093 - What I'm Reading: Week of May 5th.
👋 Hello everyone.
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
💭 This week: Dr. Diamond wants $100 for you to reserve a spot to buy his products, a kimchi cleanser, diamonds for precision water, Nature visualizes the lack of funding for women’s health, textured hairstyles and medical imaging, the myth of long-telomeres = long life is busted, magic mushrooms could be a solution for colorblindness, and much more…
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
⭐️ 🇮🇳 Rest of World: How Urban Company built an empire of female gig workers.
Just for fun:
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
⭐️ Norie, a newly launched skincare brand from Susan Kim Tsui (a former Amorepacific exec), leveraging the power of Kimchi [Instagram].
Untoxicated, a new skincare brand designed for sensitive skin, formulated without common skin irritants from Dr. Martin Smith [Instagram].
Dr. Diamond, a celebrity plastic surgeon (Kardashians…) is launching a skincare line called Dr. Diamond’s Metacine. The product line includes two products - InstaFacial Plasma ($200) and InstaFacial Emulsion ($350). To create hype they are asking people to ‘reserve’ their spot for $100 - this does not translate into a discount toward purchase. Also, in the description for ‘who is Dr. Diamond’, the site literally says ‘if you know, you know’ 😒. They also claim to have run clinical tests on the products (no sample size reported). The Instagram post cites a clinical study using tool measurement, the study reported on the website seems to be a self-perception study (again no sample size). According to their Instagram the investigator noted an improvement of 91% to the crow’s feet wrinkles after 8 weeks, and according to the website 91% (of consumers) reported an improvement to the appearance of their skin for two different measurements. If they did conduct a clinical or a self-perception study they need to report it as such, and be clearer about the sample size. They report results of 91% for three different measures which feels a bit ‘cherry picked’. All I know is Dr. Diamond wants $100…[Instagram].
Reome, a skincare brand founded by Joanna Ellner and focused on ‘healing skin’ from periods of chronic stress, using bio-fermented actives [Instagram].
Isle of Paradise expanded into body care [WWD].
dedcool launched into personal care hand and body lotion & wash [Instagram].
Foreo is getting into hair removal with a new line of products called Peach, using Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) and a cooling gel.
💊 Supplements:
💎 Weo is disrupting water with the first hydraceutical, offering a water bottle that uses diamonds to electrolyze water creating ‘precision water’ [The Hustle, Instagram].
Ritual launches HyaCera, its first skincare ingredient with Hyabest, a lower molecular weight hyaluronic acid, and Ceratiq, a phytoceramide and lipid rich oil.
TechCrunch - it is finally here: Ryan Breslow’s Love health, wellness marketplace goes live.
👩🔬 Femtech:
⭐️ Nature: Women’s health research lacks funding – these charts show how.
Nature: How menopause reshapes the brain.
Fast Company: Meet the women embracing menopause—and those hoping to end it.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more.
The Runway - a new consumer brand discovery platform replacing 5-star ratings with short-form video [Instagram].
Digital Commerce 360: Which retailers will benefit from Bed Bath & Beyond’s demise?
Retail Dive: What’s behind Walmart’s DTC selloffs?
Modern Retail: How live shopping is shaping the future of retail.
eMarketer: Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify compete in the battle of the marketplaces.
Retail Brew: How Topicals is building a brand ambassador ecosystem on the blockchain.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and More...
⭐️ CNN Health: How confusion about textured hairstyles can prevent some patients from getting necessary medical imaging.
2PM: Whoop won, Amazon lost.
⭐️ MIT scientists developed a wearable patch that can deliver drugs via ultrasound, which could specifically enhance the delivery of topical ingredients for targeted treatments [Advanced Materials].
⭐️ Researchers at Cornell University developed a robot that can deliver manual massage for hand edema patients, a way of making this therapy more widely available.
WSJ: ChatGPT will see you now - doctors using AI to answer patient questions.
The Washington Post: To become an Amazon Clinic patient, first you sign away some privacy.
Longevity:
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, Twitter...
eMarketer: How beauty brands can use TikTok to reach Gen Z, BIPOC, and more consumers.
If you need an update/primer on everything going on at Twitter - check out “Twitter is Going Great”.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design
⭐️ 🇫🇮 🌲 tech.eu: Finnish startup Montinutra transforms forest waste into sustainable personal care ingredients.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Closings...
CNBC: J&J’s consumer health business, Kenvue, is going public this week. Here’s what to know (More about the IPO here). *There are also plenty of global job opportunities (one such opportunity gets to work with a wonderful former co-worker of mine 😉 - if you are interested let me know).
🔬RESEARCH
⭐️ NYT: Link between long telomeres and long life is a tall tale, study finds [New England Journal of Medicine].
👃 A lab out of UCSF created the first 3D image demonstrating how an odorant binds to an olfactory receptor (protein). The reason this is such a breakthrough is there is still no way to predict how a specific molecule’s shape could be a predictor of the odor perception [Nature].
🍄 study at the Cleveland Clinic showed psilocybin mushrooms helped to restore red-green colorblindness [MedicalXpress, Drug Science].
Fast Company: A new study finds highly toxic chemicals in shampoos and 30 household products that could cause cancer [Environ. Sci. Technol].
Nature: Ultraviolet exposure regulates skin metabolome based on the microbiome.
🧐 REPORTS
🩸 Thrive: On the Blob - Millennials vs Gen Zs talk menstrual health.
Bain & Co.: Insurgent Brands 2023.
Sifted: The state of play in European speedy grocery: who’s left?
Dieline: 2023 Dieline Awards Shortlist.
Spate: Face Makeup Trends.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne