Knowde Take: While personal care brands can come and go in the trend-based and fiercely competitive market of today, creative genius will always prevail. A huge thank you to Jean Ann Ford and Brandon Truaxe whose contributions to personal care leave lasting legacies in the forms of their companies: Benefit and Deciem. (more…)
Knowde Take: Green, sustainable and innovative…what’s not to love? Nouryon’s 3rd annual Imagine Chemistry challenge brings together start ups, scaleups and other partners like personal care powerhouse, Unilever, in an effort to accelerate innovation and create value for customers. Interested in entering the challenge? Don your thinking caps and bring your small particle solutions to the table. You’ve got until March 8th!
Through Imagine Chemistry, Nouryon works with startups, scaleups and other partners to advance sustainable innovation. Winners work with Nouryon as equal partners to bring their ideas to market.
Knowde Take: In case you’re wondering if millennials have truly taken over… luxury cosmetics company, L’Occitane International SA, recently acquired Elemis, one of the generation’s skin care favorites, in an effort to increase their presence in the natural, high-end product market. Oh…and if anyone cares, Gen X is a fan as well
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Hong Kong-listed L’Occitane agreed to buy Elemis from Steiner Leisure Ltd., a portfolio company of private equity firm L Catterton that focuses on consumer investments. The deal is the latest in a spate of acquisitions of high-end skincare brands, with demand for natural beauty products on the rise in Asia — a trend that has also lifted cosmetics giant L’Oreal SA.
Knowde Take: If Cinderella asked for perfect skin…P&G’s Opté Beauty Wand was the star of this year’s CES. The device scans and identifies skin discolorations then deposits a small amount of product to effectively cover imperfections. The result: skin that is even toned and natural with minimal use of makeup! Bibbidi-bobbidi-awesome.
Once known as the Opté Beauty Wand, the digital skin care device is pretty cutting-edge. The device uses a digital camera with blue LED lights to scan and detect areas of skin discoloration, enabling the on-board camera to see up to three times more pigmentation than the human eye. The aforementioned digital camera captures 200 skin images per second, resulting in about 24,000 pictures of skin analyzed with each use.
Knowde Take: Tech nerds beware…the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) recently welcomed beauty care heavy hitters like Neutrogena, L’Oreal and P&G who descended on Las Vegas to present their latest innovations, from devices that measure your skin’s pH level to apps that analyze your face and provide customized solutions. Only insiders know if Comic-Con is next
Procter & Gamble is announcing a new feature in its existing online Olay Skin Advisor tool that tells users how old their skin looks. Called Olay Future You Simulation, it uses an algorithm to show users what their skin and face will look like in the future under different scenarios, such as not wearing sunscreen regularly.
Knowde Take: Seattle-based personal care start-up, Gemma Labs, has launched a new line of customizable shampoos designed to address customers unique hair and scalp needs. Customers need only take a seven question quiz then Gemma’s in-house scientists get to work. And with prices starting at $20, just about anyone can get in on the bespoke trend without breaking the bank.
The latest startup out of PSL is called Gemma Labs, a new company that sells custom-formulated shampoos. A SEC filing posted this week reveals that it raised a $600,000 investment. Listed on the filing are Mike Galgon, managing director at PSL, and Allison Harr, an entrepreneur-in-residence that joined the studio in July.
Harr confirmed with GeekWire that Gemma Labs is a PSL spinout and is raising a “small seed round to investigate an innovative e-commerce concept in the beauty space,” but wouldn’t share more details. Harr previously was a marketing director at companies including Vestar Capital’s Sun Products; Unilever; and American Express.
Knowde Take: Inspiring interview with Dr. Iris Ruben, the founder of skin-friendly hair care line: SEEN. Despite a lucrative career as a Harvard-trained dermatologist, Dr. Ruben launched SEEN with the goal of reducing acne caused by pore-clogging luxury hair care products. Anyone else feeling like an under-achiever?
Dr. Rubin decided that she nor her patients should have to choose between beautiful hair and beautiful skin, thus Seen was born. Seen’s breakthrough patented formulas are a game-changer that fuses hair care and skin care. The core technology in the Seen collection is based on a careful curation of ingredients – optimized and balanced to minimize pore-clogging. Seen products use many natural ingredients and safe synthetics when necessary to prevent skin irritation. They are formulated without parabens, sulfates, phthalates, silicones, or dyes and are gluten-free. To achieve this balance between hair care and skin care — as well as all-natural and safe synthetics — took years of research and trials. The Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Seen explains what motivated her to search for and formulate this beauty solution. Dr. Rubin also shares why she left her dermatology career and leap into creating products for better skin and hair.
Knowde Take: P&G just announced a new line of liquid-free cleaning products called, “DS3”. Similar to Listerine’s breath strips, the products are effective, travel-friendly and due to their size, better for the environment than their liquid heavy counterparts. Let’s just hope the Tide Pod Challenge community doesn’t get a hold of these!
DS3 products are made with what P&G called breakthrough, proprietary technology that eliminates water from the final product, removing 80 percent of weight while reducing 70 percent of space required. (more…)
Knowde Take:
Will 2019 see Lady Gaga join the ranks of beauty care superstars like Kylie, Jlo and Rihanna? The recent launch of a website for her rumored beauty line, Haus Beauty, could mean we will soon see her unique spin on cosmetics, perfume and skincare. We can’t wait to learn what products are critical to creating a poker face.
For now, the website is just a blank, black site where you can input your email address. There is nothing on the site that shares more information about the beauty line yet.