137 - What I'm Reading: Week of March 22nd
A legal ruling on the term 'clean', demand pricing is coming, calcium & vitamin D supplements may not be all that, microbiome startup practices questioned, The Forerunner Consumer Trend Report & more
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
BoF: Judge throws out Sephora Clean Beauty false advertising lawsuit. A proposed class action case against Sephora over its “Clean at Sephora” badge has been dismissed by a New York district court judge.
🇨🇳 Morningstar: China's economy is slowing. But its old-age market is booming.
Just for fun:
Mental Floss: Why do we call it a ‘Piggyback’ ride?
👩🎤 Celebrity Brands:
💅 BoF: Nicki Minaj launches press-on nail brand. Rapper Nicki Minaj announced Friday the launch Pink Friday Nails, a press-on nails business she founded alongside her longtime nail artist Yvett Garcia.
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
🇫🇷 Skin & Out a French acne brand [Instagram].
Remedy - a new clinical skincare brand from TikTok doctor - Dr. Muneeb Shah [Beauty Independent; Instagram].
🇱🇹 UogaUoga - a Lithuanian personal care brand, offering makeup, body care, haircare, and an adorable newly launched kids line [Instagram].
MIXIK SKIN - a new LA based skincare line launching with a line of mists [Instagram].
Rest Religion - a new skincare brand focusing on oxidative stress [Instagram].
BoF: Why Sisley is launching its first new brand now - The line, Neuraé, is inspired by neuroscientific research and will retail at a lower price point than Sisley’s core luxury offering. It’s the first time the family-owned company has launched a new brand.
BeautyMatter: Hyram Yarbro buys brand from Inkey List.
The Honey Pot launched a new line of body cleansers [Instagram].
👩🦱 Haircare:
Soft Rows - a textured haircare brand part of the Sephora Accelerate ‘24 program [Instagram].
Dyson is launching a new SuperSonic hairdyer called SuperSonic Nural - designed to protect the scalp from too much heat [Dyson; Hypebae].
CLEARSTEM - the acne forward skincare brand expanded its assortment into haircare [Instagram].
💊 Supplements:
Another colostrum brand - Cowboy Colostrum promising total wellness. Its interesting to watch such a major swing from vegan/plant based supplements toward cow/colostrum - which feels closely linked to the larger raw milk trend (and sometimes reminds me of a Schitt’s Creek episode) [Instagram].
👩🔬 Femtech:
Vox: Menstrual fluid’s underexplored medical treasures. From wound healing to disease diagnosis, “this stuff is like gold dust.”
The Guardian: UK scientists working on breast cancer monitor fitted in bra.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
🇰🇷 BoF: Sephora to withdraw from Korea…local competition around beauty is fierce.
⭐️ BBC: How Temu is shaking up the world of online shopping.
Vox: Uber-style pricing is coming for everything. More and more industries are adopting “dynamic pricing” — and consumers aren’t happy.
⭐️ WWD: Gen Alpha is driving 49% of drugstore skin care sales growth, per NIQ.
The Hustle: Most subscription apps don’t make bank. A new report found that the median monthly revenue for subscription apps at one year old is less than $50.
The Hustle: Looking for Gen Z shoppers? They’re on Facebook.
NYT: Outdoor Voices to close all stores this week - returning to its DTC routes…with rumors coming out around bankruptcy.
NYT: Now featured at beauty stores — teens driven by social media. Sephora has emerged as a retailer of choice among teenagers and preadolescents. Its new chief executive sees both a challenge and an opportunity.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
⭐️ The Harvard Gazette: A skin biopsy may be the future for diagnosing Parkinson’s.
⭐️ 🦟 Crunchbase: The startups saving us from biting bugs.
🇧🇷 🦟 MIT Technology: Brazil is fighting dengue with bacteria-infected mosquitos.
⭐️ MIT News: A protein found in human sweat may protect against Lyme disease
TechCrunch: Cure51 raises a €15M Seed round aiming to crack the code on cancer survival.
🇮🇳 TechCrunch: Smart ring maker Ultrahuman has its eye on Oura’s crown.
TechCrunch: Moonbird’s relaxation device takes flight internationally.
MIT Technology Review: The quest to legitimize longevity medicine. Longevity clinics offer a mix of services that largely cater to the wealthy. Now there’s a push to establish their work as a credible medical field.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design
Fast Company: How Keurig finally made a coffee pod with no plastic. Keurig’s CEO launched an in-house startup to create a new coffee system designed to put the K-Cups out of business.
Glossy: With new expansion, Ulta Beauty’s Beauty Drop-Off becomes largest US beauty store take-back program.
AP: E-waste from trashed electric devices is piling up and recycling isn’t keeping pace, UN says.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Bankruptcies, Closings...
Goli Nutrition - acquired by a ‘business consortium’ to avoid bankruptcy…I forgot about their class action lawsuit issue…claims are a real thing.
Bloomberg: Selena Gomez weighs sale of Rare Beauty valued at $2 Billion.
PAI Partners to acquire majority stake in Beautynova.
🔬RESEARCH
⭐️ A new study followed 36, 282 women for 22 years to understand the impact of Calcium and Vitamin D supplements. Hip fractures were not reduced, neither did it impact longevity [Annals of Internal Medicine; Forbes].
⭐️ TechCrunch: Microbiome startups respond as industry is accused of ‘questionable practices’. Experts warn of analytical limits, but founders strive to exceed them.
The DTC microbiome testing industry needs more regulation [Science].
Researchers are looking into the proteins responsible for the hardening of a ‘fertilized human egg’ that prevent two sperm from entering one egg. The proteins responsible for this hardening are both being examined for a better understanding of infertility as well as potentially new forms of birth control [Cell].
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ Forerunner: 2024 Consumer Trend Report. “This year’s report [discusses] the latest developments on 3 values shifts and 1 technological shift, including the potential upsides and downsides, the innovative companies spurring the shift, and white space opportunity.”
⭐️ Bain & Company: Insurgent Brands 2024
Spate X SULA Labs: Black TikTok Trends Report.
IQ Air: 2023 World Air Quality Report.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne