Here was an interesting article about innovation and creating disruptive ideas. The cosmetic industry is definitely in need of some disruptive ideas. Unfortunately, the big companies are risk adverse and any idea that is really disruptive likely won’t see the light of day. That is why it is up to the entreprenureial cosmetic chemist to create disruption.

Note – Odds are high that your disruptive idea will fail.

Anyway, if that doesn’t discourage you read on to see how you can develop innovative disruptive ideas for the cosmetic industry.

Disruptive ideas

The Mashable author suggests three steps to creating disruptive ideas.

1. Figure out what you want to disrupt
2. Figure out the industry cliches
3. Come up with a disruptive hypotheses

Let’s look at how this might work in the cosmetic industry.

What do you want to disrupt?

In this step you want to define what you want to disrupt. This should be high level stuff. For example, hair care or skin care. But you can get more specific. Hair products for curly hair or skin products for senior citizens. Then turn it into a sentence.

“I want to disrupt the hair care market.”

Determine the cliches

Figure out what are the things about the cosmetic industry that everyone (insiders) believe or takes for granted. In the hair care example…

1. Shampoo must foam
2. Hair products make hair look beautiful
3. Hair products come in plastic bottles
4. Hair products are advertised using women with beautiful hair.

Do a little research and see what everyone in the industry is doing. Checking out websites of the biggest brands and finding similarities is a great way to make this list.

Create disruptive hypotheses

Now that you have your list of obvious things that everyone does, come up with ideas that disrupt the status quo. It is helpful to begin with the statement “What would happen if…” For example,

“What would happen if shampoo didn’t foam?” – Like Dry Shampoo perhaps?

“What would happen if hair products couldn’t be sold in plastic bottles?” – How would you sell them?

Well, you get the idea. The more scenarios you come up with, the more disruptive ideas you can create. And the more ideas you have, the more likely you are to come up with something that is truly unique.

That is what the cosmetic industry needs and you are the ones who need to do it.

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.

Here is an interesting video explaining how P&G shifted their focus from merely creating excellent formulations to making products that make women feel better about themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJzeGL_5V5k

I’m not really sure how well they succeeded but they certainly changed the way products were advertised. They also had a huge impact on the role of consumer research in the development of cosmetic products.

If you have your own line, creating the best performing products is not good enough. You’ve got to create a compelling story too. P&G is a big reason why the industry has embraced this philosophy.

Is that good for cosmetic formulators? hmmmm

The slower holiday season is an excellent time for cosmetic chemists to brainstorm some new ideas to work on in the upcoming year.  So, try out this week’s innovation question and see what kind of ideas you can come up with.

Scenario 6

Suppose you were not allowed to sell any cosmetics that contained chemicals.  Assuming the need for cosmetic products doesn’t change, how would that change the cosmetic industry?

Example

1.  Cosmetic companies would become become publishers and sell formulas rather than products.
2.  Formulators wouldn’t need cosmetic manufacturers to sell products.
3.  Raw material suppliers would have to sell ingredients directly to consumers.
4.  Formulating would become a service job.
5.  Store shelves at Walmart and Target would be empty or be books.
6.  More people would become experts at creating their own products.
7.  Chemical accidents in the home would increase.
8.  There would be a reduction in plastic waste.
9.  A black market of people who sell products to friends and family would develop.
10. Brands would not mean as much or anything.

Now it’s your turn.  How do you think the cosmetic industry would be different?

It’s been a little while since we’ve done an innovation question but here’s one that might make you think differently about developing your cosmetic product.

When you work at a cosmetic company, the thing that everyone wants you to do is to create a product that you can sell to as many people as possible. But instead of doing that, what would happen if you did the opposite? What if you customized your formulas so they could be sold to a specific group of people?

Scenario 5

How can you change your cosmetic formulas/product to make them customized?

Example

Right now a product like skin lotion is made for the masses. There is some effort to differentiate skus by making them “extra moisturizing” or “intensive healing” but this is not customized enough. Think of how you could change your formula to make it so customized that it is made specifically for one consumer. Come up with as many ideas as you can. For example…

1. Match the color to the person’s skin color
2. Create a formula with a controlled rub-in time
3. Customize odor for person’s favorite
4. Add a signal on the packaging reminds customer to apply lotion when they need it
5. Determine exactly which ingredients work best on customer & make appropriate lotion
6. Create package that perfectly matches bathroom decor
7. Make package a work of art
8. Customize color to match customer’s favorite color
9. Put unique chemical marker in lotion to identify person
10. Customize shine level to customer’s desire

Now it’s your turn. What can you do to your formula to customize it for an individual?

Show Notes -

Interview – Chris Boone
Chris Boone is a cosmetic scientists who specializes in solving problems in the area of formulation, product development and innovation. He has worked with Unilever and Alberto Culver as a formulator and also worked on the supplier side with the McIntyre (now Rhodia) group. Currently he is a technical services specialist at Nexxeo solutions.

You can connect with Chris on LinkedIn

Web sites mentioned
Innovation web tools
Seth Godin’s blog

Cosmetic industry stories

L’Oreal Buys Clarisonic devices

Older men prefer stronger fragrances

Cosmetic Science

Reactive cosmetic products

While most of the chemical reactions in our industry occur at the raw material suppliers labs, there are some cosmetic products specifically designed to chemically react. Here’s a list of the most common.

Permanent Waves

These products are designed to permanently change the shape of hair. People with straight hair often use permanent waves to get a little curl in their hair. A permanent wave formula has a reducing agent like thioglycolic acid that reacts with the di-sulfur bonds in the cystine amino acids breaking down the hair structure. Hair is first shaped into curlers, then the product is put on hair. It begins reducing hair and is rinsed with water to stop the reaction. A neutralizing chemical like hydrogen peroxide, is added which reforms the di-sulfur bonds into the new configuration.

Hair Relaxers

These products do the opposite of permanent waves. They make curly hair permanently straight. The method is similar you chemically break down hair, reshape it, then reform the protein bonds in the new configuration. Sometimes ammonium thioglycolate is used but most often it is sodium hydroxide or lithium hydroxide. The compounds break down the di-sulfur bonds in hair and the neutralizing step stops the reaction.

This is the most damaging chemical treatment for hair.

Hair Bleach

Hair bleaching is a process used to turn brunettes into blonds. You didn’t really think that there were that many blonds in the world did you? Hair bleach is a chemical reaction between melanin (the material in hair that gives it color) and hydrogen peroxide.

Hair Colors

Hair coloring is a slightly more complicated version of hair bleach. It uses hydrogen peroxide to break down hair’s natural color, then the peroxide also oxidizes a polymeric reaction with dye monomers. When the dye polymerizes inside the hair, it creates a color molecule that is too big to easily come back out.

Skin Darkening

These products are designed to give fair-skinned people a tanned look. They work by using an ingredient called dihydroxyacetone or DHA. It reacts with the proteins in the stratum corneum via the Maillard reaction to produce the brown (although sometimes orange) color. All the steps haven’t been worked out, but basically when DHA is exposed to skin protein, it is converted to pyruvaldehyde, which then reacts with arginine, lysine, and histidine amino acids in skin to form brown/yellow pigments called melanoidins.

Depilatories

These are products designed to help people to remove unwanted hair. The primary active in these types of cosmetics is some version of thioglycolic acid. The acid reacts with the cystine amino acids in hair and breaks down the S-S linkages. The hair is reduced to a jelly like mass that can then be wiped away. Note this is the same reaction as in permanent waves.

2SH-CH2-COOH(thioglycolic acid) +R-S-S-R(cystine)—–> 2R-SH + COOH CH2 SS CH2 COOH (dithiodiglycolic acid)

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Chemists Corner is a podcast about cosmetic science and is broadcast to help educate, entertain, and inspire current and future cosmetic scientists. The information and opinions discussed on Chemists Corner are those of the hosts and the guests alone. They do not necessarily reflect those of any past, present or future employers.

I just finished reading the book Proust was a Neuroscientist.  It really was an excellent book and I encourage anyone who is interested in science and art to pick it up and read it.

The book goes through and describes some of the most interesting artists of our time and how their art was actually explaining parts of neuroscience that were eventually proven via scientific experiment.  He covers a number of artists like Proust, Walt Wittman, Gertrude Stein, Stravinsky, and more.  While I was reading, an idea occurred to me.  What if we applied the principles of some of these forms of art to cosmetics?

Scenario 4

Apply the principles of molecular gastronomy to cosmetic products.  What would a deconstructed personal care product look like?

Example

Product type:  Skin Lotion

Take the ingredients of your skin lotion and lay them out in drop form on a small plate.  To use the product, the consumer would have to mix the ingredients prior to applying to skin.

That was just a quick run through of the exercise.  Now it’s your turn.

For previous exercises see the cosmetic innovation page.

When trying to come up with different ideas for new cosmetic products, you need to consider the “pain points” that people experience when purchasing your product.

Every product has some kind of issue that consumers would rather not have to face. For example, suppose a consumer needs gas for their car. Some of the possible pain points include…

1. Price
2. Inconvienent travel to the gas station
3. Odor
4. Pumping gas in bad weather
5. Getting hands dirty

New product ideas can be found when you consider the problems associated with your product and then think about ways to solves those problems.  Note that not every problem will be applicable to all your consumers.  However, as long as some of your consumers are affected by the problem, you can include it.

Scenario 3

Make a list of 10 “pain points” related to buying or using your cosmetic product. Then come up with 10 ways you could change your product to solve that problem.

Example

Product type:  Shampoo

Pain points

1. Have to get hair wet
2. Makes hands feel dried out
3. Causes split ends
4. Bottles clash with bathroom decor
5. Unsure about how much to use
6. Allergic to harsh chemicals
7. Mold/mildew grow around the bottles
8. Too many different products to wash hair and body
9. Too hard to rinse out
10. Leaves hair feeling dry

That was just a quick run through of the exercise.  Now it’s your turn.

For previous exercises see the cosmetic innovation page.

To be a good cosmetic chemist, you’ll want to generate a lot of creative ideas. Unfortunately, it’s pretty tough to come up with new ideas. With thousands of new cosmetic products being launched each year, it can start to seem like all the ideas have been generated. But if you ask the right questions, you can generate ideas that you never even thought about. In this series of cosmetic innovation posts, we’ll pose scenarios or questions that you can use to generate new product or innovative ideas.

Scenario 2

Imagine water has just become the most expensive cosmetic raw material available. Name at least 10 ways in which this will change your current and future cosmetic formulations.

For previous exercises see the cosmetic innovation page.

To be a good cosmetic chemist, you’ll want to generate a lot of creative ideas. Unfortunately, it’s pretty tough to come up with new ideas. With thousands of new cosmetic products being launched each year, it can start to seem like all the ideas have been generated. But if you ask the right questions, you can generate ideas that you never even thought about. In this series of cosmetic innovation posts, we’ll pose scenarios or questions that you can use to generate new product or innovative ideas.

Scenario 1

Imagine none of your customers can see color or smell fragrance. How would you make your cosmetic formulations stand out?

For previous exercises see the cosmetic innovation page.