Mintel Predicts Protective Skin Care and Mood-altering Ingredients for 2010

Despite the economic recession, Mintel Beauty Innovation predicts that the personal care industry will continue to innovate in 2010. To that end, the company has forecast the top beauty trends for 2010, which include mood-enhancing formulations, a new vision of natural, protective skin care and high-tech ingredients and technologies.

"Mood Beauty" merges psychology and well-being with beauty products that offer psychological benefits and ingredients that act on a consumer's neurotransmitters. Makeup has long been associated with making the wearer feel better, but recent product evolution has seen actual ingredients enabling consumers to feel better. In 2010, consumers will be able to enhance their mood through makeup and skin care, going beyond aromatherapy and simple use of scent.

The report anticipates manufacturers use of textures, temperatures or sounds to affect mood, as well as innovations such as makeup that “switch on and off.” Meanwhile, the idea of beauty sleep will take on new meaning, as cosmetics claiming to induce positive moods or improve sleep quality will be added to night care products.

The report also predicts a new focus on natural that is less focused on certification and more focused on results, efficiency and safety. In 2010, beauty products will evolve from today’s trend toward organic ingredients, revisiting attributes such as authenticity, provenance and local production.

Mintel Beauty Innovation expects claims like “free from” and “sustainable” to appear in products that simultaneously contain synthetic actives like peptides, hyaluronic acid, ceramides or collagen. It also anticipates manufacturers to further explore simple formulas, such as infusions and fluids, but also formulate them with a new generation of phytochemicals, anthocyanins and fermented actives.

Throughout 2009, there reportedly was a renewed emphasis on protection. Beauty products offered increasingly powerful shields against physiological and man-made factors, in addition to UV rays. Mintel expects this trend to increase in 2010. In addition, the report expects growth in immune-boosting and skin-defending claims, as well as new products that contain ingredients from extreme environments, such as the arctic, alpine environment or deserts. Health care actives aligned with this trend will include rhodiola rosea, griffonia and superoxide dismutase, forging a stronger link with nutricosmetics. To promote this trend, marketing language will become more robust, borrowing from computer technology (e.g. firewalls). Packaging, too, will expand beyond traditional glass and plastic to materials like neoprene and concrete.

Mintel notes that 2009 saw a surge of high-tech beauty products and advances in biochemistry, which it predicts will continue into 2010. In 2010, products will increasingly include medical- or pharmaceutical-grade actives and next-generation nanotechnology. In addition, clinical testing to substantiate claims and results will move from prestige into “masstige” (affordable for general consumers but positioned as luxury). Manufacturers are expected to create more at-home kits and products touting similar results  to cosmetic surgery.

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