132 - What I'm Reading: Week of February 16th
New Zealand bans PFAS in cosmetics, an endometriosis drug is coming, sleep apnea detection for Samsung watches, biomarkers in blood for dementia, Target goes all-in on its private labels & more...
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
⭐️ 🇳🇿 Chemistry World: New Zealand set to be first country to ban PFAS in cosmetic products.
⭐️ Target launches a dollar store competitor brand called dealworthy - including apparel & accessories, essentials & beauty, electronics and home items — from laundry detergent and toothbrushes to undergarments, paper plates and more.
Fast Company: Americans have lost trust in most institutions—with one surprising exception…small businesses.
The Verge: Apple fans are starting to return their Vision Pros.
Just for fun:
❤️ Looper: The most popular rom-com movie in every state.
🏀 🫰 If you are looking for a basketball arcade game in your house, here is a pretty sleek one.
👩🎤 Celebrity Brands:
LeBron James launches a personal care line called The Shop. The line, available in April, includes a deep-conditioning beard cream, moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, exfoliating face wash, soothing shave cream, aftershave-toner, hydrating facial lotion and a styling pomade will be stocked in Walmart all for less than $10 [BoF].
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
🇸🇪 Mantle, a Swedish skincare startup, focused on helping to maintain healthy skin starting with the acid mantle. They recently closed a $2.58M seed round led by Venrex capital [Instagram].
PHYTOSKIN, a newly launched skincare line focused on ‘long term’ skincare - the first product is a lip serum [Instagram].
🇦🇺 SAOR - a new postbiotic focused skincare line [Instagram].
Peter Dundas, paired up with Anastasia of Beverly Hills to launch a gender inclusive line of skin enhancers (under eye concealer, lip moisturizer, tinted moisturizer, bronzer, and eyeliner) - easy to use make-up for anyone called DUNDAS Beauty - available on Amazon [Harpers Bazaar].
Nine Peahen - minimal skincare - their first product is a jelly cleanser [Instagram].
Four Corners - a skincare brand including a cleanser, a moisturizer with low and high molecular weight hyaluronic acid, and an eye cream [Instagram].
Leonie, French inspired minimalist skincare for a healthy skin barrier [Instagram].
🇮🇳 The CapTable: Nykaa's results showcase a BPC space moving in different directions.
👩🦱 Haircare:
Vacaville - a new waterless haircare brand from an ex P&G packaging designer [Instagram; Beauty Independent].
WWD covers how Jonathen Van Ness is taking back control of his eponymous haircare line, JVN, in its relaunch…apparently he did not even have equity while under Amyris….WHAT?!?!?
👃 Fragrance:
🦷 Oral Care:
😅 Deodorant:
💊 Supplements:
Electorlyte Coffee? Loco Coffee is selling a hydrating coffee cold brew…sounds like an oxymoron.
👩🔬 Femtech:
⭐️ The Economist: The first endometriosis drug in four decades is on the horizon - from the French pharma company Ziwig, called DCA.
🍼 Yali.Bio - developed the world’s first breast milk fat derived from yeast, using precision fermentation allowing infant formulas to more closely match the nutrition provided by human milk.
⭐️ Time Magazine: Menopause is finally going mainstream.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
Both Dieux skincare & Soft Services entered Sephora.
⭐️ Target announced it is expanding and redesigning its private label Up & Up - adding more moving supplies, oral care, dog grooming and food storage products, for a total of more than 2,000 everyday essential items.
🇨🇳 Marketplace Pulse: Amazon’s significant reliance on Chinese sellers.
🇨🇳 Jing Daily: How did a Chinese beauty brand quadruple L’Oréal’s GMV on Douyin?
⭐️ After retailers went all in on beauty, just over a year later many are pulling back including Net-a-Porter [Beauty Independent].
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
The Hustle: Bots for tots — AI-powered children’s toys are talking back - some of the bots are using cognitive behavioral therapy to help children better understand their emotions.
NatPat - textural stickers to help with sensory overload and anxiety.
⭐️ Samsung added sleep apnea detection to its watches.
The Hustle: AI for bed bug detection.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
Rememory: A directory and studio for Black women and non-binary creatives.
Columbia Journalism Review: The most civilized place to look at news online? It might be Reddit.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design
NYT: The revolution that died on its way to dinner - a look at how lab-grown meat has some serious challenges when it comes to scaling.
🇸🇬 On a more positive note Singapore’s Islamic council ruled cultivated meat could be deemed ‘Halal’ - under specific conditions.
⭐️ Crunchbase News: Funding is still flowing strong to water-focused startups.
🔬RESEARCH
There may be a boosted benefit to getting shots in different arms to enhance immunity [Journal of Clinical Investigation].
⭐️ Nature: Early dementia diagnosis — blood proteins reveal at-risk people. Elevated levels of these four proteins were found in the blood of those linked to higher risk levels of dementia - GFAP, NEFL, GDF15 and LTBP2. This also paves the way for potential blood tests.
Researchers identified 20 microbes present during body decomposition, regardless of climate type or soil type these microbes are there [Nature].
⭐️ ‼️ National Geographic: Melanoma is overdiagnosed at ‘alarming’ rates. Here’s what to know [BMJ Journals].
🚬 A study of over 1,000 individuals found that the blood of smokers shows distinct epigenetic markers that impact the immune response different from ex-smokers and non-smokers. The increased inflammatory response could last up to 15 years post smoking cessation [Nature].
Hearing loss may be linked to excess zinc production levels in the inner-ear post-exposure to loud noise, which leads to cell damage. The researchers found that when exposing mice to drugs that were capable of absorbing the excess zinc production, the hearing loss could be avoided. There may be potential therapies to stop hearing loss post loud noise exposure…think taking a pill before attending a music festival [PNAS].
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ Axios: Innovative, inclusive brands win among Gen Z and Millennials.
⭐️ FS X Spate: The Future of Wellness.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne