019 - What I'm Reading Week of November 12th
👋 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.
💭 This week there is a strong focus on shopping, the growth in China’s luxury segment, and the record numbers posted by Alibaba’s 11.11 shopping festival. U.S. holiday shopping is well underway and new trends are emerging shaped by a sense of urgency. These shifts are bringing loyalty into question, as availability and speed of shipment become key.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
⭐️ Jing Daily dives into the future of C-Beauty and the challenges around customer loyalty with the lack of R&D investment.
⭐️ Poppy, the smoke detector for COVID. The real-time air quality & surface detection system for pathogens, viruses, and molds.
Gldn, a centralized platform, for beauty product development from ingredient suppliers, packaging, manufacturing, marketing, regulatory and more.
🧴 Skin:
Face sprays are still on the rise, a number of brands are launching the next gen of face sprays with antimicrobial and microbiome balancing benefits.
Corpus Naturals the plant based personal care brand launches into body care with a coconut based cleansing bar and body wash. The body wash is housed in an aluminum container.
Djusie, a Finnish based skincare line steeped in botanicals is launching a three-product range based on actives that plump the skin.
Allure launches ‘The Ingredient Index’ an interactive table of skincare actives, explaining ingredients & their linked benefit (it does not include things like preservatives). This is the first big publisher to put out a list like this, there is plenty more that can be added - ingredients safe for melanin rich skin, pregnancy, eczema/psoriasis and more… Right now, this feels like an SEO play.
👩🦱 Hair:
Curls launches a haircare line for wigs and weaves called ‘Hair Under There’.
⭐️ Amazing Greys is a personal care D2C startup based out of India, targeting consumers 40-65 years of age, starting with hair with plans to move cross-category. Next, they plan to tackle loss of skin elasticity.
🧺 Home Care
DedCool, the perfume brand has launched into detergents, named Dedtergent, using their signature scents.
Houdini Care, another detergent sheet, zero waste laundry brand. There are a number of entrants in this space, with little differentiation, but there are many opportunities to stand out.
💊 Supplements:
Shiseido is launching a line of supplements to promote inner beauty called INRYU.
Gest’s Skinmune snack, is a grapefruit ‘sip’ delivering ingredients to improve skin from head to toe.
Daily Elements offers a dosed microgreens powder for food & drink.
👩🔬 Femtech:
⭐️ Glow Botanica, a hormonal wellness startup providing relief from hormonal imbalances launched pre-orders for their first product, Tummy Butter - a hormone free topical providing clinical relief from PMS, hot flashes, & bloating.
***I am investor & advisor to this brand and their focus on efficacy, data, and insights makes their mission stand out***
⭐️ Forth launched a platform for mapping female hormones - the service can be used for fertility tracking, athletic performance, and signaling the onset of perimenopause.
Shinn, a Belgium based intimate care company founded by a gynecologist, has launched an intimate oil spray.
🛍 Retail (e-Comm, Social Commerce, B2B Marketplaces):
Vogue Business is reporting on the roll of hybrid shopping around holiday shopping.
Alibaba’s released numbers from the beginning of the Double 11 festival showing orders placed from 400 cities across China on Tmall Luxury, further supporting how lower tier cities are growing luxury sales. A digital presence is key for luxury brands to reach these audiences.
Not surprisingly the 11.11 festival hit an all time high, haircare is showing up in a big way.
🔬RESEARCH
A team of researchers at Penn State developed a non-enzymatic sensor capable of accurately tracking glucose levels using sweat. This means non-invasive glucose tracking may one day be integrated into Oura, AppleWatch, Fitbit and other trackers.
🧴 Skin:
New findings show the cheek is the most microbial representative area on the face of the entire facial microbiome. This study helps to confirm swabbing methods for facial microbiome collection, but also helps to show the microbial variance across the face which could contribute to hyper-personalized products.
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ McKinsey - Protecting People from a Changing Environment - a look at warming scenarios and how this will impact heat stress, urban water stress, agricultural drought, and flooding. These factors disproportionately impact individuals in low-income countries. What this analysis does not touch on are solutions, and there are many opportunities to create technologies and basic consumer products to anticipate these needs.
💄 Beauty
Cosmetify Hair Care 2021 Report - a look at the top trending hair styles, hair brands, and hair influencers.
Tribe Dynamics - Indie Beauty Debrief Q3 - a look at how eight indie brands are growing on social.
🛍 Retail
⭐️ OliverWyman - The Luxury Retail Landscape in China, the big headline - 50% of Chinese luxury consumers have entered the market in the last 12 months, they are responsible for over 80% of the growth, and 40% of these consumers are 25 years of age or younger…meaning luxury brands need to focus on sustainability and personalized communication more than ever.
⭐️ Narvar - State of Returns 2021 - insights into expected shopping behaviors for the holiday seasons, what drives returns, how returns can convert into loyalty and beyond…
McKinsey - US 2021 Holiday Shopping Outlook - not surprisingly consumers are purchasing earlier than ever due to concerns over shipping.
💡Enjoy,
-Anne