Ten top beauty trends to watch out for

Lorraine Dallmeier and Gemma Ortega Perez give us the the lowdown on the biggest trends in beauty – from skin yoghurts to ‘athleisure’, skin microbiome to the unicorn trend (yes, really).

Earlier this year Lorraine Dallmeier (director) and Gemma Ortega Perez (business & relationship manager) from natural beauty training school Formula Botanica attended the In-Cosmetics Global 2018 exhibition in Amsterdam – an international event for personal care ingredients.

Back in Britain the pair came up with the idea of creating a trend report summarizing what they’d seen at the exhibition and how these trends tie into what is happening in the the green beauty industry. They packaged up their thoughts and insights into a fascinating podcast conversation.

Here are their Top Ten Beauty Trends for 2018:

  1. The Unicorn trend is influencing ingredients suppliers to design ingredients that work for people wanting to formulate with glittery, sparkly and holographic-style products.
  2. Gels are becoming a massive formulation trend. There were so many different sorts of gels at In-Cosmetics, such as gel emulsions and gel balms. Gels can be hard to make for natural formulators but they are in high demand and were a major trend.
  3. Skin yoghurts such as after-sun, cooling and moisturizing yoghurts were a massive theme and there were many examples of interesting and innovative formulations based on the concept of a yoghurt for the skin.
  4. The continued search for the elusive, natural, botanical extract: there were loads of botanical extracts around with a key trend being on locally sourced botanical extracts. These were all touted as the new ‘wow’ ingredients and we provide plenty of examples in the podcast.
  5. Sustainability and how ingredients suppliers are keen to embrace the concept in their business but in reality, they could not back up their claims of sustainability in a real way. We feel that indie brands are really leading the way in this area.
  6. Athleisure is taking off as the cosmetics industry is copying what’s happening in wellness trends. We see a great opportunity to develop some very innovative niches for indie brands using the Athleisure trend.
  7. Genderless products and ranges are on the rise and we saw numerous ranges formulating and designing ranges that are not driven by the rigid gender binaries but embrace the concept of gender fluidity.
  8. Anti-blue light pollution: the market is developing actives that can cater for anti-blue light pollution and there are some great suppliers who are designing ingredients for this trend which is getting bigger and is here to stay.
  9. DIY skincare: Consumers are driving the desire for beauty regimes that can be personalized and put together by the consumer to address unique individual skincare needs.
  10. Skin microbiome: This is a hot topic in the industry right now and Mintel had it listed as a key trend. There are brands that are formulating skincare that is sensitive to the skin microbiome.

To find out more about Formula Botanica click here.