136 - What I'm Reading: Week of March 15th
TikTok under threat, girls & the decreasing age of puberty, the Future 100 2024, the state of sleep, skincare for aging melanated skin, stolen goods & retail, The Rock launches a BPC line...
👋 Hello everyone.
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
NYT: Automakers are sharing consumers’ driving behavior with insurance companies. Just another example to consider how your data is being collected and being used for.
Fast Company: How Y Combinator, champion of ‘little tech,’ became the biggest machine in Silicon Valley.
Just for fun:
👩🎤 Celebrity Brands:
The Rock launched a skincare line - called Papatui - for tattoo post-care - and includes a line of hair, body, and skin care [Instagram].
🇳🇿 Apparently there are some striking similarities between Beyonce’s new haircare line Cécred and a brand in New Zealand.
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
brownkind - a new skincare line founded by Doctors Abhijit Desai and Gauri Desai. The line is targeting signs of aging in melanin rich skin and includes a ‘Glow moisturizer’, cleanser, and vitamin c serum, along with a dark spot corrector & night cream [Instagram; PR Newswire].
If you are a high-end fashion label, the key to making your brand accessible to the youngsters who cannot afford your pricey clothes & accessories is…beauty. Celine just jumped on the bandwagon with a line of lip products. This follows Prada, Hermes, Valentino, Acne (fragrance), Marc Jacobs (RIP/a revival is on the way)…are all playing in the space - Chanel & Dior have been at it for a long time [Instagram].
Olaplex now has a brow serum…so they have fully covered all hair on your head, from head hair to lash and brow hair…what next [Instagram].
InnisFree updated its branding to a more minimalist look [The Industry Beauty].
BYOMA launches a body care line - bringing attention to the skin below the neck [Instagram].
Love Wellness - known for their supplements is launching into body care - focusing on bloating, de-puffing, & lymphatic drainage [Instagram].
⭐️ The Hustle: Why, though? A creepy mask with no FDA clearance…
BoF: Hyram Yarbro and The Inkey list part ways. The partners created the skincare line Selfless by Hyram as a joint venture soon after the influencer’s rise to TikTok fame during the pandemic. But the label faced growing pains, due to high price points and questions of authenticity.
👩🦱 Haircare:
Matilda Djerf, an influencer known for her volumnious hair, is launching a haircare line, starting with two products a gel ($27) and mist ($22). Both products are launching on March 27th [BoF; Instagram].
👃 Fragrance:
💊 Supplements:
Nourage - a newly rebranded haircare + wellness supplement (it appears to be going through a second - trendier life), promising healthier, shinier looking hair [Instagram].
👩🔬 Femtech:
⭐️ STAT News: Girls are starting puberty earlier than ever. For some, that comes with major mental health risks.
The Atlantic: The people rooting for the end of IVF. An Alabama court ruling that recognized an embryo as a child has thrust the popular fertility treatment into a national ethics spotlight.
🐕 Pet Care:
🇬🇧 Dot Dot Pet - Pet shampoos for different hair types as well as multivitamins [Instagram].
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
The Information: Amazon pumps the brakes on global domination.
10 new beauty brands entering Target [Beauty Independent].
TechCrunch: Pinterest rolls out its ‘body type ranges’ tool to the US.
Glossy: Claire’s expands retail footprint with Walgreen’s partnership.
CNBC: Ulta CEO says e-commerce sites can do more to stop the sale of stolen goods.
All is not well even in the world of Dollar Tree & Family Dollar, they are closing 1,000 stores [AP News].
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
Vini Mini a Dutch startup addressing children’s food allergies.
23andMe launches new genetic reports on common forms of cancer.
⭐️ Neoscope: Scientists 3D print living human skin directly onto wounds.
Fast Company: Psychedelic news: The government finally fast-tracked LSD as an anxiety treatment. MindMed, the first publicly traded pharmaceutical company focused on psychedelics, said its drug has received a breakthrough designation from the FDA.
⭐️ MIT News: A noninvasive treatment for “chemo brain”. Stimulating gamma brain waves may protect cancer patients from memory impairment and other cognitive effects of chemotherapy.
TechCrunch: With cycle tracking, Withings considers taking half of the population seriously.
😴 The Hustle: Don’t snooze on the booming business of sleep tourism. You’re getting sleepy, very sleepy — now check into a hotel.
⭐️ 🚿 TechCrunch: Showee, a smart shower startup, shines a light on accessibility.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
TechCrunch: The bill that could ban TikTok passes in the House.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design
Babo Botanicals launches haircare in cartons.
High-pressure showers can encourage less water use…this lines up with most of the work I did - where low pressure showers are generally unsatisfying, leading consumers to take longer showers resulting in more water usage. Sometimes it is a lack of satisfaction, other times it is an actual issue with properly lathering and rinsing product due to poor water pressure. The high pressure shower also imparts a louder experience, which can contribute to decreased time.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Bankruptcies, Closings...
Galderma (owner of Cetaphil) IPO is expected to be among Europe’s largest in 2024 [Yahoo!News].
BoF: The Body Shop files for bankruptcy in the US and Canada- shuttering all 50 stores.
🔬RESEARCH
Nature: Why are so many young people getting cancer? What the data say
Clues to a modern mystery could be lurking in information collected generations ago.
Nature: Ancient malaria genome from Roman skeleton hints at disease’s history.
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ VML: The Future 100 2024 - I missed this one - and it is one of my favorite reports. This is truly the best!
⭐️ VML: Tomorrow’s Commerce 2024.
🇨🇳 Daxue Consulting: China’s Luxury Market in 2024 - VICs, Omnichannel, & CRM Strategies.
⭐️ 😴 US News & World Report: State of Sleep in the U.S. Facts & Figures.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne