Parents Look to Nature for Baby Care

Baby care is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global cosmetics and toiletries market and will remain so during the next five years, according to Euromonitor International’s forecast. The market is expected to expand by nearly $1 billion, reaching $6 billion by 2012. Growth has been fueled by the constant introduction of new brands, product extensions from existing brands and the increasing accessibility of these brands. Notably, the natural niche within this segment has grown as more consumers switch to natural personal care products for both themselves and their babies.

Questions over the safety of a number of cosmetic ingredients took center stage last year—with phthalates, parabens and triclosan all taking their turn in the spotlight. And a widespread and general consumer concern about chemicals in personal care products is pushing both expectant mothers and parents of new-born babies to ante up for personal care products that are free of certain chemicals and synthetic colors, fragrances and dyes. Parents have become particularly concerned about the level of chemicals in baby products—which, combined with environmental issues, are alleged to be factors in the rising rates of baby allergies.

“As a result, we have seen an increase in mothers desiring a healthier, more natural lifestyle for themselves and their families and a lot of newly generated excitement about the increased trend toward products that utilize ingredients found in nature,” said Vincent Maupu, product director, Aveeno Baby. “These parents believe that using natural and organic skin care products for little ones is just as important as eating healthy, nutritional foods.”

Affordable for Consumers and Buyers

While trends are particularly strong where more affluent parents choose premium priced natural products, parents of varying income are more informed about their children’s well-being and tend to choose natural-positioned products from day one. Despite the economy, women have made the purchase of perceived safer products for themselves and their babies a priority. Moms are looking for products that offer functionality—multifunctionality is even better—along with benefits such as ease of use and portability, according to Natalja Millsap, president and owner of Sweetsation Therapy, which is currently working on an organic sun care product for babies.

In addition, she says that peace of mind trumps small monetary savings for many of these consumers. With new brands entering the marketplace all the time, however, consumers may find it is not necessary to sacrifice their pocketbooks to go more natural.

“Consumers choose the best product for the money, and they always should,” continued Millsap. “So we try to deliver great product at a reasonable price without sacrificing the quality.” Similarly, Sweet Grass Farm launched its FarmBaby line last spring, with the goal to provide affordable, natural baby care to eco-conscious moms. The company is a wholesale supplier that caters to gift shop channels. “Our company strategy has not changed since our founding in 1996,” said Debbie Ludington, creator. “We strive to create simple and effective products that are reasonably priced and suitable for everyday use. Ludington notices that buyers in today’s economy are switching to the brand because of its order fulfillment policies and the ability to avoid tying up all their inventory dollars. The simple luxuries afforded by baby body care is showing promise, which affects smaller brands such as FarmBaby in a positive way. “Consumers are looking for formulas that are very straightforward and streamlined, allowing them to read the ingredients and immediately get a good understanding of the performance and safety,” said Ludington. As a small market player, FarmBaby will continue to focus on pushing wholesale customers to bring in the line. Future products on tap for the brand include a natural sanitizer and a natural/portable wipe system.

Beyond Baby Powder

Growth opportunities for baby care, particularly within the natural category, are not waning. Johnson & Johnson witnessed particularly strong international sales in 2008 in baby care, despite the economy, and is focusing its latest efforts in building up the distribution in order to provide access to the relatively new Aveeno Baby brand to a broader number of consumers. Aveeno did not even enter the baby shampoo segment until 2008, when it launched Aveeno Baby Essential Moisture Shampoo.

Aveeno, too, has stated a commitment to the research and development of new natural-based formulas that will address baby’s skin needs more expansively. “There are still many baby skin conditions not currently addressed—such as hypersensitivity and eczema. Moving forward, these are definite areas of opportunity for us,” said Maupu.

Pediatrician Natalie Geary, MD, creator of VedaPure, also recognizes the need for products that address overall wellness in children and their parents. The company’s first launch was a natural skin care line for babies and children, but it has since expanded to include lines for mothers and fathers—the whole family. “As a pediatrician, my primary focus is children, but it is important to understand that for our children to be healthy, the whole family needs to embrace the ideals of natural health,” Geary explained. The concept of overall wellness has led the company to offer nutritional supplements, a remedy for cradle cap made with black walnut hulls and certified organic calendula flowers, an oil for skin infections, and a topical for swelling and bruising.

The Internet and Consumer Loyalty

With greater access to information and a discerning consumer base, complete transparency in labeling and marketing—along with consumer education—is key to commanding consumer loyalty in today’s marketplace. But the fact that moms tend to be loyal to the first baby care brands they use is also important. “One of the [marketing] strategies is to propose attractive product offerings to expectant moms in order to introduce them to the breadth of product offerings early in their motherhood,” said Aveeno’s Maupu.

Another key is to engage and enhance relationships with moms in a way that is relevant to them—and the Internet is an effective tool in this effort. Maupu cites research that shows that 70% of moms today participate in community sites, and 68% of moms rely on word-of-mouth for family-related matters. Indeed, the population of mothers going frequently online is estimated at approximately 32 million, and their Internet usage exceeds traditional media weekly consumption, according to Forrester Research. By liaising with “mommy blogger” communities, brands seek to create a dialogue with consumers, beyond providing functional product benefits, engaging with them on an emotional level so they can better understand this community’s needs and concerns. Sweetsation Therapy uses its site (www.sweetsationtherapy.com) as an educational tool, providing consumers with information about ingredients used in the products, where they come from and how they benefit the skin.

“Because people are now able to research products beyond what is advertised, they are looking for products personalized to their interests and lifestyles,” said Lyne Appel Downing, vice president of operations, Ecostore, a New Zealand-based brand founded 15 years ago and launched at U.S. Meijer stores in February 2009.

Using the Internet to spread the word about products doesn’t hurt either. “We have found our greatest success is through word-of-mouth endorsements,” says Downing. “We are fortunate to have customers who are passionate brand ambassadors.”

Brands such as Ecostore are fortunate in that many of the emerging trends are the very attributes on which said brands were founded. Yet, consumers are often skeptical of the effectiveness of an eco brand. Goods and services that tie back to an individual’s core values—such as the health and wellness of the family—are areas in which consumers continue to spend, regardless of the economy. “Consumers are prioritizing their purchases,” explained Downing. “While they are scaling back in some areas, they are continuing to spend on products they are passionate about.”

Claims and Substantiation in Skin Care

By 2012, U.S. cosmeceutical sales are expected to reach $21 billion, as reported by Packaged Facts in June 2008. And growth like this is not limited to the U.S.; European and Japanese markets have also embraced such cosmetics and their marketing claims—a demand Lakshmi Prakash, vice president of innovation and business development for the Sabinsa Corporation, says is “expected to increase 8.5% to more than $8 billion by 2010.” More specifically, the demand for antiaging products will grow at twice the rate of other cosmeceutical products, accounting for more than 60% of all such products by 2010. This demand has spurred advanced R&D methods and tests on both new and familiar cosmetic ingredients, leading to innovations in antiaging skin care.

Advancements in Anti-aging Skin Care

Although elastin has previously been used in antiaging skin-firming products, BASF Beauty Care Solutions has discovered the functionality of three-dimensional facial architecture and the renewal of elastin functionality, which it is touting with its newly patented Lys’lastine active, according to Bethsabée Coutaz, marketing and communication manager at BASF. And P&G is putting similar ingredient advances on store shelves. It’s Olay brand’s Professional Pro-X, an antiaging skin care line developed by a panel of scientists and dermatologists called the Olay Professional Alliance for Skin Care Innovation, includes two ingredients, pal-KT and hexamidine, not found in any other Olay product. “Pal-KT is a proprietary palmitoyl-peptide that enhances the stratum corneum to increase hydration, along with other moisturizers like glycerin, helping to allow the natural production of collagen,” says Mary Johnson, principal scientist, P&G Beauty. “And hexamidine locks in moisture, thereby plumping and firming the skin.”

For its part, Lipo Chemicals is “borrowing compounds from the food industry and chemically synthesizing the products that already exist in human skin, but are diminished due to aging or stress,” according to Nava Dayan, head of R&D, skin care, Lipo Chemicals.

Natural actives are also impacting cosmeceutical advancements, according to Walter Smith, president of science and technology, Active Organics, LP. For example, the company supplies actizyme, an exfoliating enzyme cosmeceutical that has antiaging claims derived from M. meihie mushroom extracts. “Actimatrix stimulates the production of dermal matrix proteins involved in skin firmness and sagging,” says Smith.

“Using a novel, patent-pending plant cell culture technology—PhytoCellTec—we developed an active based on apple stem cells,” says Beata Hurst, marketing and sales manager, Mibelle Biochemistry. “For this product, dedifferentiated callus cells from a rare apple were cultivated. These apple stem cells are rich in epigenetic factors and metabolites, which assure the longevity of skin cells.”

According to Prakash, other naturally derived ingredients being used in personal care products include “natural peptides, dairy-based ingredients, probiotics, natural actives from traditional herbs and super fruits, and their components—mainly in supporting healthy aging—both in the cosmeceuticals and nutricosmetics categories.” She says the cosmeceutical antiaging market still heavily collaborates with the nutricosmetics market—a symbiosis of sorts—to enhance overall skin care benefits. “We’re seeing enhanced delivery systems—for example, a beverage premix with actives for nutritional use and a cream or lotion supplied together in convenient to-go packs.”

New Claims and Substantiation

Bradford Rope, president of BioScreen Testing Services, Inc., notes that of his clients, the “more innovative ingredient manufacturers have been able to substantiate remarkable antiaging results [that show] some measurable and visual changes to wrinkles, skin tightening and toning that have real value in the cosmeceutical arena.”

To accomplish this task, BioScreen’s technology provides substantiation for skin topography-altering claims. “For example, lip plumping products are supposed to enhance the visual appeal of the lips through a plumping effect,” says Rope. “The effect should be subtle, yet measurable. Under-eye puffiness is a similar claim, whereby a visual effect is desired with a more subtle effect observable. The Vectra 3D system developed by Canfield of New Jersey allows a three-dimensional visual photograph to be taken and [analyzed] with the addition of very powerful measurement software. Surface changes like those described can be seen visually in a color-coded photograph, [along with] precise numerical values to surface changes that can be quantified and studied statistically.”

Not all suppliers and cosmetic brands seek outside ingredient testers. Active Organics, for instance, uses an in-house R&D department, as well as university consultants, to establish the efficacy of its products. “We use both in vitro and clinical studies on our targeted consumers to establish activity,” says Smith. “We can optimize our mushroom extract using cultured cells, and we can assess hundreds of different activities—ranging from producing cultured skin cells from free radical damage to determining whether collagen synthesis is enhanced in older cultured cells. The extraction process, the concentration and which mushroom to use can be optimized relatively quickly and at a reasonable cost. Once these parameters are optimized, clinical studies on potential consumers can be run to establish the in vitro testing correlated with observable cosmetic end benefits.”

A brand with its own R&D scientists, Olay recently tested its new Pro-X line in clinical trials to prove its claim that its products are as effective at reducing the appearance of facial fine lines and wrinkles as the leading prescription antiaging product. “These trials confirmed that Olay Professional Pro-X delivers clinically proven results, resignaling aged skin to perform more like it did when it was younger by repairing the moisture barrier, increasing surface skin turnover to younger levels and reducing the appearance of surface lines and wrinkles,” says Johnson. “Additionally, daily use of [the full line] was found to help skin’s stratum corneum perform more like younger, healthy skin and significantly reduce the appearance of facial fine lines and wrinkles relative to the baseline in eight weeks. Both expert visual grading analysis and objective computer image analysis of high-resolution digital images of the subjects, before and after eight weeks of treatment, confirmed the effects were significant and noticeable.”

What Does “Natural” Stand For In The Skin Care Business

The skin care and anti aging and cosmetics industry is a huge industry, worth, by some estimates, around $50 billion. And there are many many companies making skin care products, including so called natural skin care products, as well as cosmetics, beauty products, hair, and body care products, and more. Hair colorings, hair removal, anti aging products, body oils, dry skin treatments, oily skin treatments and so on and so on.

When there are so many products available to you to satisfy every need you could ever have to purchase a product to pamper every part of your body, why would you want to bother searching out “natural” products, including natural skin care products.

First let me say there is no formal definition of “natural” skin care products. However it’s quite possible to compare the different types of skin care and anti aging products by looking at what’s available to you on the market.

First there is, of course, the big brand name products. I’m sure you know the ones I mean. Saturation TV advertising, their skin care products seen on the shelves of just about every department store.

Would it surprise you to know that many of these big brand name products, probably most, are not considered to be effective, and have ingredients which are often suspect or even downright dangerous?

Yes it’s true, the skin care industry isn’t effectively regulated, and they can put just about anything they want into their products. The FDA doesn’t require these products to be tested for safety or efficacy.

Here’s just one example, but there are many. Recent tests showed lead in over 50% of big brand name lipsticks tested, to the point where the State of California, at least, has banned lead in lipsticks.

There’s many other examples of suspect or dangerous ingredients in our body care, hair care, skin care and nail care products and just about all of our beauty and personal use products like simple shampoos and toothpastes.

On the other hand there are companies, one in particular, that make extremely effective and safe natural skin care products.

By “natural” this means naturally occurring ingredients which are known to be safe for human use.

Here’s some examples.

Shea butter, extracted from the seed of a tree. An extremely effective natural moisturizer.

Jojoba oil from the nut of the Jojoba plant, very high in natural anti oxidants that are very good for natural skin health.

Grape seed oil, extracted from the seeds of various grape varieties, high in natural fatty acids and anti oxidants and also an excellent natural skin moisturizer.

And more, there’s many many naturally occurring substances that aren’t made in a lab, and are extremely effective when added to a natural skin care range of products.

However it’s not sufficient for a company to use naturally occurring ingredients in it’s skin care and anti aging products. To be truly “natural” the company needs to have a commitment to producing and using these ingredients safely. Because it’s quite possible to change the makeup of an ingredient in the process used to extract it, particularly by the use of heat. And this can make a useful naturally occurring ingredient quite useless.

An example is keratin, a naturally occurring part of skin hair and nails. Keratin is used by the big brand name companies, however it is extracted from the horns and hooves of animals by heat, thereby changing it’s makeup to a less useful form.

The best manufacturer of natural skin care products has a commitment to using only naturally occurring ingredients that are both safe for human use and also effective. In fact their brief is to produce the worlds best natural skin care products that are safe enough to eat.

So despite the fact that there is no formal definition of natural skin care products, an examination of both the ingredients used in skin care products combined with an examination of the company’s philosophy about the production of it’s products will establish quite clearly what the best “natural skin care products” are.

Entering The Organic Skin Care Business

Organic skin care is fast becoming a very big business in the country today. This is even predicted to flourish exponentially in the years to come due to the re-surging trend in using natural or organic products.

However, you must be extremely cautious whenever you are choosing your skin care and cosmetic products because there are a lot of products out there claiming to be 100% organic (or natural) even if they are not! The only way to be sure that you are purchasing natural and organic skin care products is to be more vigilant in choosing what you buy. As always, the right information can be your best ally. To help you become a more discerning consumer, here are some things that you absolutely need to know.

Read Product Labels – Generally speaking, you should always read product labels before deciding on what products to buy. You must also be aware of the so-called “Rule of Thirds”. This rule states that the top third of the ingredients listed in the label comprise the bulk of the product (approximately 90 to 98%). The middle third makes up approximately 5-8% of the product while the bottom third represents only around 1-3% of the total product.

Understand that natural skin care is not always natural. If there is one word that is most commonly abused in the cosmetic and skin care industry, it would be the word “natural”. This word is often used by skin care product manufacturers to trick their consumers into buying their products and thus rake in immense profits for the company! For the record, there are two definitions of the word “natural”. The dictionary defines it as “anything existing in or formed by nature” while the cosmetic industry defines the word as “any ingredient derived from a natural substance”. Now, there is a significant difference in those two definitions!

A classic example of this is the use of Cocamide-DEA in some skin care products. This ingredient is widely used as a foaming agent in bath products (shampoos and hand soaps) and as an emulsifying agent in cosmetics. Cocamide-DEA is touted as a natural ingredient since it is derived from coconut oil. However, since a synthetic chemical called diethanolamine is used in the extraction process, the ingredient cannot be considered natural anymore. According to studies conducted by the National Toxicology Program in 1998, the extensive use of products containing DEA can even lead to cancer!

Is it really organic? Like the word “natural”, the word “organic” is also used extensively by cosmetic manufacturers to their advantage. To be sure that you are purchasing a “certified organic” product, you should always look for the organic certification on the product label.

But what really is a certified organic product? In the cosmetic industry, a product is certified as organic if it is made up of at least 95% organic ingredients (water and salt/minerals excluded). A small amount of natural, non-organic ingredients can be allowed but this must comply with some very stringent criteria before being approved.

However, please note that the industry can legally label any product that contains carbon as “organic”. Take methyl-paraben, a popular preservative found in many organic skin care products, as an example. Methyl-paraben is derived from the petrochemicals in crude oil. But since it is originally derived from living matter, the cosmetic industry can legally claim it as organic. I don’t mean to frighten you here but a recent study reportedly found traces of methyl-paraben in human breast cancer tumors.

Basically, these are just some of the matters you need to look into if you are considering to go organic. Natural and/or organic skin care products are definitely more skin-friendly but you need to know the various practices and tricks used by skin product manufacturers so that you won’t fall for them.

Skin Care Business Background and History

In the last decade, skin care market which has received a lot of attention around the world. The market targets the beauty conscious society ready to spend money just to look appealing and beautiful. The skin care industry can be divided into four segments depending on the usage of the product:

Hand and body care: creams, lotions
Facial care: Moisturizers, cleaners, toners
Anti-Aging products: masks
Make-up: lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eye shadows etc.

Skin care continues to be a core category for drug stores, discount stores and supermarkets. Skin care industry in mass market retailing is confronted with changes in product segment, market segmentation, consumer preference and taste changes etc. Research and the development of new ingredients are driving the creation of innovative products. New technology, especially the Internet, is providing new marketing tools for promotion and sale of skin care products.