EP7. Top 10 Beauty Trends at In-Cosmetics Global 2018

Hello and welcome to the Formula Botanica Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you're interested in our online courses in skincare and hair care, head over to formulabotanica.com and try out our free sample class. My name's Gemma and I'm the business and relationship manager at Formula Botanica. And this week, Lorraine and I are chatting about our experience at in Cosmetics Global 2018.

We.

We talk about the trends and different things that we saw going on in the industry right now. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, it's Lorraine and Gemma here in this episode. As mentioned in the intro, we're going to be having a little chat about our experiences at In Cosmetics 2018, which was held in Amsterdam this year. So Lorraine and I flew over from the UK and we spent two days, didn't we?

Yeah, we did, yeah.

And it was great. We had a great time. So we just wanted to talk a little bit about what happened while we're there. So I'll hand over to Lorraine.

Yeah, I think it's fantastic actually, to be able to attend these exhibitions because they're overwhelming. I mean, you feel like you could walk for miles. I looked on my. My health app on my iPhone and it told me we'd walked 7km a day while we were there. Not only is it good for beauty, but it's also obviously good for wellbeing because you get your fitness steps in. But it's just a really interesting way of gauging what's happening in the industry. And In Cosmetics is one of the biggest conferences out there for the cosmetic science world, but it's certainly not the only one. But it's definitely one that we try and now attend each year. And I went to the one in London last year and our chemist Elham went to the one in, I think, Spain the year before and she's always been going. So it's a really good way of gauging what's happening, but not just that, it's also a way of getting. Connecting with people and networking. And although you'll walk into one of these places and you'll see these massive raw material suppliers that would never, ever supply ingredients in a low enough minimum order quantity for indie beauty brands, there are some real gems hidden, particularly always in the back in the nosebleed section, as I call it, because obviously they're a bit cheaper there. So we met some fantastic people there and we also met people for the first time who we'd been talking to for years. So our friend Rachel Whitaker from Indie PC Delivers and we met Some really cool, actually, smaller retailers. And most importantly, of course, we met up with our students. So we hosted a big meet up there, and about 25 to 30 students from all over the world came. So what we wanted to do in this podcast today was really tell you what we felt were the big trends in the mainstream cosmetics industry and how those trends can filter down to indie brands, to green beauty brands. Because obviously not everyone can attend these conferences, but we want you, even if you couldn't be there, to feel like you were there with us, basically. And so Gemma and I, we walked around all the sensory bars and the innovation zones and the formulation areas. We were testing stuff out, we were asking questions. So we have compiled our top 10 trends that we think will benefit you. So without further ado, let's launch into trend number one, which Gemma has given a very special name.

I've dubbed it the unicorn trend, which I'm sure exists somewhere out there already as a term. But I think that one of the things that we saw a lot of were sparkles and metallics and holographics within formulations, and that could be all different types of formulation. So there was makeup, there was shampoos, conditioners, body products, face products. So there was a lot of ingredient suppliers that had made these kind of sparkly compounds that can go into your formulations and can be used for lots of different things. And they've made some quite innovative ingredients that would mean that you could disperse your sparkles, you know, in your product equally so that, you know that it wasn't just floating on the top or sunken to the bottom. It was, you know, right the way through. And, you know, we've seen that trend in food already somewhat, you know, with unicorn toast and, you know, unicorn bottles and sparkly bottles and lunch bags and, you know, and now going into the beauty industry. And it's always been there to a certain extent in makeup, but it seems like it's spread into all sorts of different formulations. And one of our own students, in fact, did. Did a kind of. Did she call it a unicorn?

She called it a DIY unicorn balm. That's Tanya in Denmark from Honest Beauty Talk. So if you go look her up on Instagram, you'll see her DIY unicorn balm on there. And she even made a recipe which she shared on her blog. You must go check it out. Yeah, it looks amazing.

So that was quite a big thing, and ingredient suppliers were showing that often in a big way. I mean, we went to speak to one of the major ones and they had all their shampoos and conditioners out on a stand and then they had all of these different particles that you could get in all these different colors. And they were made up of lots of different things. I mean, admittedly, most of them are not going to be natural, but they had some that had. Did they say it was Cosmos? Yep.

Cosmos approved. Yeah. Because a lot of these pigments, of course, have silicon coatings. We were obviously saying, well, our students would never work with silicon. So have you got any silicone free and. Oh, yes, we do. Now, whether they're. Whether they fit your ethos of natural is a different matter entirely. But it's worth exploring these things, of course.

And I think it was quite an interesting trend to juxtapose with the other trend that we see a lot of, which is the Scandinavian, like the scandi kind of minimalist beauty, because this is quite opposite to that in a way. And, you know, you could see how they're going to sort of diverge into two kind of distinct paths, really. And the unicorn kind of sparkly trend. Me and Lorraine were saying it's great for the shelfy trend because that works really well for the scandi minimalist, you know, look, but it works fabulously for the unicorn look as well. So something to look out for. And if someone wants to make an all natural glittery body oil, I am your tester. I slathered myself.

Everywhere we went. Gemma was just sort of coating herself in glitter. Very interesting plane journey home afterwards to.

The point that one of the suppliers even said, wow, you're ready to go out and party tonight.

Yeah, you were, you totally were.

Right, so over to Lorraine for trend number two.

Right, so trend number two, which ties into this a little bit was gels. And you're probably thinking, how does this tie into it? But obviously a lot. We saw so many gels at, in cosmetics, and not just bog standard gels, we're talking oily gels, oleo gels, hydrogels. So really beautiful gel emulsions which sort of glide onto the skin. We saw half gel, half balm. So gel meets balm. And you're obviously thinking, how does that work? And that's sort of a thicker type of emulsion that still has that gel like feel to it. We saw gels with bubbles in them. I mean, we went to the sensory bar and there was like this vase just filled with gel. It was. They had all these sticks in it so you could sort of prod it. And it was very satisfying to sort of dip your spoon in and spoon out lots of gels and gels with suspended particles in them. So that ties into what you're talking about. They had these little encapsulated bubbles everywhere that almost look like fish eggs, like caviar, but in lots of different colours. Again, this is something we've seen in cocktails and in food for years, but it's obviously coming through into the presentation element of skincare and hair care and to some degree, makeup too. I saw a blowout jelly, so someone had made a styling gel which they'd given a really cool name to. So gels were a really, really hot topic. And I have to say that obviously the indie beauty, the green beauty world, we often focus on anhydrous products, but it's quite cool to see them working with high water concentrations and gels and making beautiful natural ingredients with them, natural emulsions with them. So these hydrogels that they had there, there was a blue one in the sensory bar and it just glided onto the skin and it was amazing. So that was obviously a big trend and I would really love to see the green beauty world follow that trend as well, because I think making gels isn't easy and we see a lot of our students avoid gels in their product lineup. But I think there's a big calling for it. Not just styling gels and hair care, but as I said, gel emulsions. Who knows? Half gel, half balm, you go and make something up that works for you because there's some really interesting ingredients out there and tying into that. We asked a couple of big raw material suppliers what their best selling ingredients were. And generally they had these big lineups of jars and bottles, all these droppers everywhere, and they were talking about all these high performance extracts and peptides and anti inflammatories. And then when we asked them this question, they would say the best sellers we have are the emollients and the humectants. So moisturization as anti aging, which is something we talk about quite a lot in our anti aging course, actually is obviously a really big thing still. People just want to great moisturizer that feels and works well on the skin and a hydrogel can work exceptionally well for that. So I'm encouraging all green beauty formulators out there to go and make some gels because it's the next big thing. It's what everyone in the mainstream industry is talking about at the moment. And we need to see some natural and organic ones out there.

Yeah.

Over to you for number three.

So sort of tying into that as well was another trend that we saw a lot of. And this was yogurts. So people making skin yogurts or after sun yogurts or body milks. And we even saw one called custard cream. So custard creme in French. So it probably sounded French than it did in English. And that had a color in it, didn't it? That was like a blue kind of.

I think it was purple.

It was purple color. So we saw this all over the show as well. And so when you opened, you know, whatever yogurt it is that you're looking for, it looked very much like a yogurt. If you kind of shook the jar a little bit, you would see it would look very much like if you shook a pot of yogurt. And again, the texture felt very like yogurt. And then it absorbed really easily into the skin. And they were really, really interesting products to look at with a variety of different kind of functions. So with some of the most popular ones being after sun products, which again, quite interesting because, you know, yogurt and how we think about yogurt is very soothing and cooling. And so that was quite interesting. And we saw one that actually had yogurt powder in it. So overwhelmingly they didn't actually have yogurt in them. It was mainly that they were formulating something that looked like yogurt or that felt kind of like a yogurt, like a yogurt would feel on the skin. But then we did see one that had actual yogurt powder in which was a Greek yogurt product. And that was that an afterthought?

That was the yes to blueberries. Greek yogurt.

Yeah.

Actually put it in a pot to make it look like a Greek yogurt, which was kind of weird.

Yeah. But again, that was featured in Mintel's kind of trend area. So I think that we can expect to see more and more of these sorts of products. And that custard creme one, that was an anti aging one, I think it was a part of a range of ones. And again, it had a very interesting look to it because it doesn't look like a lotion, it doesn't look like a gel. It does look like maybe creme patissier or something.

I would totally buy something like that. I would love a skin yogurt. I think even from a marketing and branding perspective, it sounds really appealing. Yes.

Yeah. And the colors of them again were quite interesting. So some of them were obviously white, but then there was purpley ones. And things were with things in them. Like the Greek yogurt one had little blue kind of particles in it. I'm not quite sure what they were, but it was a very interesting concept and you can see that it could appeal to a lot of consumers, especially, for instance, as a travel brand. Like if you were going overseas and you wanted, like a travel pack and you could get, you know, a certain amount of yogurts in there for the different climates you might be visiting, that could be very, very interesting.

Yeah, it was time to see, actually.

Yeah, it was a very enjoyable part of our trip looking at all those yogurts, wasn't? We kept going, oh, look, another one. Exactly right, what are we on? Three. So you're on four.

Yes. So number four, which is close to my heart, is that obviously the industry is still looking for that elusive, magical botanical extract that will have that wow factor on the skin. And everywhere we went, there were just new botanicals being thrown at us. And I just have this vision of the cosmetic chemists of the world sort of traipsing through the jungles and the rainforest to try and find the most obscure plant they can to then develop an extract from it. And we did quite a lot on Instagram stories, if you're not following us on Instagram, head over to Formula Botanica. And we put up all these photos of all the different extracts that I was looking at. I was getting really into it at one point. But we saw locally sourced botanicals as a trend as well. And I think that's a good thing because obviously, you know, carbon footprints travel miles. All of these things should be something that green beauty formulators factor into the designs of the products they make. So, yeah, locally sourced botanicals. We saw Taiwanese cedar leaf, we saw Indonesian Malabar tamarind, We saw orchid stem cells, fermented oat actives, capsanthin from chilies, quinoa peptides, melon extracts. It just kept going. Everywhere you went. It was like, we've got the new wow ingredient and it's going to do X, Y and Z. You know, it was either anti aging or good for hair lightening or dealing with cellulite or. Yeah, the list goes on. Because basically every single plant will have a degree of benefit, at least the ones that they were featuring there. I hasten to add, there's some plants you obviously don't want to put on your skin, but most plants will contain some type of antioxidant, anti inflammatory, antibacterial property. And the cosmetics industry very much looking for interesting, innovative botanical extracts. That can be good for the skin, that tell a great story and that really fit in well with that whole marketing and branding thing that they've got going on. So, yeah, it was exciting to see and I really loved the way they had set up this big formulation zone and you could. Or the innovation zone and you could walk around and read more about the different ingredients that were on sale and even. Well, they hadn't got them on sale there, but I mean, in the mainstream industry. And even one brand had developed this thing called a leaf mask, which was awesome to see. Sheet masks are really, really hot at the moment and have been for a while, but people are looking for biodegradable sheet mask materials. And so someone had made a company called Tech Nature, I think they were called, had made this leaf mask and it was made of plant fibres and I think it had rose and chamomile extracts in there as well. And I don't know exactly how eco friendly it is and how biodegradable it is, but obviously people were really interested in it and going around the whole show, actually we saw lots of Asian masks on show with different materials. So people are looking for eco friendly materials that tie in with that whole locally sourced botanical story.

And I think it ties in again with the kind of food trends that we see at the moment with an increase in veganism and how for quite a long time, especially in within the European kind of countries where fruit has been sort of poo pooed a little bit, where it's all been about high protein kind of diets and fruit is now having a revival with this increase in veganism and you can see that people again are turning. So where fruits are becoming, you know, if you go on Instagram, you know, the smoothie bowls and dragon fruits and pitia and all these kind of exotic fruits and you see that so much now. When we walked around, I just saw all these fruits that people were eating again are now appearing again in our cosmetics. So that was quite an interesting thing to see.

And maybe that's a good thing for a formulator to do if you have a brand, is to look at what's hot in the food industry to start to move it over into cosmetics, because there are all sorts of cool things you can do because it was chia.

Seed oil, wasn't there? And obviously quinoa, which has been so popular for such a long time, you know, they're now using that in like we saw, was it quinoa peptides and.

Yeah, and it's hard to make naturally Derived peptides, they're hard to find, they're hard to use. So it's exciting to see more ingredients like that coming onto the market. So over to you, Gemma, trend number five.

So we walked around a lot, obviously, as lorraine said, almost 14k over two days. And one of the things that we found, the word that we found being used a lot, especially within the mainstream industry now, is sustainability. So obviously that has been a driving factor for many different sectors, you know, food, beauty, commerce in general. But we found that a lot of people were talking about it, so our product is sustainable. And we even had this one woman show us, she sort of brought the. Was it a Tara fruit or a Tara fruit from gum that they'd made? Yeah. So she had these sachets of the fruit so she could show you what it looked like, the seeds, the pods, the. Was it the husk that they. Yeah, and then they ground that down and they made it into a gum. So she was like, that's completely sustainable. But if you press them a little bit more for how is it sustainable and how are you harvesting it, how is it being farmed? You know, what is actually. So that might be an extract that you use in your gum, but what is the entire product made of? And you can often not get very in depth information. So obviously there was a certain amount of slight greenwashing in regards to that word because, yeah, it was being kind of bandied about a lot and there was a lot of kind of promotional material where, you know, everything was green and you would see these like sort of luscious farms and, you know, it appeared like, you know, that everything was going really well. You know, everything was fine and every aspect of everything was fine, sustainable. But I think maybe that might have been a little bit of a glossing over. Yeah. And I know this is something other people have mentioned and something that again we'll be discussing in one of our podcast topics is greenwashing. But it definitely seemed to be on show quite prominently at in cosmetics.

But then they were taking that further and looking at how indie brands are bucking that trend in the mainstream industry of using sustainability as a buzzword. Because we attended this talk, didn't we, on the future of indie beauty.

Yeah, and it's quite interesting because obviously indie brands for a long time sustainability has been a key part of their values and a lot of people within the industry are making that happen in a very real way. So I think it was Camilla from the Soap Kitchen. You know, she's building sustainability into her soap company the soap company, sorry, Camilla from the soap company, who was building sustainability into her business in a way where she was offering, you know, people from marginalized groups, so specifically people with disabilities and with mental health conditions, jobs, so that they were able to participate in a meaningful industry giving back. And then we spoke to. Was it Zaze from Mali or Mali Skin Science?

Yeah.

And, you know, she talked about how she developed her brand in the uk, but she took it over to South Africa and, you know, launched it there. So she was, you know, helping to employ people and, you know, use natural, use native ingredients sourced ethically in her products. So those are people that are actually doing that and they could talk about that in a real way, whereas I felt like some of the other people were just, you know, it was kind of, well, we are sustainable, but you couldn't really push them for any more details than that.

I don't think people always know what the word sustainable means and so they think if they use a small amount of natural ingredients, maybe they could therefore call themselves sustainable. But of course that's not it whatsoever. So, yeah, we were seeing a fair bit of being used in the wrong way by the mainstream industry. But tying into that, I suppose we saw this very slow movement towards less waste lipstick, actually.

Yeah, so that's one of the things I was going to mention in a minute. So we were at the Mintel trend section for quite a long time and they had these three different tables sort of featuring different trends and one of them was kind of about, you know, brands that are trying to give back in some way. So there was all these different kind of stories, but one of them that stood out was a lipstick that came in completely reusable packaging. So it was in leather. So that obviously is not going to appeal to everybody. It meant that you could refill, just go and get a refill. So you would never, ever have to buy more packaging, essentially, which is obviously a very interesting concept. I mean, Lorraine has already written posts about zero waste beauty and a lot of people are talking about how the beauty industry can move towards zero waste and what are the options for refillable, you know, lotions, toners, you know, toothpastes, you know, you name it. Everyone is asking that question, how can I use less packaging in all these different products? So that was very interesting to see. It did have a rather hefty price tag, didn't it? Which I think would be tricky for some people, wondering whether you should spend that amount of money. I think it was. Was it €160 dollars? Yeah. Yeah, it was dollars. Yeah. So with each refill being approximately £40.

Yeah.

So I suppose in pounds, maybe £120 plus. Roughly say £120 plus refills. So, yeah, so we saw a very, very slow plod in that direction. And again, I think it's probably the indie brands that will lead in that trend because they already understand what sustainability really means. You know, it's not just about your ingredients about, it's about every aspect of your business, like who you employ, where you're getting your ingredients from, how is it being farmed, what are the labor conditions on that farm, like, etc. Etc. You know, again, yeah, I think it'll be indie brands that lead the way in how we figure out how we can become better as an industry at generating less waste across all aspects of the supply chain.

Yeah, exactly. We've seen a couple of brands recently come past with some very innovative packaging as well. Was trying to make cardboard packaging and I even spoke to one of our students actually, who had some really cool cardboard packaging and she very kindly gave me one of her lip balms. Herbal Earth, I think her brand is called. So it's really cool to see people thinking about these things. And yeah, I agree. I think the indie beauty world is going to lead the way, which is exciting because we're part of it and that makes it even more exciting.

And obviously we think most of the people in our community have pretty amazing ideas that are often, you know, what the sector is probably looking for. It's just they have to catch up with us, unfortunately.

Yes. Yeah, we're trailblazing all of us.

We're trailblazing all of us.

Yeah. Right. So number six was athleisure. Anyone who's followed me for a while has probably seen this for about a year now or so. I'm a runner and I'm always looking for beauty products that work for me. So particularly lip products balms is something I go on about a lot, but that's because I'm a lip balm junkie and you hard to see brands really target people who do sports with particular needs. So it's good to see that this athleisure trend is starting to take off. And we also saw this in the mainstream industry. It's also called gym bag beauty, which I quite like. So that's where you combine wellness and athletics with skincare. And there are different ways of doing this because of course, you know, your skincare might be specific for whilst you're exercising. It might be sweat proof or budge Proof or something like that. Or it might be targeted at a specific sport or something that you're doing to focus on wellness in skincare. So that's obviously really taking off in the mainstream industry. It's not just obviously in skincare, it's taking off in terms of fashion, in terms of all the paraphernalia you buy to take with you when you go to the gym or do X's exercise. And the beauty industry is catching up now, too, and I think there are massive opportunities here for indie brands to really latch on to that trend, because I think the mainstream industry will go for it big time. And I would love to see some green formulations start to be made for people who do lots of exercise. Because ultimately people who are exercising are generally quite conscious of wanting that well, being in their life, that wellness. So they will often be looking for green beauty as well.

Yeah. In small sizes. And, you know, you can even, you know, drum that niche down further and do say, for instance, surfers. I mean, surfing has been one that has actually attracted quite a lot of attention. So in terms of, like, it was surfers that often in America drove the need for sort of like cleaner sunscreens and things like that. So, you know, you could drive your niche down even further and do specific runners or swimmers or, you know, curling.

What do curlers need? As you know, You've been watching the Winter Olympics.

I have, yeah. Really enjoyed curling. Yeah. And, you know, like Lorraine was saying, you know, as runner, you know, I did. I've done some running. I wouldn't say I'm a runner and I do a lot of walking. You often want things that you can carry around in small little pouches, you know, lip balms or hand creams or little foot creams or whatever. And that's even more when you're bringing your kids along, for instance, if you look at the whole kind of green movement as a whole parenting gets incorporated into that. And as parents are driving their kids to be out more and doing more together, like biking together, rollerblading together, going on hikes together, you need to carry stuff around with you. You know, you've got hot weather, you've got. I mean, especially if you're in a country where the weather changes like four times a day, like where we are sometimes I need a variety of different products that you know that if we're out all day.

So.

And I think with the rise of brands like Lululemon, conscious kind of athleisure brands, and even Stella McCartney has a hand in that. Somewhere together with the rise of fitness's interest in veganism, people want, you know, small little products that they can take around with them and travel easily, easily with.

The one thing I would say is if you're going to target athleisure, if you want to make products for people who are active and have an active lifestyle, then either make sure that you are active yourself so you really understand their needs, or make sure you talk to people. Because I've talked to people before about ski care for runners, and then if you don't run, you don't quite understand those needs. So just that you get out there and you talk to people or maybe take up running yourself because it'll make you feel happy at the same time.

Yes, yes.

So moving on to trend number seven. What's that?

So we saw a rise in brands creating genderless beauty products or ranges. So again, we first heard about it from Molly. Skincare Science or Skin Science. And just to say we will link to these things that we're mentioning in the show notes that accompany this episode so you can be clear on who we were referring to. So she, the founder of Molly, mentioned that their products were genderless. And we have seen this across the industry starting to creep in. And at the Mintel Trends table, again, there was a serum that was genderless and the packaging was really interesting. You know, what was the strap line for all humans?

I think so, yeah. It even said non gender specific on the bottle, which was. Yeah.

And I think this is something that we'll see a massive rise in. We've seen it in the fashion industry to a certain extent. That started to happen already and it's spilling over into the beauty. And I think it is really one to watch. And we've seen a couple of people in our community talk about genderless products, genderless beauty, and we've seen a few retailers start stocking a few things. I think content beauty and well being have a couple of things that are genderless. And one of our own students as well, Gareth from Old Faithful, has got a genderless range.

Yeah. So it's exciting to see this growth because I think a lot of women feel often that the brands are still just pitched specifically at, you know, specific sort of feminine angles, very girly angles. And I think men feel that way as well. They sometimes feel that there's a real macho element to, you know, some of these deodorants that they have. And sometimes people just want good quality beauty products that work well and they don't want that distinction between who uses it and how they use it, it's almost like a no fuss angle to it.

Yeah. And obviously, as, you know, as a society as a whole, we've become so much more open to concepts around gender and it's not so defined as it used to be. It's not so rigid and people are able to move through, you know, they don't want binaries anymore. Like you're saying, like pink, blue, you know, we want fluidity depending on how we feel on a given day and, you know, to have that. And I think also for the younger generation to be able to have products that are just marketed at humans.

Exactly. It's like when I go shopping for my kids or I have to buy a present for one of my children's friends and I end up in the toy shop and everything around me is pink. I just walk out in disgust every time because I'm so annoyed. And I'm sure people feel that way sometimes about their beauty products too.

Yeah, you just want to have something that is just like the package said for all humans on Earth. I think that's what it said.

Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah.

And I think that this is something as we become more conscious of people's, you know, preferences for gender or non gender specific, I think we're going to see a massive increase in this area. And it's about time, if I'm honest.

Cool.

What was our next one?

Right. Number eight is Anti Blue light pollution.

Ah, yes, yes. Big one.

Yeah. And this was also flagged up to us by Mintel, but we'd seen it around the show today and this is something that's really started to come into the conversation a little bit more over the last six months, I'd say. So Anti Pollution is already hot in the beauty world. In fact, I wrote a blog post on how to formulate Anti Pollution skin care on our website last year. So I recommend going to check that out. And Anti Blue light pollution takes that one step further. So it's almost about the pollution. What is the pollution that you get indoors? From staring at our smartphones and tablets all the time. And things have moved on so quickly. I think the average family has something like four or six connected devices to the Internet now. And that's only going to grow. And I see it myself. You know, I went on holiday with my family and my parents last week. It seems so long ago already. And, you know, we were sat there, the kids had a tablet each, I was working with my smartphone and my computer, my partner was on his computer. My dad was on his computer, my mum was on a tablet. You know, it sounds like none of us talk to each other. I hasten to add that isn't the case. But we all have connected devices and it's very tempting to fall into that trap of staring at them all day. Not healthy. I certainly don't recommend it. But they think that some of this blue light pollution can have effects on skin aging through oxidative stress, through hyperpigmentation. I'm going to look into the science a little bit more and actually write a blog post about this in the coming months because I think it's something that everyone wants to know a bit more about. But the market is already catering for Actives that can combat anti blue light pollution. So they are way ahead of the curve and are saying, right, this is something that's going to be hot and we want to cater for it. So as I mentioned earlier, we saw this, I think it was a chili based extract where they extracted capsanthin and they said this is specifically for anti blue light pollution. So here you've got an ingredient supplier already saying, I'm making Actives that you can use so you can make these claims. Whether they actually have that effect or not is an entirely different matter. And we'll have a look at the science for you in the coming months. But it's definitely a trend. It's getting bigger and I'm fairly sure it's here to stay. And there may come a point that it even gets bigger than, you know, anti aging. Who knows?

Yeah, there's quite a few zero waste blogs that I've had a look at. You know, I can't tell you names or whatever because it was just in passing, but there was quite lengthy blog posts about indoor pollution.

Yeah.

And what we can do to combat that. So I think that this, like Lorraine said, it's going to be, we're going to see a massive growth in this and we're going to update you guys on it.

Yeah.

So number nine, number nine was DIY skincare. So there was a trend, it seems, of, you know, offering skincare that you could put together yourself. So for instance, you would get say a pot of something with things that you could add into it depending on how you were feeling. Obviously there's some complexities around how that is packaged and shipped and whatever that didn't seem to be quite figured out yet. But there is a definite move towards that. You know, as people, I know there's sort of a trend for conscious beauty, but you know, as people Become more aware of things like what we're talking about in the previous trend about, like, say, indoor pollution, outdoor pollution, you know, active lifestyle. They're going to want to put together something that works for them as an individual. So, like, for instance, if you look at, like triathlon runners, they. Triathlon athletes, you know, they do running, cycling, swimming, that there's a combination of needs that they might want as an individual. You know, they might be pregnant while they're doing that. They might want something, you know, so you've got people who have very, very specific needs as individuals and it could be that you can offer them something that they can tailor.

Yeah.

And I think, again, we're going to see much more of this. There was bits and pieces of it at the, at the event that we saw, but I think we're going to.

See one of the main raw ingredient suppliers was already starting to make these DIY kits, weren't they? Where you just add A to B to create the finished product. So it's not formulation, it's not what our community is doing, but it's. Yeah, it's effectively just taking bases, adding them together and maybe adding in a few actives here and there. And I'm not surprised, you know, we've seen it ourselves. We've got four and a half thousand formulation students now at Formula Botanica. So people want to learn how to make skincare, but some people don't want to go to the huge amount of effort of learning how to formulate. They just want to be able to mix some stuff up at home that is suitable for their skin needs or hair needs or makeup needs. And that's quite exciting to see.

Yeah, very exciting. I think we're definitely going to see this come up a lot more.

Cool. So the final one was skincare that's sensitive to the skin microbiome. And this is something, again, that people are starting to talk about a lot more. And it's certainly hot topic, a hot topic in the industry. Mintel flagged it up to us again and I think there's a lot of work to be done here to really figure out exactly how this works, because the research is saying that our body is covered in microorganisms, which we've known for years, but I think there's a lot of humans obviously still think that a lot of our skin is maybe sterile or doesn't have things living on it. But yeah, we're covered in microorganisms, organisms. So the theory behind it is that you need to have a healthy microorganism system on your body in order to have healthy skin. And I've seen some pretty crazy articles fly past in the mainstream industry about this in the last few weeks, which we won't go into because again, I think what we will do is we will look at the science and demystify this a little bit for you. But the trend seems to be that you make skin care, and possibly hair care as well, that is sensitive to that skin, skin microbiome. So it basically makes your skin happy by keeping the microorganisms that are living there happy as well. Now, how the skin does that, how skin care can do that, I don't know. And I don't think a lot of these formulators know either, because you'd have to bring microbiologists in, you'd have to get, you know, dermatologists in. There'd be a lot of work to be done there. But I think it's an interesting concept and I think it will be difficult to make claims along these lines. I don't see quite how you could make claims along those lines without backing it up with scientific research. But who knows, Maybe that scientific research will really start to come out in the coming years as the mainstream industry looks for its latest hook to draw in consumers. So I think that was the big one that we saw. And as I said, we will demystify that one a little bit more in the coming months. Yeah, but overall it was an awesome conference. Can we recommend going and. Yeah. Walking around and just seeing what inspiration there is because you never know what might strike you. And as you heard today, you know, we've come up with these 10 points that we thought were the big trends in the industry, which will undoubtedly start to filter down to the green beauty world. And I'm excited to see what people make.

Me too. And I hope that you might have found some inspiration from this podcast and launch your amazing green Athleisure range. Exciting.

Exactly. We look forward to seeing it.

We do. Thanks so much for listening to our in Cosmetics Global 2018 Top 10 Trends. Hope you found them interesting, relevant, and it gives you lots of food for thought. If you're interested in becoming an organic skincare or hair care formulator, head over to formulabotanica.com and check out our free sample class. You can also get in touch with us through social media, social media, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter over at Formula Botanica. If you have any feedback or any comments as usual, please get in contact. And I just want to say thank you so much for your time and thanks for listening.

Sam.