L'Oréal.
From clothing to travel, from food to fragrance, customization has long covered all aspects of public life. Now, the trend is spreading to the beauty industry.
Ipsos, a research agency, recently released the latest "2023 Consumer Personal Care Beauty Trend Insights", revealed three major consumer trends in the future of the beauty industry, which mentioned the increasing personalized needs of consumers. As consumers increasingly demand personalization from beauty products, they will be looking for more unique and personalized beauty solutions. For beauty brands, understanding and adapting to this trend will be the key to winning the market.
However, it is not easy to make beauty truly personalized, and customized beauty faces a series of challenges and difficulties in both domestic and foreign market environments. What is the viability and market acceptance of customized beauty?How does this trend actually work in different markets?When the Chinese market comes with good policy news, how will the layout of domestic and foreign brands change?In this article, Jing Daily will give an in-depth interpretation of the above issues and reveal the prospects and development trends of beauty customization in today's consumer market.
Customized beauty that is still in the exploratory stage
Customized beauty is a beauty product or service that is tailored to consumers based on individual needs, preferences, skin type, and other factors. This "one-person-one-side" approach to beauty is believed to meet consumer demand for a unique makeup experience and personalized skincare products, while the "customised" component includes product formulations, color choices, packaging design, and even personalized elements such as product naming or engraving.
As early as 1968, the British skincare brand Clinique launched the "** Analyzer" care customization program, which was groundbreaking at the time to provide consumers with ** care customization solutions by learning the ** state of ** through light strokes on the face. Subsequently, the brand continued this innovation, and in 2019, it cooperated with Tmall Little Black Box to release the id Core Lotion** care customized solution, which targeted consumers to solve different skin problems. In addition, Procter & Gamble's "Opté Wand" cosmetics printer, Shiseido's on-demand smart skincare system "Optune", Amorepacific's instant customization of functional lotions, "Tonework", a customized makeup intelligent manufacturing system "Tonework", and "Cosmechip", a machine for making customized skincare products, are all important breakthroughs in the field of customized beauty.
Clinique has launched several customised treatments.
Clinique's official Weibo.
With the continuous improvement of customization technology, the market's acceptance of beauty customization business is gradually increasing. According to the "Custom Cosmetics Trend Insight Report" released by Blue Eye Information, 65% of consumers are willing to pay a certain premium for customized cosmetics, and nearly forty percent of consumers are willing to buy customized cosmetics when they are 20% higher than similar products. This shows the great potential of the customized cosmetics track. The report also shows that the global personalized beauty market has grown from 292$500 million grew to $37.7 in 2022$200 million, with a compound growth rate of 1187%, and it is expected to exceed 500 billion yuan in 2028.
In China, young consumers have also shown strong vitality and acceptance of new formats and technologies, so many brands have chosen to invest more in customized business in this market. At the China International Import Expo, Lanc Me presented its first private foundation in Asia, where a scan was used to determine the color of the tester's foundation, and a tailor-made foundation was created based on the skin type and desired level of coverage, hydration level, etc. In 2020, American makeup brand My Colour also launched its first private makeup business in China, using an automatically improved computer algorithm program to tailor makeup products to suit users' skin tones and personalities based on their uploaded face and lip colors**, as well as their needs for texture and color.
Lanc Me has showcased liquid foundation at the China International Import Expo.
Interface News.
The rise of this trend reflects the continuous innovation and evolution of the beauty industry in catering to the needs of local consumers, and the introduction of customization will undoubtedly bring waves to the homogeneous Chinese beauty industry.
"Customized" beauty is a false proposition in China
From the current market landscape, international beauty giants are still the dominant force in customized beauty innovation, and in the final analysis, the problem lies in the obstacles faced by R&D and promotion. "Cosmetics concepts similar to 'one person, one party' providing original raw materials for individual exclusive use often face challenges such as regulatory restrictions, inconsistent testing standards, and enterprise production feasibility in actual implementation. Nakahara, a marketing and cultural researcher at cross-cultural marketing firm Cherry Blossoms, told Jing Daily.
First of all, legal support is an important factor in promoting customized beauty innovation, but the current differences in regulations and standards in the cosmetics field from country to country create complex compliance issues in the cross-border promotion and sales process. Companies need to invest a lot of resources to ensure that their products comply with local regulations, which undoubtedly increases the complexity and cost of promotion.
Taking the Chinese market as an example, neither the previous "Regulations on the Hygiene Supervision of Cosmetics" nor the new "Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics" implemented last year have left much room for personalized skincare. According to the regulations, a cosmetic product with the same formula needs to be re-filed after changing the packaging or fragrance, which is a huge workload for the operation mode of customized cosmetics. In addition, in the personalized customization model, the filing process required for each customized product is the same as that of the previous mass-produced products, which will bring extremely high costs to the enterprise.
Secondly, the inconsistency of testing standards is also a problem that needs to be solved urgently. Since the core of personalized beauty is to provide customized solutions according to individual skin types and needs, the inconsistency of ** testing standards will lead to a certain degree of personalization of products. The establishment of a standardized** testing system will be an important step to promote the development of the personalized beauty market, especially in the Chinese market, which has a huge population base. In this regard, international beauty giants undoubtedly have their own advantages: their extensive market insights and consumer data can help R&D teams better understand the needs of consumers in different regions and cultures, and provide more market-relevant products for customized beauty products around the world.
Many beauty brands have started personalized and customized services.
***perfect corp.
At the level of marketing and promotion, the strong brand influence of the brand is also particularly important for the popularization of customized beauty. Considering the difficulty and cost of developing customized beauty products, its pricing is destined to be higher than that of conventional beauty products until the technology is widely promoted. At this time, international beauty giants with wide popularity and good reputation, and a high-end customer base, are more likely to succeed in the customized beauty market.
At present, there are many so-called "customized beauty" services in the Chinese market, but in essence, it may be more accurate to call these services "semi-customized". According to Nakahara, "Customized beauty is still in its infancy in China, and the relatively easy and successful way to achieve it at this stage is through clever matching and combining existing cosmetic formulations." For example, ma.c Interchangeable eyeshadow palettes and make up for ever eyeshadow palettes that can be freely combined, etc., are favored by consumers because of their high degree of freedom of choice and portability. In the skincare category, Guopai Nature Tang also launched a customized dual-tube serum in 2019, covering 10 skin problems, and matching 120 formulas in advance, so that consumers can choose the most suitable products after testing in the store.
Is it possible to achieve "one person, one party"?
As consumers' demand for skin care and makeup tends to be specialized and refined, the cosmetics industry maintains positive development, and the innovation supervision of the domestic beauty industry may also usher in a turnaround.
On November 10, 2022, the official website of the State Food and Drug Administration issued the "Notice of the General Department of the State Food and Drug Administration on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Personalized Cosmetics Services", which will be piloted in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong, and Guangdong Province (City) within a limited time in terms of first-class testing, product tracking, and personalized skin care service plans for ordinary cosmetics such as makeup and skin care. The announcement of the notice has aroused the attention of the industry.
In April this year, a store of high-end theatrical skincare brand SkinCeuticals in Pudong, Shanghai, obtained the country's first "on-site personalized service" cosmetics production license, and the brand has passed a patent** evaluation and laboratory-level production technology, mixing the active ingredients of the formula in professional instruments on site to provide exclusive essences according to customers' skin problems. In August, Estee Lauder's fragrance brand Le Labo Qiantan Taikoo Li new store was also piloted under the guidance of relevant departments, and officially launched the personalized service of hand-blended perfume on site, becoming the second cosmetics personalized service pilot project in Shanghai.
In August, fragrance brand Le Labo Taikoo Li Qiantan officially launched a personalized service of handcrafted perfumes on site.
Le Labo Little Red Book.
Nowadays, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, LVMH and other international beauty groups have successively obtained the "license" of China's customized beauty business, and it is foreseeable that "customized cosmetics" has become the next hot track for brands to compete for. However, most of the on-site personalized services that have been put into use today are based on overseas experience, and international brands may need to take more into account the actual situation of Chinese consumers in the process of strengthening localization in China in the future. After all, with the release of good news such as the relaxation of regulations and technological advancements, local beauty brands will also start to focus on the field of customization, forming a potential competition situation with international brands.
Author | jingyi li
Edit | mos wu