Indulgence, Claims and Innovation Trends at In-Cosmetics

By: Imogen Matthews

Posted: April 4, 2012

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Antoinette van den Berg, founder of trends forecasting agency Future-Touch, will describe how she translates future trends into innovative products, new markets and new applications for the raw material industry. “A trend is like a running horse. A company needs to jump on it before it is too late,” she says. Sometimes, she finds that companies do not want to believe the trends she predicts and can regret not following her advice when they go mainstream in the future. For example, a few years before it happened, Van den Berg described the trend for fluorescent nail polishes and that women would wear different nail colors at the same time. “Skin colors for nail varnish was another trend some companies did not want to believe would happen. Now they are everywhere,” she explains.

Another trend observed by Van den Berg is for male cosmetics, which many companies still struggle to support. “I have a Google alert on new male cosmetic launches, and it is a hugely growing business. If companies accept that concealers are no-color concealers, then they are on the way to accepting male cosmetics as a viable category.”

The economic downturn has its challenges and Van den Berg works with companies to see how they can adapt machinery at low cost. “An innovative product can be manufactured using a production line that is not used any more. We can go in and help companies look at their business in a fresh way.” The next big trend will come from the food industry, but Van den Berg is not quite ready to spill the beans on that topic.