Action – Figure out what the current best technology is and work to best it.

4. Novel marketing. The final way to stand out is to come up with some novel marketing methods. Big brands do things like create viral commercials, do public stunts, or wine and dine magazine editors & bloggers. You can do some of those things but don’t stop there. Brainstorm some ideas how you can get people talking about your brand. Then try them out. An excellent book on this subejct is Guerrilla Marketing.

Action – Determine a novel marketing strategy for your product.

Remember, you don’t have to be the biggest brand in the cosmetic business to be successful and make a good living. You just need to be unique. Figure out how you can stand out from the crowd of competitors and you will be able to earn a living from your cosmetic brand for life.

Many followers of this website have a desire to create and sell their own product. We continue to work on a training program that shows you just how to do that, but in the meantime it would be helpful if you knew exactly the type of testing you have to do prior to selling your product. Note this information applies to US cosmetic products. Other countries may follow slightly different rules.

There are four types of testing you must do before selling your own product. These include micro-testing, stability testing, safety testing and performance testing.

Microbial Testing

This could really be put under safety testing but it is so important that it deserves its own category. Whenever you create a new formula you need to ensure that the preservative system you are using is adequate for preventing dangerous microbial growth. There are two primary types of testing you need to do.

• Micro Challenge Testing – This is a test in which you purposely introduce microbes into your batches, then watch the samples over time to see whether your preservative system is good enough to kill off the microbes. If it’s not, you need to improve your preservation system.
• Contamination test – This is a test you need to do on every batch of product you sell! It is a simple matter of taking a sample and testing to see whether it is contaminated or not. If it’s not, then proceed with packaging & distribution. If it is, don’t sell it!

Stability Testing

Cosmetic stability testing is a study run to determine whether your product will last on store shelves and on your consumers bathroom counter. Stability testing is an important quality test that you need to run in order to sell your products in the US. It is also useful to ensure that when people do buy your product they won’t be dissatisfied with a foul odor, ugly color, or separated formula.

Safety Testing

You can’t sell a product that is not safe. If you do, you open yourself up to litigation which could pretty much ruin any fledgeling cosmetic manufacturer. Safety testing includes things like patch testing, eye irritation tests, and a host of other procedures that ensure consumers will not become serious ill after using your product. The amount of safety testing done depends on the type of product you are going to sell and how different the raw materials are. If you are making something that uses standard cosmetic raw materials, less testing would be needed than if you are using raw materials that are new to the cosmetic industry.

Performance testing

The type of performance testing or claims testing that you need to do depends on the specific advertising claims you’re going to be making for your product. In the US you are bound by the rules of the FTC which state that you cannot promote false advertising. This means if you say your product is going to clean hair, you have to demonstrate that it does. If you say your lotion will moisturize skin, you have to show it does that. There are some industry standard tests but in many cases as a cosmetic chemist, you’ll have to come up with your own reasonable test to demonstrate that what you say about a product is true.

It is not necessary to show the results of any of these tests to the government prior to launching your product. In the US, the industry is self-regulated. However, this does not mean you can skip testing because the FDA can inspect your facilities and levy huge fines on companies that do not have the proper paper work. Be sure to keep track of all your testing procedures and results of any product that you sell.

Testing can be an expensive obstacle to many small cosmetic company launches but it is a crucial step that you absolutely must do before launching any new product.

I’ve always believed that the smartest people in the cosmetic industry are the scientists who make and test the products. Which has always made me wonder why more of them haven’t gone out to start their own companies. It’s easier to do now than ever before, only a small investment is required and it can be done in your spare time.

This story about a YouTube user who got so popular that she was able to start her own cosmetics company might be just the inspiration you need.

Of course, this is not to suggest you must go out and start your own company to be a successful cosmetic scientist. But if you’ve ever thought about it, why aren’t you doing anything about it now?

What do you think is holding you back?

As formulation chemist, it can be fairly easy to spend your days executing projects your marketing & sales people think are worthwhile.  This will usually involve taking a formula that already exists and tweaking it with color & fragrance changes or adding some “magic” ingredient to help make a better story.

It’s easy to do this because to the people on the business side of things, this is complicated work.  They appreciate you and your brilliance for being able to get it done.

In fact, this kind of formulation can be challenging.  But there will be times when you’ll find yourself wondering stuff like “I made it through P. Chem and Advanced Inorganic so I could change the dye in a formula?”

Innovation is up to You

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. Yes, you’ll have to work on a lot of less-than-meaningful projects but you should also be coming up with your own innovations/formulas. Your boss or marketing department are not going to give you great projects. You’ve got to make them yourself. Start doing a daily review of the following innovation resources to help you come up with the next big idea that will change the cosmetic industry.

Marketing people can come up with new stories. Only scientists and cosmetic chemists can come up with new products that will actually bring new benefits to consumers. Remember, you are the future of the cosmetic industry.

Favorite Innovation Online Resources

Blue Ocean Strategy – An extension of the excellent book Blue Ocean Strategy. Gives practical tips and techniques for generating & developing breakthrough ideas.

Innovation Tools – One of the best resources for all things innovation. The Innovation Blog keeps you connected with all the latest thinking in innovation & idea development.

Innovators Digest – Site that helps you learn innovation techniques and connect with other innovators.

Killer Innovations – The BEST innovation podcast anywhere. Phil McKinny provides practical advice about innovating at companies both big and small. He also re-blogs lots of the best innovation information being published.

Seth’s Blog – The blog of Seth Godin. He is one of the clearest innovation thinkers of our time. Author of bestselling marketing books The Purple Cow and The Dip. Speaks in a practical way that even chemists can understand. Extremely useful ideas.

The Heart of Innovation – Dedicated to inspiring and nurturing the spirit of innovation. You’ll find some useful information here.

Unusual Business Ideas that Work – A source for wacky inventions and stories about how they were developed. Great way to inspire yourself to think more creatively and get going on developing your own ideas.

Inventor Spot – Interesting inventions, innovations and weird/inspiring ideas. An excellent resource for inventors.

Ted Talks – You need inspiration to go change the world? Look no further than Ted Talks. Some of the best minds in the world talk about great ideas. You could get lost for days listening to these important talks.

Certainly, there are more but this is the list of innovation websites that are currently on my RSS feed.

Do you have a favorite that we missed? Leave a comment below and let us know.