After a quiet few weeks, it’s all go again so here’s a round-up of the beauty moves and moments.
L’Oreal Colorista
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Starting with L’Oreal in hot water over a Colorista hair dye that turned users’ hair green. When it was supposed to be blue. Users complained that the dye didn’t wash out in the two weeks that it was supposed to and left a green cast in the hair for far too long. Blonde hair is more susceptible to mis-dyes and it’s more prevalent if your hair isn’t in great condition. It’s possible that copper in water pipes can cause dyed blonde hair to go green – and everyone knows that chlorine isn’t helpful – but still, if you wanted blue and got Shrek I imagine you’d be rather upset.
ReVive New Home
Shiseido has shifted off ReVive Skin Care to Tengram Capital – an investment group that also holds interest in This Works, Algenist and beauty boutique group, Cos Bar. I didn’t actually know that This Works had sold at all so it’s always worth doing a bit of extra research to find out who is owned by whom.
Better Than Sex
It’s not the first time that mascara has come under fire for making ridiculous claims – while the National Advertising Division is questioning the claims that the Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara can add 1,944% more volume to lashes, nobody has actually asked whether it really is better than sex. Just saying. Anyway, Too Faced has had to remove one claim but not the other. That’s beauty world in a nutshell right there.
Revlon has had terrible sales especially in the US this year – unsurprisingly. It’s always a mystery how they sell anything when as a brand it is so out of step with the real make up world. When mass beauty got so huge there were always going to be winners and losers and Revlon is showing signs of being the latter with a poor Q3 performance 10.5% drop. I can’t remember the last time I even saw a Revlon product land on my desk or noticed it in a shop.
Next year’s big trend focus is sustainability in beauty with brands head scratching about how to get around the major point that if they weren’t quite so profit hungry and over-producing product on such a huge scale, that itself would be er, more sustainable. However, Coty, L’Oreal, Clarins and Group Rocher have teamed up to be founder members of the Responsible Beauty Initiative aiming to encourage sustainability across the industry. While many brands (including the aforementioned) make serious forward strides in being more eco aware, my tip is: Make Less Stuff.
Nitrocellulose Free Polish
Nitrocellulose is a primary ingredient in nail polish so it’s interesting that L’Oreal has filed a patent for a non-nitrocellulose nail polish formula. Cellulose is produced from plants (from the cell walls) but by the time it’s been nitrated and treated with alcohol, it’s very far from its natural origins. It’s used for many other things apart from nail polish but this does tie in with the eco/natural ingredient trend that we’re on the cusp of right now.
Back In Law Suit Land
A customer has filed a suit against Sephora after contracting herpes (cold sores) from in store samples – i.e. those messy tubes used to show colour or to swipe on the back of your hand. At first I thought this was crazy, but actually thinking about it we can’t assume that everyone could know all the possible reasons not to swipe from sample to lip. The customer’s point that Sephora should put warnings that this practice is to be avoided for hygiene reasons I actually think is valid. Same for mascara. I’ve surprised myself!
Sources: Globalcosmetics.com, Allure.com, Happi.com, Cosmeticsbusiness.com
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