Chemical free claims always bug me. You see them a lot in the sunscreen market where people claim “chemical free sunscreens.” For some reason they don’t see titanium dioxide or zinc oxide as chemicals. But they are chemicals! Every substance is a chemical.

Chemical free anti aging cosmetic

So, how is it that this headline is about a chemical free anti aging cosmetic? Well, it’s based on this story about research carried out at Jena University. Researchers found that when people surrounded themselves with other people who were much old, observers judged the younger people to look even younger than they really were.

That means you can create a chemical free cosmetic. Just get a bus full of senior citizens and hire them out to follow people around who want to look younger. A totally new and innovative beauty product.

And it really is “chemical free”. (Except for the chemicals in the people of course).

You might have an idea for a cosmetic product but how do you know if it is any good? Well, you can ask your friends and family but they might not give you honest feedback for fear of hurting your feelings.

Enter Quirky.com.

This website allows you to join a community where you can post an idea (for $10) and get feedback from the community about whether it is a good idea or not. I’m not sure how valuable this information will be however, a mere $10 should be a great value.

As an ongoing project, we here at Chemists Corner try to put up posts that might inspire people to come up with truly innovative new cosmetic products.  The majority of things that are invented now are simply minor tweaks on existing technology.  We would love to see some incredible new breakthroughs.  Only by actively brainstorming wacky ideas will completely new innovations get invented.  Of course, most of these will be useless but it only takes one idea to make something really new.

All your consumers are Synesthete

Are you familiar with the concept of synesthesia?  This is the idea that there are people out there who have wires crossed in their brains and can experience mixed sensations.   That is they can smell colors simply by looking at them or they experience taste sensations by reading certain words.

Wonder if you are a synesthete?  Take the test on this website.

Innovation exercise

So, imagine that your consumers are all synesthetes.  How would you make your products different to appeal to them?

List 5 ideas

Here are mine.

1.  Remove fragrance from products.  Use colors to adjust the fragrance.
2.  Remove colors from products.  Use product name to change the color.
3.  Sell products in bottles shaped like letters and number to change the experience.
4.  Use meaningless combinations of letters to create unique sensorial experiences in consumer
5.  Name your products by days of the week to give them characters.

Ok, your turn.  Add some ideas if you have some.

When a consumer has a problem that can be addressed by cosmetics, they will often go and buy products.  This is good for cosmetic chemists because it means more sales for your company and job security.

But many consumers would rather find some home made or DIY treatment to fix their problem.  I don’t know why but DIY appeals to a lot of people.  It’s useful for cosmetic chemists to see what consumers are attempting.  It may also give you some ideas for new products.

Here’s a good website that gives consumers home made solutions to their cosmetic problems.

Take a look and see if you get some new ideas.

If you are going to make it in the cosmetic business you have to know your consumer. And if you are like most cosmetic companies, your consumer is a woman. Woman buy far and away more cosmetics than men.

So here is an interesting survey about what women want from their cosmetic and skin care companies. Some useful findings.

1. Women in their 50’s use different products than they did in their 30’s and 40’s. Brand loyalty is completely up for grabs.
Which means that this group of consumers would make an excellent target for a new cosmetic brand.

2. Women in this age group want products that “protect skin from damage” and “make skin look healthy”.
This means that you have to create a product that has some obvious benefit. Just creating a product with a neat brand name and pretty packaging will not be enough.

3. Women believe skin changes more at age 50 than at any other time.
Whether this is true or not doesn’t matter but what is important is that when formulating for this group, you test your products on this group of women.

4. This consumer group is more convinced by scientific data of efficacy & they want online consumer information.
This is great news for new brands because you can compete online against the biggest corporations out there. The Internet is still competitive.

The big guys still have a big share of this market with leading brands including Olay, Clinique, Estee Lauder, Lancome, Avon and L’Oreal Paris. But small brands have a chance in this market. You just need to figure out how to make yourself stand out.

This seems like a pretty handy app for formulators. Hopefully, other raw material manufacturers will jump on this bandwagon. Floratech has created an app that allows people with smart phones to scan the QR code and get access to all kinds of information about the raw material including INCI name, product descriptions, efficacy claims, MSDS and other technical data sheets.

If you don’t know, a QR code is that little square of black and white pixels. Each one is unique and leads users to a website. You can generate your own QR code here. See if you can figure out what the QR code in this blog post is associated with.

Cosmetics of the future

Forward thinking cosmetic chemists will start devising ways how this technology could be used on thier products. For example, you could have a link to a video which shows a funny commercial for the product. Or you could have a link to some more information or some fun interactive game related to your product. The possibilities are limitless. But the time to do something is now. No one else in the marketplace is doing it. Could you get your company to be first? And you entreprenuers out there…could this help differentiate your product?

I don’t know why but there seems to be a desire by consumers (at least according to some cosmetic manufacturers) to put food on their bodies as cosmetic treatments.

There is beer shampoo, egg facial masks, and honey hair treatments. This brand Dairyface has embraced the trend with their Dairyface line of skin care products.

They really play up the idea that people want cosmetic products that look like food. For example, they use containers that look like yogurt cartons. Then their products are yogurt based or milk based. They even forgo the typical preservatives and instead tell people to refrigerate to ensure freshness and to use by the expiration date.

I don’t know about these products. I don’t think it’s such a great idea to go around using unpreserved cosmetics.

However, Dairyface does stay true to their niche. They even say you can eat the products although they also say it wouldn’t taste very good.

We’ll see how well they do. I suspect they will always remain a niche player. Having to refrigerate your cosmetics doesn’t sound appealing.

We always appreciate the messages we receive from followers of Chemists Corner. I love to read the ideas that people have and am encouraged that innovation in our industry continues despite the unintentional efforts government regulators to stop it.

Natural overload

But I must say, I’m a little concerned by how often I hear the same idea. Almost every “new” cosmetic line is going to be…

1. All-natural
2. Organic
3. Chemical free

And they aren’t going to contain…

4. Parabens
5. Silicones
6. Preservatives
7. Artificial anything

Sigh.

I really do appreciate the thinking and effort that go into ideas like this but to actually launch a product you need more of an idea than that.

All-natural has been done…to death.

A quick review of Drugstore.com shows that there already exist over 250 cosmetic brands that are “green” and “natural.”

That is no longer enough of an idea for a new product.

Focus on the consumer

So, what can you do if you want an all-natural, green cosmetic line? Certainly, you can go ahead and make one. You can take our course on Natural Formulating or hire a natural formulation chemist who can make the products for you. Do it!

However, you need to take the next step.

Ask yourself a few questions to see if you can make your product stand out. For example…

1. Who will buy my product and why?
2. Why will they buy my product instead of a competitor’s?
3. What problem is my product solving?
4. If my product never gets made, how will the world be worse?
5. What will my product allow people to do that they can’t already do?

There are at least 250 brands that are all natural, organic, green and everything else.

If you want to successfully launch a new brand…

How is yours going to stand out?

Do you have ideas about starting your own line?  Get our Free ebook that tells you what you need to know to start your own cosmetic line.

Being a cosmetic chemist can be frustrating. You’ll want to create products that can solve consumer’s problems but the reality is that you are handcuffed by one significant fact.

The most pressing cosmetic problems probably require drug solutions.

Hair problems

There are a number of problems with hair that are easily addressed by cosmeitcs but the most significant one, hair loss, is not. I just read this story about one of the latest discovery in hair loss research, a molecule that can turn off the production of Prostaglandin D2. It’s very interesting and offers a chance for curing baldness.

But you know what? If it worked, it wouldn’t be a cosmetic. It would be a drug.

This is not a solution that a cosmetic chemist could offer. Of course, your raw material vendors might have different ideas and will offer lots of things that affect hair growth (which don’t work either) but I digress.

What can a cosmetic chemist do about hair loss?

A couple of ideas come to mind.

1. Spray on hair. The current technology is pretty crude. A cosmetic chemist could make it better.

2. Artificial hair fibers. Can you make a product like this better?

This isn’t much, but it is something and I don’t see much work going on in these areas.

If you could develop a product that could be put on the head and made hair that looked natural and stayed in place, that would be an incredible breakthru.

If you are going to start your own cosmetic line (or even help your company launch something new) you have to figure out how to add value to your product so you can sell it for more money.  As an individual cosmetic chemist, you will not be able to compete with the big guys on price.  They can always sell products for less money than you.  But you can compete with them on quality, story, design, and formula.  So today’s challenge is to figure out what you can add to your product to justify making it cost 5 times more.

Challenge 09

How can you change your product to justify charging 5 times as much money for it?