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Are the days of “natural” cosmetics coming to an end?
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Yes, research … to their best of their ability … they are not chemists.
The consumer makes the purchase decision based on their criteria. If your product contains ingredients they find objectionable, for whatever reason, they will not purchase and look for a product more suited to their liking. You cannot force ingredients on consumers, particularly when there are alternatives that achieve the objective and are acceptable to the consumer.
Absolutely, renewable & sustainability is a component of the purchase decision for many consumers. It’s something they value and are looking for and put their dollars to support it.
Marketing drives product development and it’s marketer’s job to understand what the consumer is looking for … and, there’s $50 billion annually of consumers looking for natural.
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Those are almost exclusively the type of client I work with. I find them easier to work with because they are better informed and I align with their values. They may not get everything right, but that’s why they come to you and me … for our expertise. Natural is an evolving work in progress and they understand that.
Perhaps you could try this approach: Make a suggestion, advise them of the benefits and improvement in performance based on your suggestion and have them research it. Make a sample with and w/o your suggestion and have them test it. Generally, they will go with your recommendation unless there are external factors in the market that prohibit it, such as their target distribution channels not allowing that particular ingredient.
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These happy, well-informed people may not be aware that their “natural” benzoate, oxidation product of toluene, is no more natural than methyl paraben, that plums have a greater % of formaldehyde than shampoo preserved with a formaldehyde releaser, that many of their “natural” ingredients do not exist in nature.
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No, of course they will not understand the chemistry behind it, nor the industrial manufacturing. What they do understand is that benzoate is used as a food preservative, is safe to eat and safe on their skin and that products need to be preserved. And, some are more comfortable with benzoate than parabens and some won’t purchase any product that contains parabens. That’s their prerogative … their body, their money, their choice.
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The consumer purchase decision is much more complicated than just buying a bottle of shampoo, for instance. Most often the decision is based on the subconscious concept of buying the “idea” of the product … the product contains ingredients that they are comfortable with and is aligned with their values … they see the product as an extension of themselves and their value set. I buy Brand X because it uses organic ingredients, ingredients from renewable, sustainable feedstocks, uses recyclable containers and I believe in all those things … those factors are just as important to the purchase decision as to what is in the bottle and how well it performs.
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Right - virtue signaling is the story - nothing more and the ego more important than anything. The product may be garbage but it fits values? Nothing more than BS for renewable/sustainable, containers are not recycled. Now it’s organic - agree natural is BS?
All that is the consumer’s call - let’s not pretend they have any real substance.
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That is simply how consumers make purchase decisions unless they are deciding strictly on price. There is some very sophisticated research into understanding the psychology of the consumer purchase decision. The products have to perform acceptably for the consumer to repurchase, no doubt about that. So, it’s a combination of acceptable performance and value alignment and price. A smart company or formulator will factor all of this into creating a product … it’s understanding your customer.
Put two shampoos side-by-side. The consumer will not really be able to tell a significant difference between Shampoo A and Shampoo B as it regards performance assuming both are well-formulated and similarly priced. Unless price is their main purchase criteria, they will purchase the Shampoo that most closely aligns with their value set. They will even pay a premium for the product that aligns with their value set.
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PhilGeis said:Right - virtue signaling is the story - nothing more and the ego more important than anything. The product may be garbage but it fits values? Nothing more than BS for renewable/sustainable, containers are not recycled. Now it’s organic - agree natural is BS?
All that is the consumer’s call - let’s not pretend they have any real substance.
You are entitled to your opinion. I formulate products using renewable/sustainably sourced and organic ingredients, day-in-day out, most 4 and 5 star rated by consumers. Many of my clients use packaging made from recycled materials. All of these are important components of the product development and the consumer purchase decision. They do indeed have real substance and, yes, it’s the consumer’s call and this is what they want, this is what they buy and they are happy with it … to the tune of $50 billion annually.
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You cater to their ignorance and do it successfully. The suckers are worth 50 billion a year.
These have no substance whatever your clients do.But please remember, the discussion was regarding “natural” and the dishonesty associated with it. The mythical stuff above is honestly silly but very lucrative. Carry on.
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To the contrary, it’s catering to consumers wants, needs, desires and trying to develop products that align with their values. There’s nothing silly about that at all as that is the core basis for developing succesful products. Consumers are not nearly so ignorant as you might like to believe, but that is your prerogative.
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@MarkBroussard - just so we’re clear, you do understand that methylparaben is also a food preservative, is also GRAS, is found in nature and is safe on skin? Only a misinformed consumer avoid parabens.
That is the main problem with so-called “informed” consumers. They aren’t informed, they are misinformed or as some more cynical people might say…duped.There is zero evidence that buying “clean” beauty is safer. There is no evidence that buying natural cosmetics is better for the environment.Lots of smart people invested their money with Bernie Madoff or Enron, in Trump college or in crypto. Plenty of people recycle plastics that can’t actually be recycled. These consumers aren’t discerning so much as they are biased ideologues who are readily tricked into believing things that are demonstrably false.
Hats off to the natural marketers who have successfully leveraged fear marketing to convince people to spend more money on products that are not safer & don’t work better. Indeed it is the prerogative of marketers to tell dubious marketing stories & consumers to believe them. Of course, if you’ve tricked someone into believing something that is false, are they really making a free choice?But I will add that cosmetic chemists & formulators shouldn’t ignore or disparage natural formulating. At the end of the day you have to make the products people want to buy (even if that decision is based on misinformation).
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@Perry:
Your last point is the one that is most pertinent: “At the end of the day you have to make the products people want to buy” … which is my whole point.
Yes, cosmetic chemists & formulators shouldn’t ignore or disparage natural formulating … you offer a course in Natural formulating precisely for these two reasons, I presume.
No one can control the misinformation that consumers may have consumed on the internet except the people who propagate that misinformation. It is what it is and there’s no changing those misperceptions. I don’t condone it, but it is a fact of life and you simply need to be cognizant of it and factor it into your product development.
Yes, these consumers do indeed make purchase decisions based in part on ideology. There is nothing wrong with that. The issue is not so much that natural products are safer or work better, it’s that they align with the consumer’s values. Consumers are not scientists and it is not reasonable to expect that they will understand all of the nuances.
If consumers don’t want products with parabens, it is possible to provide them products without parabens since there are alternatives. If they want products made from natural, naturally-derived ingredients, nature identical ingredients, that is possible. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a plethora of ingredients that are natural, naturally-derived, nature identical, made via biotechnology, extraction, distillation, fermentation, green chemistry and simple, first-order chemical synthesis from biosourced precursor compounds. There is packaging made from recycled materials or recyclable materials. Those all actually exist and are available.
Most of the clients I deal with simply prefer that their products are made from biosourced, renewable, sustainable feedstocks and packaged in recycled or recyclable materials. That is their ethos, it is no more complicated than that. They are quite sophisticated and understand their consumers and distributors and their purchase decisions/criteria. They are not trying to trick anyone, but they very clearly understand that their consumers will not purchase products containing parabens, for instance. Their objective is: “At the end of the day you have to make the products people want to buy”
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I understand Mark. All the sustainable organic vegan etc. is meaningless marketing designed to serve the general cosmetic objective - let/make folks feel good about themselves.
Trick? Chemophobia didn’t come from consumers - it came from marketers. The relevant market segment didn’t burst on the scene. It grew slowly as marketers pushed the scare mongering. -As for trickery - consider misleading if not dishonest “natural” claims - clearly is intended to trick consumers.I’d not care - cosmetics are sold on that trickery. But it drives the market to poor to ineffective preservation of no reliable efficacy and I know folks are getting hurt.
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I don’t disagree with you at all in the negative effect that chemophobic marketing has on the use of certain ingredients and it presents some very difficult challenges for formulators and consumer safety. Countering that is the responsibility of the manfuacturers of the target preservatives and industry that use those preservatives. Perhaps the issue is a slow, tepid response by industry with factual evidence to counter those claims that allows those claims to resonate with consumers. Anyone can post anything on the internet at any time so it can be difficult for consumers to sift through all of the information and misinformation so it can be quite difficult to get a message to resonate.
As for marketing, understanding consumer desires/demand can actually drive innovation by companies in new ingredient and packaging development. It’s not a trick, view it more as fostering stretch goals for innovation. If consumer desires/demand can lead to the development of ingredients that are more sustainable, cleaner to manufacture, more recyclable, that is a good thing.
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Consumer desires are driven by advertising and that in our discussion is trickery - we know it has no substnace but so appeal to ego or scare monger. For claims we discuss here, consumers will see no benefit for repeat purchase so advertising and claims become propaganda.
Also note retailer priority chemical lists - those aren’t just trickery - they’re mandates. Think Sephora - bet one can find some of the crappiest preservative systems on their shelves.Not sure innovation is a good term for this matter. Stretch goals - a new definition of natural? The concept of “commercial innovation” of a company I know seems more appropriate. Here, a product was sold with added phrase - the addition bringing an effective endorsement. E.g. X Laundry Detergent with Y. Y was another well known brand establishing cache but ineffective in X even if present (in some countries, there was no Y added).
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There’s at least a few consumers who prefer highly effective products over “naturally” formulated ones. Some reviews from Nivea’s reformulated lip balm:
Unfortunately, judging by the overall reviews, most consumers seem to be happy with a subpar substitute that “aligns with their values” and is psychologically comforting.
It’s one thing if a natural formulation is substantially equivalent in performance. It’s another when it’s a step back.
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Advertising and marketing are two different things. Marketing, properly done, is pre-development to understand consumers wants, desires, needs, aspirations and you use that information to drive new product development, be it products, ingredients, packaging, etc. Commercial innovation is most successful if you develop what consumers are looking for as opposed to what you would like to sell them.
Advertising is push … trying to convince consumer to purchase something. But, it can also be used to try to convince consumers that they “need” something or a product is better because it contains X. Push advertising is very expensive and has a high risk of failure unless it is supported by marketing that validates that consumers want what you are advertising.
Yes, the retailer mandates can make it quite difficult and Phenoxyethanol is now a target with some. I usually advise clients to just avoid those retailers, not worth the risk.
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Mayday said:There’s at least a few consumers who prefer highly effective products over “naturally” formulated ones. Some reviews from Nivea’s reformulated lip balm:
Unfortunately, judging by the overall reviews, most consumers seem to be happy with a subpar substitute that “aligns with their values” and is psychologically comforting.
It’s one thing if a natural formulation is substantially equivalent in performance. It’s another when it’s a step back.
Your statemenet does not make any sense. The product has overall consumer reviews of 4.7 out of 5.0 on over 2,000 reviews on Amazon. Yet, you claim it is “unfortunate” that consumers like it because it is naturally formulated? That’s ridiculous. And, then claim the natural formulation is a step back and you post 2 negative reviews. Clearly, an overwhelming number of consumers like the product and it does prove the point that consumers like products that align with there values and are psychologically comforting.
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Correction … 3,500 reviews on Amazon with 4.7 out of 5.0 stars.
What this also proves is that the majority of consumers like the new formula at least equally as well as the original formula. So, how is it possible that the “naturally” formulated product is “subpar” to the formula with synthetics and a “step back”? If it was “subpar” that would reflect in the reviews and there’s not much higher the synthetic formula could have rated if the “natural” one is at 4.7.
My goodness, how “unfortunate” it is indeed that consumers could like a “natural” formula just as much as they like a formula with synthetics.
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Mark -could you just stick with selling “natural” by contrivance or at least be succinct in your version of pedantry?
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MarkBroussard said:[…]What this also proves is that the majority of consumers like the new formula at least equally as well as the original formula. So, how is it possible that the “naturally” formulated product is “subpar” to the formula with synthetics and a “step back”?[…]My gripe is with highly effective products being discontinued and replaced with slightly inferior formulas. I understand it’s being done due to market pressure, but when that pressure is caused by misinformation and/or the naturalistic fallacy, I do find it unfortunate. (Nature being neither good nor evil, simply exists: filled to the brim with suffering, striving, living things.)Another such example is the recent Cetaphil reformulation that is no longer compatible with my mother’s skin.Please don’t think I’m missing your point, however. At the end of the day, what matters is not ultimately the technical performance of a chemical formulation. It’s how using the product alters the subjective conscious experience of an individual to make their life better. This can be by technical excellence, though it doesn’t have to be.It’s not just cosmetics. What’s even the point of food? If it were only about survival and efficiency, we would eat some slurry that maximizes nutrition and minimizes cost. Clearly, most of us don’t want to live like that.I find it amusing that I often find “healthy” food to be subjectively more enjoyable than junk food. Why? Not actually because of the taste and smell. Junk food may trigger a dopamine hit, but it is quickly followed up with negative feelings of guilt and disgust. Healthy food may not taste as good in the moment, but it comes with feelings of wholesomeness and virtue. And those feelings are trained by what I think I know about nutrition.I posit this is the way many consumers experience using cosmetics, based on what they think and feel about ingredients/packaging. And it is very unfortunate that their feelings about ingredients are often misguided by fear-marketing and sensationalized news. Mine were too, before I started here!
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“I posit this is the way many consumers experience using cosmetics, based on what they think and feel about ingredients/packaging. And it is very unfortunate that their feelings about ingredients are often misguided by fear-marketing and sensationalized news“
You’re talking about the dynamics of the last generation natural market and that has shifted significantly.Today’s natural market is more driven by consumers desire for natural products that align with their values, not so much by fear. That can be because the product contains free trade organic shea butter from Burkino Faso instead of Mineral Oil, for instance. Consumers find the product to be equally effective and they get the feel good benefit of financially supporting farmers hand processing shea butter in a poor country instead of Chevron. And, they’re not afraid of Mineral Oil, they just don’t want it.
The parabens controversy, for instance, is now 20 years old and is a settled matter in the context that it is baked in that there is a group of consumers who simply will not purchase products containing parabens. It would seem that, despite all of the evidence supporting the safety of parabens, a block of consumers chose not to believe mainstream industry, the FDA, CIR, European Commission, etc. Either the response was too slow, too tepid or these institutions lacked of credibility with these consumers or all three. No point in continuing to fight that battle … it has already been lost.
The only thing that matters is making products that consumers want and at the end of the day consumers’s preference rule. Ignore it to your demise, which is why you are seeing these reformulations to more natural formulations.
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@MarkBroussard - I think you are too easily dismissing the power of fear marketing. People don’t avoid parabens because of their values. They avoid parabens because they are afraid they will cause cancer. The EWG skin deep database doesn’t rank ingredients by how well they align to people’s values. They rank them by a fear based metric - toxicity.
I do agree with you that marketers ultimately have to make products that people want.
I have a different perspective on why the natural/clean/green cosmetic sector is growing. It has little to do with people’s values and much more to do with the perceived functionality of products.
From a consumer perspective, the performance of personal care products has changed little since the 1950’s. Since I started in the industry in the early 1990’s, I dare say the peak performance of products hasn’t changed at all.
Despite all the patents filed every year & the new raw materials launched, from a consumer performance perspective the vast majority of cosmetic products are the same (or worse) than in decades passed.
With the banning of animal testing & the lack of alternative testing, no truly innovative ingredients will be developed. This means the only innovation we are left with is marketing stories.
This is why natural thrives. It’s a fear-based story that commands a premium profit & doesn’t even have to provide top-of-the-line performance. It can do that because consumers don’t really see much extra benefit in top-of-the-line performance products.
But if a company could make a product that performed so much better than anything else on the market, people would quickly drop their green values & use the product even if it were filled with non-sustainable synthetics.
Natural thrives because performance innovation in cosmetics has stopped.
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Chevron? Poor farmers? How heartbreaking. Such ethos!
Scare mongering has indeed established the dishonest marketing as norm - witness “natural” preservatives. As Mark commented, cynical marketing of this type continues with “more natural” formulations. For these the degree of “natural” relies how many synthetic ingredients some self-appointed 3rd party defined as “natural”. -
@Perry:
Yes, I do agree with you that performance has probably reached it’s practical limits and consumers cannot perceive the marginal incremental improvement in peformance between two well formulated products.
I think natural now thrives because it’s performance can be equally as good as products incorporating synthetics in some product categories and there has been a generational shift in consumer values. Younger consumers prefer to put natural oils on their skin. From their perspective, the closer you can get to the coconut, the better.
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