The bottle has a target market. Your skin has preferences. Your Body Mist Doesn’t Care Who You Are If a man sprays on a vanilla body mist marketed to women, his masculinity does not suddenly dissolve into the fragrance cloud. He simply smells like vanilla—which is almost certainly an improvement over whatever he smelled like…
Sophistication doesn’t have to look sleepy. Can We Stop Using Beige as a Personal Care Product Color? Walk through today’s personal care aisle and you’ll notice something curious. Beige. Cream. Taupe. Off-white. Another beige. Half the shelf looks like someone turned the saturation down. I understand why brands do it. Neutral colors have become closely…
I have nothing against snails. In fact, I understand that snail mucin is a popular skincare ingredient. Many people swear by it, and there’s research suggesting it can help hydrate the skin and support the skin barrier. So this isn’t an article arguing against snail mucin. It’s an article about one word. Snail. My Brain…
Floral Fragrance Packaging Has an Enviable Problem Floral fragrance packaging has access to perhaps the easiest visual vocabulary in perfume: put a flower on the bottle. Rose fragrance? Rose. Jasmine? Jasmine. Cherry blossom? We have located the cherry blossoms. Honestly, package designers in other fragrance families must occasionally look over and think, “Must be nice.”…
Coffee Is Too Interesting to Stay in the Mug Coffee in personal care already exists, but I still think the beauty industry has barely explored what coffee can become. We can find coffee-inspired fragrances, scrubs, skincare, and products that use caffeine or coffee-derived ingredients. However, coffee often appears as one scent note, one ingredient, or…
Long-Form Beauty Shopping Refuses to Disappear Beauty products on QVC and HSN occupy a fascinating corner of personal care retail. While social media asks brands to explain a serum before we finish blinking, television shopping gives products room to breathe. A host can demonstrate the texture, discuss the ingredients, answer questions, compare options, and remind…
Buying personal care products used to feel wonderfully simple. You used to buy lotion. Now you’re deciding between Ultra-Hydrating Triple Botanical Glow Renewal Moisture Recovery Body Butter Supreme™ and Advanced Vitamin Botanical Ocean Breeze Elasticity Renewal Comfort Lotion Complex™. At that point, I need an oxygen mask to finish reading the label. The Beauty Industry…
Why Should Lunch Get All the Wheels? Beauty trucks could turn personal care shopping into something mobile, social, and surprisingly fun. Food trucks already bring specialized menus directly to offices, neighborhoods, festivals, and public spaces. So why couldn’t a beautifully designed truck arrive with body mists, lotions, skincare, shampoos, soaps, and hair products instead? Picture…
Justice for Iceland. Canada deserves a signature lotion, too. Why Does Every Lotion Want to Take Me Somewhere Tropical? Walk down the personal care aisle during the summer and it becomes obvious that every lotion has tropical vacation plans. One promises a weekend in the Bahamas. Another wants to meet you in Miami. A third…
Walk down almost any personal care aisle and you’ll notice something. Vanilla body mist, vanilla lotion, vanilla shampoo, vanilla lip balm, vanilla body wash. See a pattern? Meanwhile, chocolate seems to be standing in the corner wondering if anyone remembers its existence. Why is vanilla seemingly everywhere while chocolate only makes guest appearances? The Beauty…