Tech-Driven Beauty Trends Shaping the Modern Cosmetics Sector
Riding the Wave of Beauty Transformation:
Get a front-row seat to the evolving world of cosmetics as technology and consumer preferences collide at breakneck speeds. This landscape sees the birth of new fields, like biotechnology, intertwining with deep consumer shifts, such as an ever-growing fascination with natural and sustainable ingredients.
Welcome to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a term coined by Professor Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum. It represents the current and future leap where new technologies, such as IoT, robotics, VR, and AI, are altering our lives and work, characterized by the blazing speed of technological advances, their all-pervasive nature, and global reach.
The cosmetic industry, of course, isn’t immune to these transformations. Technology, combined with social and economic changes, has a direct impact on cosmetic consumers' behaviors and the beauty trends cosmetics brands unveil. Let's delve deeper.
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Unraveling 4 Significant Beauty Trends Shaping the Cosmetic Industry
1. The Rising Influence of the Consumer
As the Fourth Industrial Revolution gains traction, the relationship between brands and consumers will drastically change, much like everything else. Among the most prominent beauty trends, one that will significantly impact the years to come is already visible: consumers will take the wheel, dictating, to a considerable extent, what they want in beauty and personal care companies and how they wish to receive it.
Mintel, in its global beauty and personal care trends report, describes this trend as "(My) Knowledge is Power" or, in layman’s terms, "(My) knowledge is power." This trend refers to consumers leveraging knowledge, tools, and technologies to demand and choose solutions that best meet their needs.
It's also essential to comprehend that this beauty trend indicates that consumers oscillate in various and sometimes contrasting directions. Their behavior isn't binary, but demographics lose relevance as the majority of consumers now move within a broad spectrum of behaviors driven by both emotions and easily accessible information. This polarization creates substantial challenges for companies, particularly multinationals, who must navigate diverse cultures and mindsets.
2. The Rise of Natural Beauty
Among the beauty trends for the near future, brands are expected to continue innovating in terms of natural, organic, and sustainable ingredients. These products will also adopt a clear zero-waste strategy. This corresponds to the ongoing beauty trend where 63% of consumers say they seek products with "natural ingredients that are good for their skin and the planet," according to a CleanHub survey.
The line of product development as a response to sustainability trends will become a widespread movement among brands. Similarly, the focus is also on reinventing the functionality of packaging to minimize waste and enhance the consumer's sensory experience.
However, natural beauty goes beyond the use of natural ingredients. It also encompasses movements such as the shift from worrying about aging to a focus on longevity. Thus, conventional categories like anti-aging are evolving towards well-aging, incorporating emotional and mental aspects into a fresh perspective on natural beauty.
3. Less is More
Consumers are adopting a more minimalist approach and are inclined to invest in high-quality, high-performance products. This minimalist philosophy also impacts the creation of zero-waste cosmetics. This simplistic approach will extend to encompass all aspects of beauty products, not just the ingredient list. The combination of products, access to information, and the supply chain will follow suit and do so in a clear and simple manner to meet the needs of increasingly informed consumers.
4. Ethical and Effective Ingredients Empowered by Technology
In the aforementioned report, Mintel discusses how consumers are already demanding complete alignment between companies' ethical practices and the development of highly effective ingredients.
As for consumer behaviors, it is predicted that the ability to measure, control, and integrate data will change their purchasing decisions. Augmented and virtual reality will also play a crucial role in moments such as the sales process, improving the consumer experience and interaction with the product.
On the company side, this is where beauty trends meet the latest technological advancements, generating innovations where cosmetic science, technology, and nature converge to create highly innovative ingredients.
Trends such as dermohacking and cosmetic solutions based on plant stem cells offer a glimpse into one of the most intriguing innovations among beauty trends. At the forefront of this ever-evolving new dermocosmetic science is Provital's Bioimage and Bioinformatics Platform. This cutting-edge approach to cosmetic science promises to develop new effective solutions for cosmetic products, keeping companies at the forefront of new beauty trends.
- The ever-growing interest in natural and sustainable ingredients has led to the development of cosmetics that incorporate biotechnology, such as products using plant stem cells, which demonstrate the convergence of cosmetic science and technology.
- Technological advancements, like augmented reality, are poised to influence consumer decisions by providing them with the ability to measure, control, and integrate data, thus ensuring alignment between companies' ethical practices and the development of highly effective ingredients.
- The preference for quality over quantity is reflected in the trend of investing in high-performance, minimalist cosmetic products that align with a zero-waste approach and cater to consumers' increasing access to information.
- As the Fourth Industrial Revolution progresses, the cosmetic industry is witnessing a shift in consumer behavior, with an increasing focus on health-and-wellness, nutrition, and a healthy-diets lifestyle, as well as an emphasis on natural ingredients in fashion-and-beauty products. This trend reinforces the notion that science and technology are not limited to traditional fields but are increasingly intertwined with health, wellness, and beauty.
