140 - What I'm Reading: Week of April 12th
The end of 'detox culture', a PMS gummy with a pedigree, AI for emotion recognition, AI to track visual changes in cell cultures, TikTok's birth control problem, SpaceNK's sus sale rumor & more....
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
🚰 Axios: EPA imposes first national limits on "forever chemicals" in drinking water
BoF: The death of the detox - Gen-Z are not into all-or-nothing health practices — the hallmarks of wellness that have become cornerstones. What’s left is something far more subversive.
The 2024 James Dyson award entrants - including a cool rainwater filtration system.
BoF: Beauty reviews were already suspect. Then came generative AI.
Just for fun:
In case you really want to make sure no spot is left un-vacuumed, Dyson has got you covered.
If you are curious about how much internet usage decreased during the eclipse.
🐑 Sheep have a new gig ‘Solar Grazing'.
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
🇹🇼 Guh - a Taiwanese skincare company focused around self-care [Instagram].
🌚 Nocturnal a ‘Japandi’ skincare brand based on circadian rhythm. The founders (Daniel Kiyoi + Katey Hassan) are from Scandinavia and Japan - and both have deep experience in the beauty industry - the line is called ‘Nocturnal’, leveraging knowledge around skin cell-turnover and renewal taking place from 10pm to 5am. They launched with a single $92 refillable serum. There are other brands in the ‘nighttime’ space like byNacht & 4AM Skin [Instagram].
🇬🇧 Hello Sunday - a mass SPF brand from the UK, boasting SPF is not a privilege - where there have been a number of premium priced SPFs launched over the last few years. The line combines skincare with SPF benefits, and smartly offers a primer SPF which solves for a common issue with SPFs pilling underneath makeup [Instagram; Beauty Independent].
Skincare for Weirdos - selling pimple patches - and socks? [Instagram].
Keya by Kaycee’s founded by Ketki Yagnik, a new skincare leveraging ‘natural ingredients, sustainability, and inclusivity’…I really cannot tell what this, the branding and press-release feel so stock…its another skincare brand and $$$ [Instagram].
♂ Rule Cosmeceuticals - a men’s care brand ‘formulated in France’ offering skincare, haircare, and bodycare products. Many of the products have a multi-benefit approach [Instagram].
The Skinny Confidential launches a caffeinated sunscreen [Instagram].
BoF: Estée Lauder’s big new skincare bet is like The Ordinary – at 6X the price…reintroducing NIOD.
🇰🇷 Jing Daily: Dissecting the K-beauty global export boom. K-beauty’s global expansion provides a roadmap for Chinese labels wishing to venture overseas, from rebranding to retail strategies.
TechCrunch: Kiki World, a beauty brand that uses web3 for customer co-creation and ownership, raises $7M from a16z.
BoF: Neutrogena is closing its Los Angeles office and laying off staff. Closing the office is part of parent company Kenvue Inc.’s effort to boost growth and improve collaboration, according to a spokesperson for the company.
💊 Supplements:
Cycl. a new supplement brand helping to fight the symptoms of PMS designed to support the cycle, provide pain relief, and boost mood. The brand is founded by Zoe Leffler, daughter of Ido Leffler (co-founder of Beach House Group, Yes To, and Brandless…). Cycl. launched straight into Target…must be nice [Instagram].
WSJ: The race to make a sexy fiber supplement is on. Companies are pitching fiber products to young people, and aiming to be the ’Metamucil for the Stanley cup generation.’
Wonderbelly broadens into bloat + gas relief [Instagram].
👩🔬 Femtech:
⭐️ BoF: Op-Ed - Birth Control Has a TikTok Problem. Social media platforms are allowing false information about contraceptives to proliferate in new and dangerous ways. I see quite a bit of this type of content in my FYP being a female and engaged in the wellness space. I have wondered at times if their is a broader and potentially more sinister agenda messaging women off of birth control. While I enjoy the ways social media can bring new points of view/experiences to the forefront, using social media to inform medical decisions is worrying (I have even caught myself doing this). It highlights a larger and ongoing distrust of the traditional medical community.
Kenvue, formerly J&J, just launched a menopause platform [Retail Brew].
Women’sHealth: The rise in women giving up on the fight for a diagnosis.
Swelling numbers, lost in the healthcare system, claim to be taking ownership of their bodies through self-diagnosis. One writer - who has felt empowered at labelling her life-altering period pain - investigates the growing social media movement…
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
Morning Brew: The beauty industry has some unexpected blemishes.
Quartz: Target has launched its new paid membership program as part of Circle Week. Target 360 Circle will be priced at $49 through May 18.
⭐️ I appreciate this post by BeautyMatter taking a more critical look on the current rumors around Space NK being acquired for £400.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
⭐️ 🇩🇰 Reshape Biotech - a Copenhagen based startup using AI to help track visual changes to lab experiments - such as cell growth or color changes…the miserable cell counting / characterization days could be over for grad students…[TechCrunch].
🩸 Fierce Biotech: Alzheimer's blood test from Roche, Eli Lilly nabs FDA breakthrough tag.
⭐️ Fitt Insider: Biolinq raises $58M for noninvasive glucose sensor.
⭐️ TechCrunch: Neurotech startup Neurovalens gets FDA clearance for noninvasive anxiety treatment.
⭐️ AlexiLearn - an app using AI to help individuals with Autism recognize emotions…I can get behind AI for good
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
Axios: Google who? Gen Z is searching on TikTok, YouTube instead.
The Verge: TikTok is getting closer to launching an Instagram rival.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design
Grist: As Amazon eliminates plastic packaging abroad, it’s using even more in the US.
Vogue: Why celebrity brands should be held accountable on sustainability.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Bankruptcies, Closings...
BoF: Blackstone nears buyout of skincare company L’Occitane.
99 Cents Only stores goes bankrupt as inflation keeps biting.
🔬RESEARCH
🩸 Long COVID is still not well understood - a new study conducted a large-scale phenotyping of over ~650 patients finding common blood inflammatory biomarkers linked to specific symptoms which may help to develop better therapies for those suffering from gastrointestinal issues, brain fog, fatigue, and anxiety/depression [Nature Immunology].
🦵 There are new learnings around rheumatoid arthritis and why some individuals may experience pain without the more obvious inflammatory symptoms. Researchers identified a set of 815 genes associated with abnormal growth of sensory neurons in tissues that cushion the affected joints - which can significantly contribute to pain and can potentially lead to new therapies [Science Translational Medicine].
🧐 REPORTS
🇰🇷 Spate: TikTok K-Beauty Brands.
🇨🇳 Huron: Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey & Hurun Best of the Best Awards 2024 [TLDR - the wealthy are dialing back luxury spending in China - Jing Daily].
McKinsey: Members only — Delivering greater value through loyalty and pricing.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne