017 - What I'm Reading Week of October 29th
👋 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.
💭 In this week’s issue there is a portable carbon dioxide monitor to optimize wellness, hyaluronic acid pajamas to moisturize you while you sleep, an expressive biology platform that wants to reimagine the future of beauty, a digital sleeping pill, a legal settlement over probiotic skincare, hyperlocal shopping, the future COLs (Cultural Opinion Leaders), and much more.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
⭐️ Altos, a connected and portable carbon dioxide monitor positioned for wellness — helping with brain performance, athletics, and sleep.
⭐️ Arcaea, a startup launched on the Gingko Bioworks platform just raised a $78M series A. The goal is to reimagine the future of beauty with ingredients and products built using sustainable expressive biology.
🧴 Skin:
⭐️ Synergio, an Israeli based biotech company, has developed a microbiome friendly preservative capable of micro-targeting harmful microbes.
👚 pH5 has developed a sleepwear line with hydraKnit a hyaluronic acid infused yarn. It is an interesting concept, and potentially something that could be further scaled for these suffering from skin conditions.
⭐️ Tula, the skincare line known for its probiotic formulas has settled a class action lawsuit claiming they misled consumers to believe their products have live probiotics when they do not.
👩🦱 Hair:
Augustinus Bader is entering into hair care with a science focused approach to hair & scalp.
Dr. Barbara Sturm launches a full line of hair & scalp products targeting anti-aging, and balance using the same anti-inflammatory principles as the skincare line. The line is ‘trichologist approved’ by Bridgette Hill.
Bread, the haircare brand, has launched a mud mask for hair & scalp, a format popularized in the skincare space.
Glaze, a new semi-permanent hair gloss line from Waldencast.
💊 Supplements:
Mab & Stoke, founded by the former CEO and co-founder of True Botanicals has relaunched with a line of full-spectrum plant based sticks and a topical product. The products lean on a combination of cannabinoids and mushroom blends.
IKWI is a wellness supplement brand from Indian skincare brand Dot & Key. Nykaa, the Indian beauty retailer, recently acquired Dot & Key as part of its larger strategy to reach broader audiences beyond beauty for its IPO.
💤 Sleep:
⭐️ Muse, has launched a new wearable headband with ‘digital sleeping pills’. The wearable measures brain activity along with sleeping position, movement, heart rate, and oxygen levels and when it senses sleep disruptions helps to lull users back to sleep.
Wesper is a sleep improvement platform that uses a wearable to track snoring, breathing quality, body positions, restfulness and sleep time. A report is created and personalized sleep consultation. The catch, the wearable can only be used one time before it has to be returned to the company.
Scent by SIX, a Singapore based fragrance house dedicated to connecting scent and mental health, has released a fragrance line designed to deliver higher quality sleep called Sleep, Returns.
🦷 Oral Care
🍊 Tropicana is releasing a limited edition toothpaste, formulated without SLS to prevent the bitter taste experienced when drinking orange juice after toothbrushing.
♻️ Sustainable Design:
Lasso is an at home connected recycling robot. The device, larger than a dishwasher sorts, cleans, and stores recyclables until a pick-up is arranged. The device is meant to take guess work out of recycling, and make it easier to properly recycle…it is a sizable investment up front.
👩🔬 Femtech:
⭐️ Oura launches period prediction, where temperature is measured as a way of tracking menstruation rather than a simple calendar.
⭐️ FemTec Health has large ambitions to use consumer data, microbiome data, biometrics, & genetic data to shape the future of health & wellness for women. They just acquired Birchbox & Mira Beauty (both big data players in the skin space) to kickstart their ambitions.
Alloy a female health platform for women over forty, co-founded by the former Editor in Chief of Marie Claire.
VeeBiom, a science backed app to support women from puberty through menopause with education, community, and more. The app is from Biom Pharmaceuticals and it is difficult to see how the app will stand out amongst other apps in the space.
🛍 Retail (e-Comm, Social Commerce, B2B Marketplaces):
⭐️ Neighborhood stores are cropping up in China, shifting the retail landscape. These stores, located in more residential neighborhoods, are community centers for brands and catering to Gen Z providing an experiential retail experience.
Live streaming shopping numbers are declining in the US, and the growth has not been as rapid as projected; however, investors are still bullish. An article in Vogue Business discusses the current state of social commerce and what to expect.
🔬RESEARCH
⭐️ A rapid AI powered method for diagnosing Glaucoma in 10-seconds.
New research showing how hair stem cell stickiness may be driving hair loss. The researchers also identified the genes driving this.
Research out of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital mapped skin gene expression in infants versus adults, finding many interesting shifts that take place as the skin matures which may offer insight into how to better treat atopic dermatitis and other skin disorders.
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ HIGHSNOBIETY: The New Key Opinion Leader is Here - the rise of the COL in China, and what it means for brands.
Skai: Unmasked - Post Pandemic Beauty Trends to Watch.
Sifted: Top European Menopause Startups from telehealth to devices.
💡Enjoy,
-Anne