Expert Viewpoints

Indie Beauty Profile Nickie Nougaisse, Curls Dynasty

Indie Beauty Profile

Nickie Nougaisse, Curls Dynasty

By Deanna Utroske

In her Indie Beauty Profile, Nickie Nougaisse, founder of Curls Dynasty talks about building a solution-based hair brand for people with textured hair, specifically for people with dry hair issues and those who are transitioning from a chemically relaxed...

New brands emerge at The Makeup Show 2019

New brands emerge at The Makeup Show 2019

By Genevieve Santos-Bann

Dubbed as the “Beauty Experience,” The Makeup Show is where professional makeup artists go to restock their favorite products and engage in demos and workshops with premier artists from around the globe.

Consumer Education: Supergoop pop-up teaches the basics of SPF

Consumer Education: Supergoop pop-up teaches the basics of SPF

By Deanna Utroske

This past weekend in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, the prestige sun care brand opened a pop-up shop that invited millennials back to school to learn about the importance of daily sunscreen use and about how the Supergoop brand can help make that...

4 indie beauty brands standout at The Makeup Show NYC

Editor's Spotlight

4 indie beauty brands standout at The Makeup Show NYC

By Deanna Utroske

This year’s New York City edition of The Makeup Show includes numerous indie exhibitors across categories, from skin care to color cosmetics, from lash makers to nail brands, and from accessories to brushes. Following this weekend’s press preview of the...

Who’s talking to consumers about cosmetic chemistry? a Cosmetics Design interviw with Trina Espinoza, msbeautyphile

CD Buzz Video

Who’s talking to consumers about cosmetic chemistry?

By Deanna Utroske

In this interview filmed at in-cosmetics Global, Cosmetics Design sits down with science communicator Trina Espinoza (aka msbeautyphile) to learn about her work educating beauty consumers, what she’s doing to bridge the gap between industry information...

This Month in Fragrance: April 2019

This Month in Fragrance: April 2019

By Deanna Utroske

Fragrance can be elusive. But it’s an important sector of the beauty industry and one that Cosmetics Design covers more often than you might think. This month we’ve shared news of corporate partnerships, venture capital investment, recognition of an outstanding...

NYSCC Suppliers’ Day hosts Indie Forecast chat

Editor's Spotlight

NYSCC Suppliers’ Day hosts Indie Forecast chat

By Deanna Utroske

At this year’s ingredient trade show in New York City, Fedora Stojkoska-Hristov, head of New Product Development for Rare Beauty Brands; Sanjiv Mehra, Chairman of ICMAD and CEO of eos products; and Cosmetics Design Editor Deanna Utroske will discuss what...

Biossance: the beauty brand that biotech built - an interview with Caroline Hadfield

CD Buzz Video

Biossance: the beauty brand that biotech built

By Deanna Utroske

Caroline Hadfield is no stranger to the beauty industry. She’s held executive positions with LVMH, Sephora, and The Body Shop. And most recently she’s built a beauty brand from within a biotech firm. Cosmetics Design sat down with Hadfield earlier this...

Indie Trail companies offer beauty startups less and more at in-cosmetics Global 2019

Indie Trail companies offer beauty startups less and more

By Deanna Utroske

Just 34 of the more than 800 companies exhibiting at the in-cosmetics Global tradeshow in Paris this month opted to be featured on the event’s first Indie Trail map—a guide meant to help indie beauty brands and aspiring founders find and connect with...

New legislation in Canada advances likelihood of animal testing ban

New legislation in Canada advances likelihood of animal testing ban

By Deanna Utroske

On Friday, Conservative MP Marylyn Gladu (who represents Sarina—Lambton, Ontario) moved to have a bill read that would effectively ban the sale and manufacture of cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients tested on animals. Advocates are calling this legislative...

CEW honors indie beauty brand founders

CEW honors indie beauty brand founders

By Deanna Utroske

Last month in New York City, the professional organization Cosmetic Executive Women held its first Female Founders Awards event, celebrating the brands and business built by Amy Errett, Lauren Gores Ireland and Marianna Hewitt, Gregg Renfrew, Vicky Tsai,...

Indie Beauty Profile Maya Ivanjesku, LaFlore Probiotic Skincare - Dakota Biotech and microbiome-friendly skin care

Indie Beauty Profile

Maya Ivanjesku, LaFlore Probiotic Skincare

By Deanna Utroske

In her Indie Beauty Profile Maya Ivanjesku, chief scientific officer at LaFlore Probiotic Skincare, shares insight in to the challenges of building a microbiome skin care brand and offers personal care startup founders refreshingly honest advice about...

Dove wants media images to represent women as they are

Dove wants media images to represent women as they are

By Deanna Utroske

Today, the Unilever personal care brand announced a partnership with Getty Images and Girlgaze that makes a new library of stock photos available to media and advertisers for license. With its new #ShowUs initiative, Dove wants to expand the conventional...

in-cosmetics Global 2019 welcomes indie beauty brands

in-cosmetics Global 2019 welcomes indie beauty brands

By Deanna Utroske

At next month’s in-cosmetics global tradeshow in Paris, beauty startups and independent personal care brands will have a clear path to follow and an easier time connecting with ingredient suppliers that are offering low order volumes and other services...

Mary Kay signs onto UN Women’s Empowerment Principles

Mary Kay signs onto UN Women’s Empowerment Principles

By Deanna Utroske

This month, the social sales beauty company added its name to a growing roster of businesses and corporations participating in WEPs. And late last week, when Deborah Gibbins, the company’s chief operating officer, spoke at a United Nations forum focused...

Financial Freedom: a conversation with Makeup America! founder Randa Fahmy - US National Debt - CSR - cosmetics - social purpose - women

CD Buzz Video

Financial Freedom: a conversation with Makeup America! founder Randa Fahmy

By Deanna Utroske

Makeup America! is an indie color cosmetics brand proudly building a business around the value of made-in-America beauty products and a social mission of paying down the US national debit—a unique mission which Fahmy hopes other brands will take up and...

Indie beauty was everywhere at 2019 CEW Product Demo

Indie beauty was everywhere at 2019 CEW Product Demo

By Deanna Utroske

Voting closes Thursday night. And it’s a tough call for the Beauty Awards this year: the room of indie beauty brands attracted quite a crowd, while elsewhere on the show floor startups and founder-led brands competed with legacy brands and multinational...

4 novel beauty innovations seen at Beauty Squared: Botanical Signature packaging, Moi Cosmetics with CBD, espinache spinach skin care, Sway mask an...

4 novel beauty innovations seen at Beauty Squared

By Deanna Utroske

This week’s Beauty Squared event in New York City features 20+ indie brands, all orbiting the mindful beauty space. Here Cosmetics Design looks at 4 brands doing things differently in packaging, color cosmetics, skin care, and personal care.

NYSCC to host event for aspiring cosmetic chemists

NYSCC to host event for aspiring cosmetic chemists

By Deanna Utroske

Next month, the New York Chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists is bringing together speakers from 4 major North American universities for a half-day event entitled Cosmetic Science in Academia.

Aptar continues outreach to indie beauty brands with new site

Aptar continues outreach to indie beauty brands with new site

By Deanna Utroske

The packaging company launched its new site for startups and standalone cosmetics and personal care brands at this week’s Luxe Pack event in Los Angeles, California. It’s the next iteration of Aptar’s Indie Boutique offering.

Can limited-edition packaging work for indie personal care brands? OLIKA and the pink marshmallow Minnie hand sanitizer

Can limited-edition packaging work for indie personal care brands?

By Deanna Utroske

OLIKA believes it can. The design-driven consumer goods brand launched 2 years ago and still has essentially one product: hand sanitizer. In late January, OLIKA debuted the first of its Rare Bird Collection, a limited-edition series of OLIKA’s popular...

Anne Flipo achieves the rank of Master Perfumer at IFF

Anne Flipo achieves the rank of Master Perfumer at IFF

By Deanna Utroske

Late last week, the fragrance maker announced the honor, adding Flipo to a short list of International Flavor & Fragrances’ perfumers who have been designated as Master Perfumers over the past 6 years. Anne Flipo is the first woman to be recognized...

PCPC celebrates 125 years and readies for 2019 annual meeting

PCPC celebrates 125 years and readies for 2019 annual meeting

By Deanna Utroske

The Personal Care Products Council will hold its annual meeting later this month, bringing together 500+ industry executives, supply-side professionals, and media for a mix of educational programming, networking, and strategic meetings.

Can overseas indie brands like Cosmetics 27 and Forest Rhapsody Skincare change the pace of beauty and help consumers find equilibrium

Editor's Spotlight

Can overseas indie brands change the pace of beauty?

By Deanna Utroske

The independent beauty movement is truly global, as evidenced by the international spectrum of exhibitors at IBE LA last month. But a subset of indie beauty brands from abroad aren’t just going global, they are inviting consumers to be patient, seek balance,...

Fragrance Foundation to honor 2019 Notables in NYC this month

Fragrance Foundation to honor 2019 Notables in NYC this February

By Deanna Utroske

On Thursday, February 7th at the LVMH Magic Room in New York City, the non-profit professional organization will host an event acknowledging and celebrating 11 rising professionals in the world of fragrance—professionals working with top brands and corporations...

Arcade Beauty and Vengo Labs team up to reinvent beauty on the go with makeup and personal care vending machines

Arcade Beauty and Vengo Labs team up to reinvent beauty on the go

By Deanna Utroske

Portable skin care products, mini beauty, and sample sizes of everything from hair care to body care have become increasingly popular over the last year or so. Now, sampling company Arcade Beauty and retail tech maker Vengo Labs are teaming up to put...

Gallinée showcases the latest in microbiome skin care at IBE LA 2019

CD Buzz Video

Gallinée showcases the latest in microbiome skin care at IBE LA

By Deanna Utroske

In 2015 Marie Drago founded a new kind of personal care brand, one that promised to be “revolutionary skincare with a patented complex of pre, pro and postbiotics to support your skin's microbiome.” At this month’s Indie Beauty Expo event, Cosmetics...

Formulating an indie beauty brand story with regional ingredients, Holly Harding of O'o Hawaii and Ikram Elharti of Sahara Rose

Formulating for Indie Beauty Special Newsletter

Formulating an indie beauty brand story with regional ingredients

By Deanna Utroske

In the beauty and wellness space, a well-constructed brand story can capture the attention of consumers, buyers, and media. To find out just how regional ingredients can effectively inform and inspire an indie brand and its story, Cosmetics Design checked...

4 must-know beauty trends spotted at IBE LA 2019: wood ingredients, skin microbiome, copper, bee beauty

Editor’s Spotlight

4 must-know beauty trends spotted at IBE LA

By Deanna Utroske

Every day the indie beauty movement gets more sophisticated, the brands more varied, and the innovations more relevant. Cosmetics Design discovered these 4 trends last week at the Indie Beauty Expo in Los Angeles, California—trends that signal what’s...

GC3 invites green beauty tech startups to apply for upcoming showcase

GC3 invites green beauty tech startups to apply for upcoming showcase

By Deanna Utroske

The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council is accepting applications for chemistry technology solutions and new ingredients that meet the needs of major companies—needs like UV filters with low aquatic toxicity and naturally derived hair conditioning...

BeautyX Summit returns to Los Angeles, California, this month January 2019

BeautyX Summit returns to Los Angeles, California, this month

By Deanna Utroske

The two-day educational event for entrepreneurs and indie beauty brand leaders will take place January 21 and 22 in LA. Attendees will hear from editors, influencers, and other experts on every facet of social and conventional media. Cosmetics Design...

Avon Products sells its manufacturing business in China to TheFaceShop

Avon Products sells its manufacturing business in China to TheFaceShop

By Deanna Utroske

This week the global beauty company announced having reached an agreement with TheFaceShop, a subsidiary of LG Household & Health Care Ltd, to sell is China-based manufacturing operation. And while Avon will profit financially from the sale, initially...

Laurie Ann Goldman in as CEO at New Avon LLC

Laurie Ann Goldman in as CEO at New Avon LLC

By Deanna Utroske

Goldman began her work as the CEO of the US-based, stand-alone division of the social selling beauty company Tuesday and is already talking about invigorating the business, driving sales, and encouraging progress for women.

2019 Goals: Building on the wisdom and advice of indie beauty brand founders on Indie Beauty Profile column

Editor’s Spotlight

2019 Goals: Building on the wisdom of indie beauty brand founders

By Deanna Utroske

The Indie Beauty Profile column is moving…to Fridays! But before going ahead with that, Cosmetics Design is looking back over a selection of the business advice that featured cosmetics, personal care, and fragrance brand leaders have shared over the past...

Color cosmetics maker Tokiwa Corp. sets up manufacturing in US, making Japanese makeup

Color cosmetics maker Tokiwa Corp. sets up manufacturing in US

By Deanna Utroske

Late last year, the contract manufacturer announced plans to renovate, equip, and open a first US facility to manufacture Japanese color products in the States. Tokiwa is investing over $30 million dollars in the New Jersey manufacturing site, which is...

What is indie beauty anyway? Indie Beauty Profile brand leaders define independent business

Editor’s Spotlight

What is indie beauty anyway?

By Deanna Utroske

Recently, brands featured on the Indie Beauty Profile column have been asked to define or explain their thinking on what makes a cosmetics, personal care, or fragrance brand independent. Here, Cosmetics Design has complied a selection of the replies in...

Trend Watch: pre-sport probiotic skin care ingredient launch

Trend Watch: pre-sport probiotic skin care

By Deanna Utroske

At this week’s SCC Annual Meeting and Technology Showcase in New York City, Roelmi HPC launched its latest personal care and beauty ingredient. Aective is a biotech-derived molecule that provides microbial defense as well as skin moisturization and elasticity...

Cover Girl’s newest makeup line designed for women of color

Cover Girl’s newest makeup line designed for women of color

By Deanna Utroske

This month the Coty brand launched a new line of color cosmetics on Ulta.com. The Full Spectrum Collection of complexion and color products are “specifically designed to address the skin and color needs of WOC,” according to Cover Girl.

2018 cosmetics and personal care ingredient launches that made headlines on Cosmetics Design

Editor’s Spotlight

2018 cosmetics and personal care ingredient launches

By Deanna Utroske

Certainly no year passes in the beauty industry without a significant number of new ingredient technologies coming to market. Here, we look at selection of standout ingredients that made headlines on Cosmetics Design over the last 12 months.