148 - What I'm Reading: Week of June 7th.
Tallow's comeback?, a makeup robot, makeup for the 40+ crowd, Brooke Shields' launches Commence, emotional support YouTube, sodium & eczema, L'Oreal's Colorsonic launches, PRP gets a home, & more.
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
🐄 Raw milk, colostrum, and tallow are making major comebacks. Andrea Hernandez (Snaxshot) messaged me from a biohacking conference, saying tallow was a hot topic. I checked Google Trends and found it was indeed trending. For years, the personal care industry has shifted away from tallow. According to Spate - search for tallow is driven by ‘natural soap’ and ‘beef tallow skincare’ which both show ~+72.3% YoY growth in search.
Tallow, rendered from cow or sheep fat, has moisturizing properties. It was common in soaps, but ethical concerns and the push for vegan products led many companies to switch to vegetable oil. Now, beef tallow moisturizers like Touch of Tallow are driving a trend back to animal-based products. "Tallow sunscreen" searches are also rising with the arrival of summe
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
HIGHSNOBIETY: Where did all the fun beauty packaging go?
Vox: The internet peaked with “the dress,” and then it unraveled
The ominously perfect meme marked the splintering of our shared reality.
Crunchbase News: The portion Of US VC funding that went to female founders hit a new peak in 2023, Thanks to massive AI deals.
Also this - Who’s afraid of investing in Black-owned beauty brands? How the beauty industry is failing Black entrepreneurs [WWD].
Just for fun:
Jing Daily: Is ‘20 minute parks’ China’s version of forest bathing?…basically it is people relaxing / napping on grass in parks…or doing something more movement based.
👩🎤 Celebrity Brands:
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
🤖 You’ve most likely heard about the ronots for lash extensions & manicures. Gemma is a makeup robot, offering a full face off makeup in less than 3 minutes. They are partnering with retailers as well as with beauty brands to offer branded pods. It is an automated Temptu type of device…which never fully caught on with mainstream consumers.
🇦🇺 Phorus - an Australian hyperpigmentation skincare startup, the first product is called Get Even [Instagram].
🫤 If you’ve been following the Youthforia drama, they’ve posted a response on Instagram [Beauty Independent; Instagram].
Highsnobiety: No one is impressed by Youthforia’s aplogy.
🇰🇷 Aroh, a Korean skincare brand using the power of nature. They have two lines the Centella line, which looks ultra premium, and another line based on marine extracts - called marine energy. The marine energy line has a really interesting approach to the product packaging naming, where for each product it says in huge bold letters how it makes your skin feel [Instagram].
Chance of Sunny - a body care brand founded and created by an aromatherapist [Instagram].
Core Ritual - seed based skincare [Instagram].
Gryme is a new personal care brand (hair + body) for teens designed by Sabrina Yavil formerly of Estee Lauder. Sure teens are spending more into the beauty space, but the question is really do they want ‘teen’ brands or aspirational brands - I would argue the latter [Beauty Independent; Instagram].
Sara Creal Beauty - a beauty line formulated to work for the 40+ year old woman. Moisture is a key part of the line along with better eye-makeup that addresses issues like ‘panda eyes’ [Vogue; Instagram].
☀️ Lightsaver, a line of mineral $45 SPFs with skincare ingredients from dermatologist Dr. David Kim, is launching in Sephora [Beauty Independent; Instagram].
🇮🇳 Jing Daily: Why luxury skincare needs to remember to dream. A look at the new brand FutureMe - where the experience is invite only, and products are suggested via a consultation service [Instagram].
👩🦱 Haircare:
The Fenty empire is expanding into hair care, and is arriving in June 13th [Instagram].
🧑🦲 💉 Great Many a new four-wall med-spa like hair growth startup, one of the co-founders came from Heyday (the four-wall facial spa). Great Many offers Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) injections combined with over the counter and prescription products to boost the overall effectiveness of the treatments. PRP is very popular, the mechanism is not understood, and to see results it is recommended to receive a minimum of at least three injections. In nearly every study (included in this review paper), PRP treatments are combined with a prescription hair re-growth medicine. Great Many recommends 3-treatments (a 3-session PRP series is $1,950- a single session is $900). Treatments are not covered by insurance. It takes 3-months to see changes in hair-density or regrowth (so this is not an instant treatment). Great Many is also launching their own line of hair products including shampoo, conditioner, topical serums and supplements [Beauty Independent; Instagram].
🧑🎤 L’Oreal launched its Colorsonic device, an at-home coloring device meant to make the process of hair dying easier [PR Newswire].
👃 Fragrance:
Beach House Group is launching a new mass fragrance brand across Ulta called Noyz. All products are under $100 [WWD; Instagram].
🐕 Pet Care
Tweezerman is getting into pet grooming tools.
👩🔬 Femtech:
Forbes: Menopause impacts 33% of a woman’s life. It’s time to stop the stigma.
📱 ScienceNews: Privacy remains an issue with several women’s health apps
The billion-dollar industry has faced scrutiny for its lax approach to private information.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
Fast Company: Walmart Realm is a trippy store geared toward Gen Z and Gen Alpha The immersive web page, created by the virtual store platform Emperia, includes three virtual storefronts inspired by trendy Pinterest aesthetics [Walmart Realm].
WSJ: Store brands are filling up more of your shopping cart. From pretzels to pet food, store-brand goods are gaining on big-name brands: ‘Our food budget had exploded’
💻 WSJ: Retailers hate that you buy big things on your laptop. People often prefer bigger screens and keyboards for pricier purchases—but merchants have more levers to pull on mobile.
🇨🇳 Jing Daily: How is this year’s 618 different for brands? Initial pre-sales results.
Taobao and JD.com are changing the game for 618, and Xiaohongshu is emerging as a confident player. But will new tactics be enough to attract sales?
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
⚡️ MIT Technology Review: The messy quest to replace drugs with electricity.
“Electroceuticals” promised the post-pharma future for medicine. But the exclusive focus on the nervous system is seeming less and less warranted.
🩹 Caltech: 'Smart' bandages monitor wounds and provide targeted treatment.
Vox: MDMA’s federal approval drama, briefly explained. MDMA looked like it was on a fast track for PTSD treatment. Now, an FDA committee is advising otherwise.
Modern Healthcare: Dollar General, DocGo end pilot program for mobile health clinics.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
Reuters: TikTok preparing a US copy of the app’s core algorithm, sources say.
🇫🇷 TechCrunch: French startup ten ten reinvents the walkie-talkie.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Bankruptcies, Closings...
The big M&A news is Estee Lauder completed their acquisition of Deciem (which owns a number of other popular brands including The Ordinary and NIOD). The acquisition started in 2021, over that period of time Estee Lauder paid $1.7B, where the final installment was estimated to be $860M.
In case you were thinking about Chapstick…Yellow Wood Partners completed their acquisition of the brand.
BoF: Outdoor Voices finds new owner after reports of near-bankruptcy.
CNBC: Dollar Tree is exploring a sale of its Family Dollar brand.
🔬RESEARCH
⭐️ An interesting study out of the University of Essex examined the role of ‘parasocial relationships’, aka one-sided relationships experienced when following a YouTuber or other content creator, as able to fulfill an emotional support role stronger than that with in-person weaker friendships. The strongest forms of emotional support are with loved-ones, family, or other individuals who are considered close friends, where the relationship is two-sided, but these ‘parasocial relationships’ can help fill emotional needs [Nature Scientific Reports].
For anyone who has dealt with termites, UC Riverside just discovered a more effective way of killing termites, by using pinene - a naturally produced compound by trees. Researchers found mixing pinene with insecticides lead to a more effective method for rounding up termites [Journal of Economic Entomology].
⭐️ 🧂 A new study out of UCSF suggests a link between eczema flair ups and high sodium diets [UCSF; JAMA Network]
🧐 REPORTS
🇨🇳 ChinaSkinny: 10 China Beauty Trends 2024 - From the China Beauty Expo
🛜 CLOUDZERO: The Cost Of Shutting Down The Internet. With so much of the world now reliant on the internet, we set out to discover which countries and global internet companies would suffer the most from an internet outage. It would cost the US economy nearly $460M if the internet were to be shut down for 1-hour, ~$11B for a 24hr shut down…
⭐️ McKinsey: An update on US consumer sentiment — Are consumers on the cusp of a shift?
McKinsey: The State of Tourism and Hospitality 2024 - the report highlights the increasing presence of wellness with hotels offering fully immersive experiences.
⭐️ CB Insights: Healthcare Tech Trends 2024.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne
Really intrigued about the future of mens hair care - wrote about this yesterday after hearing 2 separate podcast hosts mention they had just gotten treatments.