March 5, 2007
Organic and Natural Beauty is Everywhere
By Laura Klepacki, special to GMDC
It began with the emergence of organic produce and has spread into the use of organic ingredients in all types of foods. Supermarket shelves are spotted with items – from ketchup to baby food to coffee – with organic claims.
The movement is now sweeping through other consumer products categories. Even apparel – from sleepwear to hosiery to denim – has begun to incorporate more natural and organic fibers.
Beauty products, most notably skin care, are becoming one of the most aggressive after food when it comes to incorporating organic and natural ingredients.
In the past year, Wal-Mart has created organic beauty sections in at least 350 stores and that number is expected to grow, according to manufacturer sources. Not to be left behind, Target is currently rolling out Erbaorganics, a USDA-certified organic skin care line for mothers and babies.
A report from the Natural Marketing Institute of Harleysville, Pa. says that the natural personal care market in the U.S. grew 15 percent in 2005, compared to 3.5 percent growth for the overall U.S. cosmetics and toiletries market. NMI also said that 50 percent of consumers polled “indicate they want personal care products made with natural or premium ingredients and 44 percent said they are looking for organic ingredients.”
Buoyed by such statistics, beauty manufacturers have been hastily creating new natural/organic collections.
This year, Commonwealth Soap & Toiletries of Fall River, Mass. is re-launching Simply Be Well as an organic skin care line after it was reformulated to contain more organic extracts and botanicals. Dallas-based Delicious Brands is introducing Habitat Naturals, a collection that features both natural and certified organic ingredients. For instance, the products use a coconut-based surfactant rather than the standard sodium laurel sulfate. It will debut at Rite Aid in March. And then there is Pureganic, a Swiss organic line that is being made available to U.S. retailers for the first time. It is certified by Swiss farming organizations and Bio-Inspecta, a third party certifier in Europe. The products use seven organic herbs and no animal-derived ingredients.
These are just a few examples of the numerous new brands trying to break into the market. For years, the natural food and health stores channel had a near monopoly on sales of natural/organic beauty items. But now the trend is going mainstream.
HBA Global Expo, the annual ingredients, technology and packaging show for the beauty industry, has reorganized this year’s event into three segments. They are: Marketing, Technical and Naturals. The Naturals piece will focus on the merging of nature and beauty and include exhibits of the latest botanicals, organic and healthy ingredients and natural products.
With natural beauty still dominated by small, independent players, the question begs, what role will the corporate giants ultimately play?
For now, L’Oreal has gotten a step ahead by bringing its European Garnier skin care brand to the U.S. this year. It is a line noted for its use of natural ingredients. And last year it acquired The Body Shop and the French company Sanoflore, a maker of natural cosmetics.
It is unlikely, however, that Olay and Dove will quietly stand on the sidelines.
Discussion Questions: How will the trend toward organics and natural ingredients impact product development and marketing at the major manufacturer level? What does the increase in organic/natural items in beauty care mean for retailers, specifically those that do not already have a sizeable presence in this niche?
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Beauty care products, going back to the 19th century, have always been fad-driven, with plenty of pseudoscience and the aura of “natural” ingredients. Every HBA brand will package a “natural” or “organic” variation, line extension, special formula, or new positioning. (If they haven’t done this already in 3 sizes and 6 scents.) No retailer can possibly miss the boat because there won’t be any HBA brands that ignore this trend.
Natural and Organic body care is a trend as stated but in order to really understand the movement you have to live the lifestyle. Simply putting some organic and natural ingredients into the formulas is not enough. Companies have to understand what to take out of the formulas…i.e. artificial colors, fragrances, all the parabens and glycols…and putting a fancy label on a brand that for years contained all the bad stuff is not good marketing. Develop a new brand that will resonate with the consumer who they are trying to attract.
Organic and natural a powerful trend? Who can dispute or doubt that assertion? The irony is how quickly we forget how we got here in the first place. Remember when rememdies and foods made only of naturally available ingredients were called “home-made”? And scientifically driven alterations to those products were labeled “new and improved”? Somewhere our great-grandmothers are looking down at us from heaven and laughing their bustles off as they happily can jam, churn butter and make soap!
We’re seeing a strong recognition by major manufacturers that the natural and organic segments have a certain, almost magic appeal today, which is driving immediate new-product development. It seems to me, however, that this is not likely to be a short-term fad in that the consuming public is becoming much more aware of and sensitive to environmental issues and the impact of the environment on them. This suggests that there will be a continuing growth in products that promise some degree of insulation from the harsh realities of the modern world.
Pretty soon you will see “natural” and “includes organic ingredients” on HBA products across North America. It will confuse the heck out of consumers, because it will all come back to the label reading. And consumers will need to know what to look for in the label to ensure that the product truly is “natural” and/or “organic.” It’s like the phenomenon with “light,” “reduced fat,” “reduced carbs,” “less sugar,” and so on. Expect a flurry of new “natural” products on HBA store shelves.
Retailers will monitor and accommodate consumer trends, and Natural Products will gain momentum as consumers focus more on concerns of environmental impact and personal side effects of chemically based products.
There is also the impact of price and margin accretion gains in listing new, natural products as well as accommodating the most discerning and higher-end shopper who focuses most on these products. So, expect traditional retailers to jump on this emerging opportunity going forward.
It pretty much stands to reason that sooner or later people would realise that cosmetics and beauty treatments were full of chemicals of which they had absolutely no understanding and would then begin to wonder whether they could in any way be harmful, especially over the long term. As with food, the warm, fuzzy feeling we get when we believe something is “natural,” makes us feel safer and more confident so, given a choice, and all things such as price being equal, there is a logical tendency to opt for natural rather than chemical. The problem, of course, is in the semantics and the need to know. There has been some publicity lately about the potentially harmful effects of tea tree oil, for example
(see Tea tree oil faces ban over health fear)
It would have been easy enough for Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Target, etc. to go to their mega-vendors and say “Whip up something organic and wrap it in some recycled packaging.” Or “Can you create a new brand that looks vaguely French?” Instead, they chose to open the door wide to limited-distribution boutique brands from the U.S. and abroad; driving differentiation and empowering smaller providers in the process. Walgreens’ European Collection, comprised of seven brands from five countries, serves as a great example of this trend. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that the boutique brand flood gates opened on the heels of the mega-disappointment that was Revlon’s Vital Radiance non-launch. I hear retailers saying “never again” when it comes to keeping all eggs in a few ubiquitous beauty brand baskets!
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Beauty care products, going back to the 19th century, have always been fad-driven, with plenty of pseudoscience and the aura of “natural” ingredients. Every HBA brand will package a “natural” or “organic” variation, line extension, special formula, or new positioning. (If they haven’t done this already in 3 sizes and 6 scents.) No retailer can possibly miss the boat because there won’t be any HBA brands that ignore this trend.
Natural and Organic body care is a trend as stated but in order to really understand the movement you have to live the lifestyle. Simply putting some organic and natural ingredients into the formulas is not enough. Companies have to understand what to take out of the formulas…i.e. artificial colors, fragrances, all the parabens and glycols…and putting a fancy label on a brand that for years contained all the bad stuff is not good marketing. Develop a new brand that will resonate with the consumer who they are trying to attract.
Organic and natural a powerful trend? Who can dispute or doubt that assertion? The irony is how quickly we forget how we got here in the first place. Remember when rememdies and foods made only of naturally available ingredients were called “home-made”? And scientifically driven alterations to those products were labeled “new and improved”? Somewhere our great-grandmothers are looking down at us from heaven and laughing their bustles off as they happily can jam, churn butter and make soap!
We’re seeing a strong recognition by major manufacturers that the natural and organic segments have a certain, almost magic appeal today, which is driving immediate new-product development. It seems to me, however, that this is not likely to be a short-term fad in that the consuming public is becoming much more aware of and sensitive to environmental issues and the impact of the environment on them. This suggests that there will be a continuing growth in products that promise some degree of insulation from the harsh realities of the modern world.
Pretty soon you will see “natural” and “includes organic ingredients” on HBA products across North America. It will confuse the heck out of consumers, because it will all come back to the label reading. And consumers will need to know what to look for in the label to ensure that the product truly is “natural” and/or “organic.” It’s like the phenomenon with “light,” “reduced fat,” “reduced carbs,” “less sugar,” and so on. Expect a flurry of new “natural” products on HBA store shelves.
Retailers will monitor and accommodate consumer trends, and Natural Products will gain momentum as consumers focus more on concerns of environmental impact and personal side effects of chemically based products.
There is also the impact of price and margin accretion gains in listing new, natural products as well as accommodating the most discerning and higher-end shopper who focuses most on these products. So, expect traditional retailers to jump on this emerging opportunity going forward.
It pretty much stands to reason that sooner or later people would realise that cosmetics and beauty treatments were full of chemicals of which they had absolutely no understanding and would then begin to wonder whether they could in any way be harmful, especially over the long term. As with food, the warm, fuzzy feeling we get when we believe something is “natural,” makes us feel safer and more confident so, given a choice, and all things such as price being equal, there is a logical tendency to opt for natural rather than chemical. The problem, of course, is in the semantics and the need to know. There has been some publicity lately about the potentially harmful effects of tea tree oil, for example
(see Tea tree oil faces ban over health fear)
It would have been easy enough for Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Target, etc. to go to their mega-vendors and say “Whip up something organic and wrap it in some recycled packaging.” Or “Can you create a new brand that looks vaguely French?” Instead, they chose to open the door wide to limited-distribution boutique brands from the U.S. and abroad; driving differentiation and empowering smaller providers in the process. Walgreens’ European Collection, comprised of seven brands from five countries, serves as a great example of this trend. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that the boutique brand flood gates opened on the heels of the mega-disappointment that was Revlon’s Vital Radiance non-launch. I hear retailers saying “never again” when it comes to keeping all eggs in a few ubiquitous beauty brand baskets!