151 - What I'm Reading: Week of June 28th.
Multivitamins are not all that, an upcycled surfactant from coffee, a chew to 'curb' cravings, China's booming online sales, forever chemicals absorbed topically, the state of women's heart health...
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
The Information: A reality check for beauty startups.
Reuters: How a new synthetic skin could help people with eczema.
Just for fun:
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
🇰🇷 Lilis, a Korean brand focused on body resurfacing [Instagram].
🇨🇦 Vintage Noon - a travel focused lifestyle skincare brand. The first product is a redness recovery mask [Instagram].
🤰 Addition Skin - pregnancy safe skincare - including a cleanser, serum, dark spot corrector, barrier cream, and belly oil [Instagram].
🇩🇰 ☕️ Kaffe Bueno, a biotech startup upcycling coffee, announced a new surfactant called KLEANSTANT, that can be used for body or facial cleansing. This comes on the heels of new funding round [Instagram]. Other startups in this space include Amarey.
🇨🇳 Dao Insights: Skincare brand Zhiben “job-hunts” in metro stations
Vogue Business: What new rules for kojic acid mean for skincare brands. It’s a popular skin-brightening ingredient, but new restrictions in both the EU and the UK may impact the use of kojic acid as an ingredient.
🇯🇵 Forbes: Japanese beauty is suddenly expanding in the U.S.— why just now?
👩🦱 Haircare:
Lobie, a new haircare brand from model Anastasia MacKay, is launching with a peptide masked for textured hair [Beauty Independent; Instagram].
👃 Fragrance:
IGGYWOO - a new fragrance brand from Richard Saint-Ford [Instagram].
Glossy: Gen-Z beauty incubator Slate Brands introduces fragrance-focused Modern Magic.
😅 Deodorant:
💊 Supplements:
Since its inescapable this week Kourtney Kardashian’s Lemme supplement brand launched a chew to ‘curb’ cravings. The internet seems to be losing it over the ‘chew format’…lemme remind you of the Viatactiv calcium chocolate chews of the late 90s. I do wonder about dosing efficacy…since the proprietary formulas of Lemme…are often quite grey.
👩🔬 Femtech:
Fast Company: The future of pregnancy health: prediction and prevention. If doctors had better tools to understand each pregnancy’s biology, they could then help moms and babies achieve better outcomes.
⭐️ Axios: How the health system is trying to improve postpartum care.
Financial Times: Privacy fears sap potential of female fertility tech start-ups.
Nature: Does Ozempic boost fertility? What the science says…this feels like its been all over TikTok for the last few months.
The New York Times: Is delaying menopause the key to longevity? Scientists are studying how to keep the ovaries working longer — and potentially, prevent age-related diseases in the process.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
Wired: How to avoid scams and shoddy wares on Amazon. Amazon is a mucky mess of ads, unknown sellers, misleading sales, and specious information. Defend your dollars with these tips and tricks on Amazon Prime Day.
Amazon is getting much more serious about beauty & skincare. Amazon Beauty us expanding with three new initiatives Derma Store, Global Beauty Store 2.0, and Skincare Advisor tool [Fashion Network].
Retail Brew: Shopify partnership brings DTC brands to Target Plus marketplace. The e-commerce platform helps merchants sell their products on the big box store’s third-party marketplace.
🇨🇳 Jing Daily: China’s online sales surge in 2024. China saw online retail sales reach $807.8 billion from January to May, a 12.4% year-on-year increase.
🇨🇳 Jing Daily: The ascent of social commerce this 618: Douyin, Xiaohongshu. Social commerce platforms challenge Tmall and JD.com with record-breaking sales and engagement this 618 shopping bonanza, creating new opportunities for brands.
🇨🇳 Jing Daily: China leads the way as social commerce soars globally — McKinsey. China leads the global boom in the social commerce market, with platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu driving significant growth, revenue and consumer engagement.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
rest of world: As Zimbabwe’s economy collapses, traditional healers are selling wealth advice on TikTok. Locally known as sangomas, spiritual guides are gaining fame online, but they face criticism from their peers.
⭐️ Quanta Magazine: How AI revolutionized protein science, but didn’t end it.
TechCrunch: 10 of the most exciting digital health startups of 2024, according to VCs.
TechCrunch: This smiling robot face made of living skin is absolute nightmare fuel. TLDR - researchers are experimenting with how to fuse human flesh to robots (which for us humans is held together by ligaments, muscles, & tissue).
Bloomberg: Startup’s ‘Fentanyl vaccine’ aims to bBlock drug’s highs, overdoses.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
TechCrunch: TikTok’s Instagram rival, Whee, has no traction.
👥 The Verge: Instagram is starting to let some creators make AI versions of themselves.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable Design⭐️ Fast Company: Big Oil claims chemical recycling is the future of plastic. It’s pure delusion. Regulators have spent tens of millions subsidizing ‘advanced’ recycling facilities, which release carcinogens and give off more greenhouse gases than making plastic from crude oil.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Bankruptcies, Closings...
PR Newswire: Naomi Watts and L Catterton announce partnership for the acquisition of Stripes Beauty.
🔬RESEARCH
⭐️ A large-scale study with ~390K participants over the course of 27 years found multivitamins did not improve longevity outcomes. It is possible there are other benefits, but longevity is not one. Back in March, a separate large-scale study debunked the efficacy of Vitamin D in reducing hip fractures and assisting with longevity…the supplement space is definitely in a bit of a murky area. These studies will not be seen by most people so in the end, marketing will most likely win in a largely unregulated business in the US [JAMA Network; The Guardian].
⭐️ New findings show 17 common forever chemicals can be absorbed through the skin [Environment International].
⭐️ Flo Health research reveals menopause makes menstrual cycles longer and less predictable in largest study of its kind [Nature Scientific Reports].
Nature Medicine: How virtual reality therapy is shaping mental health.
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ The Pudding: Climate Zones - How Will Your City Feel in the Future?
Suzy: The Future of Wellness — Insights from Today's Consumer Trends.
🇪🇺 McKinsey: An update on European consumer sentiment — A sunnier outlook ahead of summer?
⭐️ ♀ McKinsey Health Institute: The state of US women’s heart health: A path to improved health and financial outcomes.
GWI: Future of VR — Understanding what consumers want from virtual reality in 2024.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne