Beauty-from-within: AI, omics and personalized probiotics

During our recent beauty-from-within webinar with CosmeticsDesign​, we took a look at the market, the hottest ingredients, formats, and what we can expect in the next 12 months. After hearing from our expert panelists, it’s clear the industry is on the verge of a major transformation, with cutting-edge technologies slated to play a major role in the next wave of beauty-from-within products.

While SPINS has been tracking the concept of hair, skin and nails health for a while now, Scott Dicker, Market Insights Director of SPINS, said the category has morphed recently to include a lot of other products being touted for beauty, such as magnesium for beauty sleep for example.

“The space has been around, but it had much more of a niche audience, whereas now it's much more expansive and inclusive. Going into natural beauty in general, we see that a lot of it's actually targeting males, where this was actually a predominantly female-targeted industry. A lot of the growth now that we're seeing is from that more inclusive marketing space,” said Dicker.

Formats

Dicker said formats are sometimes difficult to pin down since formats differ from category to category as well as from channel to channel.

“So what people are searching for on Amazon, for example, is not always the same as what they're looking for in-store. Gummies continue to have an upcharge when you talk about formats,” said Dicker. “Pills continue to be popular, but powders as well, especially when it comes to things like collagen which is one of the most popular ingredients right now. The dose has really increased–people usually aren't going to take 6-8 pills just for collagen. So I think it's ingredient-specific. It really depends on what ingredients people are gravitating towards, but there's definitely interest in both pills, powders as well as gummies.”

Trendspotting: What to be on the lookout for

With their fingers on the pulse of the industry, our panelists are always on the lookout for emerging trends that keep them ahead of the curve and add a competitive edge.

“I would look for the continued crossover effect from topicals as well as beauty-from-within. I think that this is going to play a big role in the market as you see partnerships and collaborations, as well as cross merchandising. I think the searchability online for these products is starting to cross over significantly, so that's going to be something to watch, similar to functional ingredients. But also just really expanding the audience on that crossover between the cosmetics skincare and beauty-from-within,” said Dicker.

“I would think that we will see many personalized probiotics within the next year or so and like probiotics for skincare, but also, something that works together with it and based on microbiome testing, that is my prediction,” said Raya Khanin, Co-founder and Science Lead, LifeNome.

“I think that there's really going to be a growth in the integration of health experts being utilized. So, to the point earlier of the medicalization of beauty, it really goes beyond the doctor. It's more of an east-meets-west approach. So you're getting natural medicine, physicians and medical dermatology to nutrition experts kind of collaborating and pulling together and advancing in the research and understanding, and mechanisms of how ingestibles work on our aesthetic appearance,” said Paula Simpson, Innovation, Product Development & Branding Consultant, Nutribloom Consulting.

“The intersection of personalization and AI beauty is particularly exciting to me. Earlier we mentioned Neutrogena’s collaboration with Nourished​ and the stackable personalized gummy ingredients that they are making for consumers. This year I also did an article with a company called Skin Dossier​, and they do analysis of a person's skin. They can also take it a step further and consumers can submit blood samples so that you can actually get a very in-depth profile with particular nutrients you need to have for the best looking skin to address particular issues. They also do hair analysis as well, so if you're dealing with itchy scalp, dry scalp, dull, lifeless hair, they can match you with particular routines and products that would best address those needs,” said Cassandra Stern, Editor, CosmeticsDesign USA​. “So I think the intersection of the growing scope of AI and its application for personalized beauty is really something that I'm keeping my eye on.”