WATCH – ‘Safe for skin; safe for earth’: Te Mana and BASF on how clean and ethical beauty applies in the APAC beauty market

The rising concern for health and wellness as well as sustainability is pushing consumers in the Asia Pacific region towards clean beauty products and its clear the trend is here to stay.

Andrea Taimana, the founder of New Zealand-based skin care brand Te Mana, said that the level of education and awareness among consumers was fundamentally driving the clean movement in beauty and personal care.

To show consumers it “walks the talk”,​ Te Mana employs green chemistry and highly sustainable traditional methods of harvesting, said Taimana.

“As a Maori business, we are merging traditional harvesting practices, including traditional processing practices which are highly sustainable. This fits into a modern understanding of what sustainability is.”​

Similarly, this trend is pushing personal care ingredient suppliers like BASF to develop products with enhanced safety and environmental profiles.

“We are approaching innovation from a much broader and holistic view,”​ said Jeff Huh, head of marketing for personal care, BASF Care Chemicals.

For instance, the company is working to develop cleaner anti-acne actives and is actively researching and developing products related to skin microbiome balance.

Clean beauty may have been the buzzword for a while, but BASF Care Chemicals believes the region still holds plenty of untapped potential, particularly the markets in ASEAN.

“Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand are untapped just because consumers are focused on product functionality...I really see that they will catch on especially as they follow trends in Japan and Korea,”​ said Sandy Cheung, head of consumer insights and digital solutions.

Taimana and Cheung both expect the demand for clean beauty to grow even more now with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

As it accelerates, Huh noted that it is becoming crucial for companies to be more proactive in terms of development in the future.

“Nowadays, we have key opinion leaders releasing news about clean beauty… consumers can also easily check up on ingredients. This has made the consumers' needs develop into the main trend even faster… This is motivating the industry to develop related solutions more proactively before consumers can even ask for them.”​

For more insights on clean and ethical beauty, check out the video above.