004 - What I'm Reading: Week of July, 30th 2021

Jul 30, 2021

👋 Hello everyone.

🔗 Every link in this newsletter routes back to my blog where I provide a summary, my opinion, and access to the original content.

⭐️ = What excites me most this week.

⭐️ Aromyx is digitizing consumer sensory panels, for better predictive analytics and significant R&D cost reduction.
Fount Bio is developing a stable hyaluronic acid capable of being applied topically, with the ability to deeply penetrate the dermis equivalent to an injectable.
Melaskin Studio is filling a gap in the skin/beauty services space offering facials for P.O.C.
Topicals, the Gen Z centric, personal care brand expands its facial offering into body serum sprays.
SBTRCT launches a solid retinol balm, bringing skin actives into a solid format.
British beauty e-tailor AllBeauty, is launching a private label - AT1.
Alula is offering products & community for individuals facing cancer.
C-Beauty brands surpassed sales surpassed international beauty brands for the first time in 2021 sending signals to traditional beauty brands - NX, Beiersdorf’s beauty incubator, is betting on China, incubating the indie brands of the future.
Recent cases against Amazon bring into focus liability risk and highlight further implications for other marketplace models.
The challenges of Thrasio-like models in India.
Social Commerce
Twitter is launching an e-commerce pilot.
Livestreaming marketplaces are on the rise and becoming more mainstream. Last week Ulta announced a partnership with livestreaming platform Supergreat, an article from Modern Retail looks at how these platforms are getting adopted into the norm.

⭐️ The overlooked yet outsized role of fungi in the gut microbiome.
⭐️ Deepmind’s AI, AlphaFold, decodes the proteome, the largest breakthrough since the decoding of the human genome.
A topical oil pre-treatment to restore microbial balance for those suffering from dandruff & dry scalp.
Consumers dislike chatbots, but are more forgiving toward a bot when their issues are not resolved versus a human.

💡Enjoy

-Anne

The Juicy Byte