086 - What I'm Reading: Week of March 17th.
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
💭 This week: It feels like everyone has something to say about beauty filters, SVB, and ChatGPT-4. Luckily for you I have only one article each on beauty filters & GPT-4, I cannot add anything useful to the SVB discussion. This week there are a number of interesting beauty launches - some with questionable marketing - notably a new Estee Launch for Gen Z & a new $$$ SPF brand. Abortion pills are under attack again with broader implications, a spacesuit for women, India’s air quality inequality, new research linking the gut and mental health, and much more.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
⭐️ MIT Technology Review: Hyper-realistic beauty filters are here to stay -
🚰 Axios: EPA moves to limit "forever chemicals" in drinking water.
Fast Company: I’m Gen Alpha, and I think adult marketers should stop trying so hard to define us
In case you were wondering the 48 ways GPT-4 can change you life.
Just for fun:
ICYMI - Visual Capitalist: Mapped - the price of Starbucks Coffee, by country.
🧑⚕️ 🚽 Doctors swallowed Legos for science - they “measured the time it took for the gulped Lego heads to be passed. The time interval intervals were measured as “a Found and Retrieved Time (FART) score”.
👩🎤 Celebrity Brands:
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
⭐️ ☀️ 😵💫 Pavise - a new sunscreen brand from B.A.I. Biosciences. The brand developed “patent-protected DiamondCore® Shield Technology, a new class of metal oxides molecules with superior safety, efficacy, and wearability”. They claim “DiamondCore is the most comprehensive UV protection ever invented”. The startup has launched with four products, Dynamic Age Defense SPF (the hero product), a cleanser, a SPF lip oil, and a UV camera. The prices are steep, the SPF is $128 for 1 oz. (The UV camera is listed for $179, these are available on AliExpress for $69 for context.) There is no INCI provided or monograph (Drug Facts). What we do know is it is a mineral sunscreen with 100% zinc oxide (this is how they can claim it is SPF by FDA guidelines). Given zinc is the workhorse here and the only claimable SPF ingredient, the above statement about DiamondCore is perhaps out of FDA regulations. What they have done is added ingredients that can boost efficacy of the UV filters, they also can alter the formula to make it more spreadable (for a more even application). Their clinical claims are after an 8-week study (this is long) - and all in the skin perception space: texture, improved lines/wrinkles, and even tone (unrelated to SPF performance). They also appear to have some kind of antioxidant blend which helps with free radicals. Now onto where I have a bone to pick - they compare their SPF product, Dermalogica’s Skin Recovery (a chemical SPF) & Tatcha’s Silk Sunscreen Mineral. Why they chose these two sunscreens is unclear, additionally the comparative points are quite subjective. TLDR; The packaging / branding of this new suncare/skincare brand is very cool, the science, claims, and comparisons are quite worrisome [PR Newswire].
🇬🇧 🍑 🍋 Fruit Works, by UK based Cole Beauty Limited, is a Gen Z targeted line of ethical personal care products (including face, body, & hair) delivering ‘true food for the skin’.
😍 Speaking of fruit, Starface launched a cute fruit sticker inspired pack of hydrocolloid patches.
Estee Lauder launched a new skincare line targeted at Gen Z called Nutritious. There are three products in the line-up all formulated with naturally derived ingredients, and leveraging ‘nutrigenomics’ - with their ‘nutri-9 complex’. In what feels like marketing gone wild, I’ve never heard anyone, Gen Z included, say they needed to ‘unburden the look of skin’’ or refer to skin as ‘grumpy’.
🇮🇳 👳♂️ Singh Styled - an Indian personal care brand catering to beard-care and turbans - they offer different turban styles as well as an anti-bacterial turban spray to keep fabrics fresh.
♂ Elvy Lab, a men’s skincare brand founded by Lekha Vyas formerly of Estee Lauder. There are four products each numbered for their order of use, meant to make skincare approachable.
♂ Talent Skincare, an accessible skincare brand for men with ingredients and technologies from South Korea [Instagram].
Body Care Expansions:
Aura, eSalon’s sister brand, launched body care - with a choice of seven different fragrances and the ability to write your name…or whatever you want on your bodywash bottle [PR Newswire].
fig.1 launched into bodycare.
Nudestix launched a body care line called Nudebody - there are three products, a body wash, body cream, and body toner.
🥵 Deodorant:
Rollr is another sustainably designed rollerball deodorant - on Kickstarter. It also uses a powder, similar to Lifelong (featured in last week’s newsletter).
💊 Supplements:
Eon is a new supplement to support longevity, the supplements are designed to reduce inflammation and support metabolic balance.
⭐️ Wearables, a new supplement patch brand, designed around ‘vitamin signaling’. The patch tech is not new, the brand/concept is [Instagram].
👃 Fragrance:
Maesa launched a mass fragrance brand at Target called Fine’ry. Maesa has been on a roll lately pumping out new brands.
👩🔬 Femtech:
⭐️ 💊 BBC: Texas judge considers revoking FDA approval of abortion pill in US - arguing the drug’s safety has not been properly studied. The implications for such a ruling could rock America’s independent drug regulatory system [NYT].
🇩🇪 🩸 TheBlood - raised 1M for their menstrual blood testing service. “Menstrual fluid contains interesting serum, plasma and tissue. We can analyze your vitamins, hormones and other parameters.” [Femtech Insider]
🇩🇪 Hermone, is a new cycle awareness app, collecting regular data on emotions and symptoms so women can better understand the link between their cycles and these factors.
🍼 The New Yorker: Biomilq and the new science of artificial breast milk
Fillow is making menstrual discs more approachable. They designed a reusable applicator similar to a tampon applicator to solve for the learning curve of shifting to the disc format.
👩🚀 The Guardian: Nasa reveals new spacesuit for Artemis moon landing - there are significant upgrades to the fit for women…finally.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more.
Retail Brew: As profits rise and supply-chain issues ease, when will CPG prices come down?
BeautyMatter: Why is Alibaba losing share and what should beauty brands do about it?
Marketing Brew: Kroger spent millions advertising its own peanut butter—why? Private label is hot.
For those following the Birchbox drama - the site is apparently back to life.
eMarketer: In the years ahead, the largest ecommerce categories will lose share as emerging categories grow.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and More...NYT: Walgreens loses contract with California over stance on abortion pill.
Cerebral shared patient data with advertisers [TechCrunch].
⭐️ 🇮🇳 🌫️ Wired: The alarming rise of India’s pay-to-breathe industry -
⭐️ Neopulse developed a wearable that uses neuro-modulation (electrical pulses) to help reduce tics caused by Tourettes.
⌚️ TechBrew: Why the smartwatch market grew in 2022 despite ’tough’ odds.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, Twitter...
Ghost - a new anonymous social app - that thinks it has cracked the code for a fun app [TechCrunch].
CNN: Biden administration demands TikTok’s Chinese owners spin off their share or face US ban.
Sephora and TikTok partner to pioneer new program for rising beauty brands and content creators.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design⭐️ Better with Less - sustainable design challenge winners.
💩 Crunchbase: Pooptech startups are passing the smell test - startups converting manure into energy and fertilizers.
Visual Capitalist: Charted - the global plastic waste trade.
Green Queen: Jellatech debuts cell-based human collagen as investigation links industry to deforestation.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Closings...
Farfetch disclosed how much it paid for Violet Grey. “Farfetch [paid] $49.4 million in cash, $1.3 million of reverse vesting shares and $5 million of Farfetch restricted stock units based on the Farfetch share price as at the acquisition date.”
🔬RESEARCH
VR relaxes patients during wide-awake surgery [Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery Global-Open].
😴 💉 Sleeping 6 hours+ before a vaccination has been found to significantly boost immunity.
Just a few weeks ago artificial sweeteners were linked to heartaches & strokes, now they are being linked to lowering immunity response in high doses, impairing T-Cell response (in mice) [Nature].
⭐️ A team out of Singapore developed a ‘nano-net’ bacteria activated technology capable of turning on when detecting specific bacteria and trapping it. The nano-net is comprised of a number of short peptides that are dormant until activated [Advanced Functional Materials]. This could result in some ultra targeted therapies.
It may soon be possible to use a blood test to assess anxiety disorders. Researchers have identified a number of biomarkers linked to anxiety - this type of test would help to reduce the subjectivity often involved in assessing anxiety [Molecular Psychiatry].
⭐️ New research out of Monash University, further confirms the link between mental health, the gut, & microbiota. Gut microbes can convert amino acids into neurotransmitters which can reach and alter the brain. This connection, known as the gut X brain axis, has yet to be fully proven out. Tyrosine is a precursor to dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. When our body lacks tyrosine, this has been linked to clinical depression. This study showed how specific diets could alter the metabolism of amino acids yielding toxic metabolites that would alter the availability of neurotransmitter precursors - and ultimately shift mood [Frontiers in Nutrition].
🧐 REPORTS
🇨🇳 Hurun: Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey 2023.
CB Insights: Retail Tech 100 - The most promising retail tech startups of 2023.
Glow X Neilson IQ: 2023 US Brand Sustainability Benchmark Report; TLDR - 90% of US shoppers do care about food brands’ sustainability.
Retail Brew: These were some of the notable trends at Expo West, aka the food & beverage Super Bowl.
McKinsey: Virtual health for all - Closing the digital divide to expand access
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne