Drop sticky sweet Gourmand concepts: COSSMA

Interview with:

Helga Hertsig-Lavocah
Futurologist & Trend Watcher,

Hint Futurology Creative Consultancy
Dublin, Ireland
helga@hintfuturology.com

COSSMA: Did you find any new ideas for beauty care and up-and-coming ingredients that will inevitably cross over to personal care?

Helga Hertsig-Lavocah, Futurologist & Trend Watcher, Hint Futurology Creative Consultancy: The big message this year is mushrooms. Last year we spotted a few launches with chaga, but this year it’s all the adaptogenic mushrooms, from lions mane to reishi to cordyceps and more. It is interesting to see how wellness is evolving from a binary concept of relax-energy to a more balanced approach: adaptogens balance out your energy. Of all the ingredient trends that have come from food, mushrooms do seem to be the most difficult for the beauty industry, but it is not impossible. Get inspired by Dr Weil for Origins, Youth to the People, Grown Alchemist, Bobbi Brown and CocoKind.

Aren’t adaptogens too niche?

If you search for “adaptogens” on Sephora.com you get 10 hits. It may not be many, but it is an indicator of things to come. Adaptogens are at a tipping point right now in foods & beverages. US juice chain Jamba Juice even adds them to their lattes. Cult tea brand The Republic of Tea recently launched a line of adaptogenic teas. Trendy turmeric is an adaptogen, but it’s not promoted as such … yet! Adaptogens are the new protein i.e. the new ingredient that will be slapped onto and into a lot of products.

Adaptogenic plants and herbs also include rhodiola, aka arctic root, golden root and ashwagandha, aka Indian ginseng.

What about hemp & CBD?

Yes, this is huge in beauty right now. But it’s already mainstream, so I don’t see it as new and innovative. There’s even a mass market tea in the UK from Pukka with hemp (paired with spearmint and ashwagandha).

Matcha is another ingredient that isn’t on my radar anymore, it’s too common. Many people are calling beetroot the new matcha. While I don’t think beetroot will slip over to beauty, it confirms what we’ve been saying for a while: sweetness is over, bitter and more complex notes are the future – is home fragrance and body care listening? This is all about reconnecting with the earth, particularly important for stressed urbanites.

This ties into another key trend ACV – apple cider vinegar, doesn’t it?

Absolutely! Bitter is better. Mass market consumers are waking up to the danger of sugar, and health-forward consumers are taking this one step further and embracing vinegars and kombuchas. Ready to drink vinegars and vinegar shots are common at a trade show like NOPE. Beauty care needs to drop sticky sweet gourmand concepts and explore more complex and interesting fragrance and ingredient profiles. We can breathe new life into familiar ingredients by fermenting them (vinegars and kombuchas are fermented – which also ties in nicely with the influence of South Korean beauty which uses fermented ingredients).

Another lesson from the ACV trend is that many of them claim to be “raw”.

Even though mushrooms do seem to be the most difficult for beauty there are some inspiring examples. Photo: Origins

Raw – does this link into clean living?

Yes. Clean living is evolving. Of course it’s still free-from, etc. but it also encompasses how ingredients are treated – or in this case, not treated. Untreated implies closer to nature. Many ingredients have to undergo processing of course, and we are noticing health brands sharing these background stories with their consumers – it’s often a USP. Beauty care can do the same. For example, Kiki Health’s new mushroom line is “grown on wood substrate, extracted 100% from fruiting bodies” which differentiates it from its competitors.

Finally, I’d like to circle back to the relax-energy axis that I mentioned at the start, and how wellness is now so much more than just mood management. Another stand out of the show was nootropics or brain health. I don’t expect our categories to tap into nootropics, but I do expect the management of emotional health and how this impacts our physical well-being (not just beauty) to become a mainstream element in new product development. Every act, even brushing your teeth or your hair, can be reframed as a mindful, conscious act. Re-examining each beauty interaction as an opportunity to breathe, to be, to be present will lead to the next generation of products on shelf.

*the British equivalent of Biofach Vivaness