If there’s one trend that we won’t be able to avoid in the coming months and probably well into next year, it’s cannabis skin care. I could honestly never get along with the Body Shop’s Hemp range because of the smell, and while I’m aware of CBD oil (cannabis derivative) being hailed as the next skin care god, the whole genre is tricky for brands. The Estee Lauder group (notoriously uptight) has put Origins first at the starting gate for their version of cannabis care with Hello Calm, a cannabis oil infused mask. Sadly, the joy of masking won’t be enhanced in the ways you might hope as the extracts are non-intoxicating.
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Things you never saw coming? Benefit Cosmetics collaborating on a home décor collection. PBTeen is a USA based range offering bedding, accessories and art – Benefit x PBTeen is apparently art deco based with a beauty slant, such as an antimicrobial pillow case to keep bacteria from skin while you sleep.
Avon has been in disrupted mode for years – a succession of CEOs and bid rumours (latest (denied) from the same Brazilian company that bought The Body Shop, Natura) show that it’s a troubled brand. The most recent news is that they’re closing their NY site with the loss of about 100 jobs. 120 jobs went in Corby, UK, in 2016 as well as cutting 1700 jobs across the company in the same year. And still it flounders.
We’re rather short on beauty manufacturers in the UK. One of our biggest, Acheson & Acheson (their own brand is Ameliorate, but they make products for so many known brands) has just sold up to The Hut Group. The Hut Group is voracious in acquisitions – with their own manufacturing company, they can literally take a brand from concept to sales on their own terms at any speed they please. In the days of fast beauty, this puts the group at significant advantage over competitors. If you need a reminder of who The Hut Group are, they own Beauty Expert, Lookfantastic, Skinstore, Espa, Glossybox, Grow Gorgeous, Mio Skin Care and more.
The Pat McGrath brand seems set to grow and grow. It’s just taken investment from Eurazeo Brands (it’s an investment company) of about $60 million. Interestingly, the source talks about using it to expand further in the US AND meet demand worldwide. Hello, Pat – we’re waving at you frantically from the UK!
Remember Bliss’s Fatgirlslim cream? Looks like it’s had a very timely re-brand and become Fabgirlfirm cream instead. I imagine it’s the same formula, this time carrying the caveat that it’s not a weight loss or slimming product which I’m sure it didn’t used to back in the early days of the product. Soap & Glory currently has an Ulta exclusive for Up-Toned Girl – very similar thing to Fabgirl.
While I was scooting about on the interwebs, I came across a couple of articles on the rise of fraudulent consumer class actions against cosmetic companies. I quite often feature class actions on this site – Ulta and their resale of used beauty products for example – and noted that these actions are always brought by ‘3 women in X state’ (usually California). They started to look remarkably similar a long time ago. Since discovering US sites where you can join in on class actions and the sites actually list what you might receive in real dollars ‘should you have been affected’ *cough, cough* I guess those 3 women are looking even more fishy now. It’s serious – Ulta lost share value as a result of this class action. Cosmetic companies are particularly at risk of fraudulent or over-enthusiastic class actions partly because of FDA warning letters send in around 2012 targeting labelling and marketing flaws… which flagged to any hungry legal company that there was money to be made. It’s also thought that lessons learned in food class actions are being applied now to cosmetics (such as ‘all natural’ claims).
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