165- What I'm Reading: Week of October 4th.
A nasal spray to stop the flu, COVID, or common cold, Birkenstock gets back into personal care with feet, the real TEMU shoppers, gut microbes & chronic pain, new haircare trends to watch & more...
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⭐️ = What excites me most this week.
🗞 NEWS & PRODUCTS
Tech Brew: FTC announces crackdown on deceptive AI claims…immediately could think of a number brands who definitely stretch the definition of AI.
BoF: Beauty brands draw the line between dupes and fakes on Amazon. With the help of brand protection agencies and lawyers, beauty labels are taking a stand against the sketchy sellers flooding their Amazon search results.
Just for fun:
🐻 Fat bear week is a thing - complete with a bracket!
🐧 My animal news of choice has been all things Pesto.
A design so you will never outgrow your sneakers - I hope they are washable.
👩🎤 Celebrity Brands:
The Puck: Blake it till you make it. News and notes on Blake Brown Beauty, Blake Lively’s new haircare baby—the hot launch, sure, but also the brutal hangover… and other related headaches. TLDR - Blake Lively stopped really promoting the brand a few weeks post launch “weekly sales of Blake Brown Beauty at Target dropped more than 87 percent between August 11, when sales peaked, and September 15.” *a drop is common post-launch but not of this scale.
Lili Reinhart is launching a skincare brand called Personal Day focusing on acne & mental health - launching October 28th — Full Clarity Cleansing Powder ($24), Even Keel Resurfacing Peel ($34), Everybody Stay Calm Recovery Mask ($32), Doing The Work Salicylic Acid Acne Treatment ($36,) and Dive Deep Mevalonic Moisturizer ($38) [Glossy; Instagram].
🧴 Skin / Personal Care:
Authentic Ego - a biomimetic skincare line designed for hormonal acne [Instagram].
🇹🇷 🦐 Richesse Biologique - a Turkish skincare brand based on chitosan (from the shells of marine animals (not mushrooms - like the Dyson haircare product line)) is backed by the Turkish biotech company, Chitosol a spinoff of BİYOPOL [Instagram].
⭐️ Glowery, known for their marine collagen beauty supplements, is launching a skincare line on October 10th…the packaging is fun.
Ever-eden expands into teen skincare [Beauty Independent; Instagram].
Tarel Lab - offering an acne line called ‘Mangostin+’ based off of mangosteen [Instagram].
🦶 BoF: Birkenstock launches foot care range. The German footwear maker is commemorating its 250th anniversary with a range of foot care products, including bath salts and a nourishing balm. In 2019 Birkenstock launched a skincare line.
🇰🇷 ASIS-TOBE - a Korean skincare line that looks quite a bit like Malin + Goetz. Products are hypoallergenic and formulated for sensitive skin - the naming is quite literally ‘Forest Relaxing Facial Toner with Birch Sap and Centella Water for Sensitive Skin’ [Instagram].
👩🔬 Experiment launched Plasma Cleanser - a hydrating cleanser depositing glycerin into the skin for barrier repair [Instagram].
🇮🇳 ClayCo Cosmetics - an Indian based skincare company - leveraging global beauty rituals including Japanese minimalistic skincare and soon Moroccan inspired skincare raised funds from Unilever Ventures [Instagram].
👩🦱 Haircare:
👨🦱 Menalated (not a typo) - a new haircare startup for men with textured hair founded by Jeffrey Clorissaint [Instagram]…the first Reel they created is…I’ll just leave it here.
🦷 Oral Care:
WSJ: Teeth-cleaning robots, red-light therapy — what’s ahead for dental health. These and other treatments in the works could change trips to the dentist
🐕 Pet Care:
🥛 Shepherd Boy Farms sells a line of freeze dried goat milk supplements to be sprinkled over pet food. This is not the first time I confused a pet product for a human one…and nearly purchased it. I do think this could be a cool products for humans too [Instagram].
👩🔬 Femtech:
🩸 According to the American Academy of Pediatrics period poverty impacts 1 in 3 teens in the U.S.
Bonafide launched Thermella™, a hormone-free, prescription-Free NK3R antagonist for menopause symptom management.
🛍 Retail: DTC, Brick + Mortar, Social Commerce, and more...
New data from Numerator illuminates who shops on Temu - it is Gen X and Millenials - with a high repeat purchase rate [Chain Storage Age].
eMarketer: How Gen Z engaged with beauty content in Q3 — Sephora wins while legacy brands struggle.
🩺 Digital Health: Wearables, Smart Devices, and more...
👃 Fast Company: Harvard researchers might have found a way to prevent COVID, the flu—and maybe even the common cold — the most recent study conducted on mice showed 99.99% effectivenes at neutralizing the impact of foreign viruses & bacteria - the spray is already available for purchase through Profi.
Burble - a device for ‘sinus cleanliness’ - basically a fancier neti pot [Instagram].
Vox: How bad is inflammation really? Doctors explain how to tell the truth from social media BS.
The Atlantic: Remember that DNA you gave 23andMe? The company is in trouble, and anyone who has spit into one of the company’s test tubes should be concerned.
🗣 Social Media: News about TikTok, Meta, BeReal, Snapchat, X...
The Guardian: Dump, post, repeat: how Instagram became a social media junkyard.
TechCrunch: Spill, the Black-owned Twitter alternative, scores investment from Kerry Washington.
♻️ Sustainability: Sustainable DesignNotpla secures £20 Million in Series A+ funding to revolutionize sustainable packaging.
💸 M&A, IPOs, SPACs, Bankruptcies, Closings...
TechCrunch: Femtech startup Perelel is acquiring Founders Fund-backed sexual health startup LOOM.
HRB Brands (Alberto VO5 ®, Zest ®, Coast ®, Brut ®, Pert ®, Sure® & more) acquired by Sodalis Group.
🔬RESEARCH
🫀We are not too far away from smartphones capable of measuring systolic blood pressure using a thumb and other ‘hand maneuvers’ to mimic a cuff measurement [Nature Scientific Reports].
⭐️ Nature: The gut microbiome and chronic pain — a look at how endometriosis and other diseases are linked to gut bacteria.
Type 1 diabetes is now being linked to a bacterial infection.
🧐 REPORTS
⭐️ FTB: Haircare Report 2024.
⭐️ Altiant: Beauty & Personal Care — From the Perspectives of Affluent Individuals and HNWIs.
🎄 Spate: 2024 Holiday Trends Report.
💡 Enjoy,
-Anne