Inside and Out

Beauty with Added Benefit

Beauty today is far more about embracing a holistic approach to health and wellbeing, rather than just slapping a wonder treatment on our skins, and we are once again buying into the more old-fashioned and common sense approach to beauty which starts from the inside out.  
    
We love our products, and there is still an undeniable place for them in our hearts and on our bathroom shelves, but we are also heeding the constant reminders from beauty gurus and the media that we need to be finding time for eight hours sleep, a diet rich in fresh fruit and vegetables, regular exercise and relaxation time. In all fairness, we know what we should be doing, but in a time-pressured society, and one in which we are also bombarded and overloaded with information, it is sometimes easier to just rely on the wonder treatments as we do not, or claim not to, have the time to exercise or prepare fresh food.  
    
However, new innovations are offering us quick and easy solutions with the advent of what is termed the “functional foods” category—food or drink options that offer us added benefits such as vitamins, probiotics, prebiotics or Omega 3 and 6 oils to help us maintain a healthy and strong body to meet the demands of a busy 24/7 society.  We may not yet have reached the stage where we can happily ditch our face creams for a drink-on-the-go, but food and drink innovations are starting to infiltrate the beauty domain.  
    
So, are savvy cosmetic owners also focusing on offering us new beauty solutions with benefits?  We take a look at what exactly is happening within the beauty category, and cross-category, and how this might shape the future beauty brand landscape.

Foody Beauty

Of course, the close link between food and beauty is nothing new and beauty brands have always used food-, plant- and herb-based ingredients as indicators of trust and reassurance for consumers.  However, we are generally more interested in food than ever before and more beauty brands are responding to the resurging food movement by once again incorporating food into its products.  Many are now using solely foody ingredients or have changed their brand positioning and marketing to concentrate on the nutritionally based beauty benefits of the food.
    
One of the best new “foody beauty” brands on the market, and one that undeniably exemplifies this new positioning, is Fresh Body Market. Widely reviewed in the media is the company’s Foaming Milk Baths, which come in liter containers and looks just like the milk carton you would buy at the store. Their Body Buffing Cereal seems to be as close to food as it can possibly get. Made with organic tapioca, rice and almonds, the body buffing mixture is 100% certified vegan skin care and the benefit of each ingredient is explained on the “skin nutrition label”.  The environmentally friendly packaging is modeled on food containers to emphasize the freshness of the products. The food focus is further reinforced by the visual of a slice of pineapple (the FBM logo) and small graphic of a cereal bowl and spoon.  

Beauty Treatment or Functional Food?

We all know that water is one of the best beauty treatments, but many water brands have now cottoned on to our renewed interest in health, beauty and the body, and we have seen a phenomenal rise of water brands with added benefits hitting our shelves.
    
All Borba Skin Balance waters offer a different benefit which is reinforced by the use of a bright colorway to denote each benefit, i.e. “replenishing,” “anti-aging” or “skin calming.”  Now Borba has brought out its different flavored Borba Aqua-Less Crystalline Replenishing.  The name is slightly misleading, as it does require mixing with water, but basically the sachets of powder are designed to boost moisture to keep skin smooth and firm, while botanical gelatin aids in the hydration of the skin.
    
So, could today’s water with benefits be classed as a functional food? SkinCola from Japan was hailed as leading the FF category but, again, is just an enhanced water brand with added zinc and vitamins.  
    
However, it was the brand positioning and marketing of this product as a beauty rather than beverage brand (albeit with the ability to straddle both aisles) that shifted perceptions for many about what the future may hold.

Functional Beauty

As functional food options continue to burgeon in both the food and drink categories and, indeed, cross-category, the beauty brands need to re-think their offer to not come under threat from, for example, a beverage brand, and we are seeing some interesting innovations emerge.  A couple of years ago we were amazed by the advent of Sprayology, a range of homeopathic and vitamin oral sprays, but now we are seeing more beauty products with specific added benefits emerge.  
    
Two new products to recently hit the shelves are Murad’s Optimal Health & Beauty Dietary Supplement and NV Perricone’s Skin and Total Body Nutritional Supplements.  Both are dietary supplements intended to enhance beauty.  There have, of course, been other supplements produced in the past, but rather than being sold in a pharmacy, these new options are marketed and positioned as beauty products.  The Murad brand strapline is “where skincare meets healthcare” and this is a relevant and timely next step for the brand.  With this particular product, the packaging is very light on text using short and direct messaging in the form of percentage statistics such as “increase skin firmness by 58%.”  The primary focus is the visual with the pure white packaging framing an apple magnified by a glass of water, indicating that these pills may be as close to providing the benefit of water and fresh fruit as they can be.  Maybe it is also a slightly ironic, and again another “foody” touch, that the structure is akin to an ice cream tub?
    
From the pure and natural approach of Murad, NV Perricone relies on the somewhat scientific and sterile approach it is known for with clear pouches, containing a cocktail of pills, housed in NV Perricone’s signature black and white packaging.
    
Essentially, both Murad and NV Perricone are purporting to do the same thing, but one takes a more scientific approach while the other a more natural approach.  We presume that both are equally efficacious, but have chosen different marketing tactics and what we need to remember is that not all science is bad and not everything natural is good. In the food and beauty worlds of the future, natural will not always be best and maybe brands with added benefits will go some way to reversing the current perception of science and “additives.”

Future Beauty Benefits

Beauty brands will need to keep innovating to meet the obvious consumer need for holistic beauty solutions.  Maybe in the not too distant future we will see eyeshadow with added vitamin C to help erase wrinkles.  But what brand owners really need to remember is that rather than trying to force a benefit that is not synergistic to the fundamental makeup of the product, the focus should be on the consumer. Brands should feel safe in the knowledge that lasting consumer loyalty is actually governed by a brand that is relevant and true to its beliefs and how clearly this is communicated.          

Traditionally, this has been a key strength of the beauty sector and maybe existing brands should not necessarily look at new innovations, but at focusing on the existing strength of their product and different ways to add benefit.  As we have seen, a new approach to brand marketing and positioning is already setting new innovations apart from the masses, but design also has a pivotal role to play.          

Essentially, design is having the vision to make something substantially better and, with the ultimate purchasing decision often made at point-of-purchase, this is where design can really create a point-of-difference, regardless of the confines of category. 

About the Author

Jonathan Ford is an award-winning designer and creative partner for Pearlfisher —  a London and New York design consultancy.  Pearlfisher’s award winning work in the food, drink and luxury markets includes clients such as LVMH, ABSOLUT Vodka and Unilever. More information: [email protected].