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Just The Facts: Natural and Safe Beauty Brands Outperforming Traditional Competitors

BeautyMatter was born from Founder Kelly Kovack’s desire to provide a fresh voice to a beauty industry hungry for more content from her perspective, and through her lens. BeautyMatter aim to fill the void, connect the dots, and provide an informed, analytical, and compelling point of view. Exploring limits and blurring boundaries, they offer highly curated news and original content by thought leaders and beauty insiders.

Kelly Kovack writes:

Being driven by consumer awareness about health and wellness, the “natural” beauty movement is officially no longer a fringe part of the industry; in fact, it’s driving category growth in prestige skin care. The category has morphed into “clean” beauty due to the lack of legal definition around natural and organic and given that even non-synthetic ingredients found in nature can be harmful.

The facts on the billion-dollar safe beauty category according to Fast Company:

  • The organic and natural beauty market is expected to reach $13.2 billion by 2018.
  • Brands with a natural and/or botanically derived clinical orientation now represent the largest combined share of prestige skin care sales. Last year, they accounted for all gains in the category.
  • Naturals have grown by 7% in the US, compared to a 2% rise in the overall beauty market in 2015.
  • Kline & Company predicts the synthetic cosmetics sector will decline in the next two years, while the natural skin care segment will grow.
  • Sephora has their “Naturals” landing page showcasing hundreds of products.
  • Nordstrom is opening dedicated natural beauty sections in 46 doors.
  • Target announced plans to expands its natural beauty selection, thanks to a double-digit percentage lift in sales last year.
  • CVS recently promised to remove chemical ingredients such as parabens and phthalates from approximately 600 of its in-house brands’ personal care products.
  • Birchbox saw between 10%-50% growth in the overall category over the last year, driven by more customers trying and sticking with the natural brands.
  • At Sephora natural skin care is growing fast. Growth in terms of searches is almost eight times higher and popular keywords include “organic,” “paraben-free,” and “vegan.”
  • Last year Ulta launched its own line of natural products.
  • Ulta natural buyers spend 80% more in total beauty than the average customer.
  • Kaen Grant of NPD Group identifies younger millennials (18-25) who are concerned primarily with environmental impact and an older generation (40 and up) focused on health benefits as two demographics that make up the strongest part of the clean beauty base.

For now, nimble indie brands have a competitive edge, but traditional brands are not sitting idly by—but cleaning up product formulations for large brands will not happen quickly. In the meantime, we’ll continue to see strategics acquire brands that embody the clean beauty ethos.

Karen Grant, global beauty industry analyst for the market research firm NPD Group, isn’t sure the natural movement will catch on with the majority of Americans who don’t have the means to spend $40 on blush. Still, she isn’t ready to say it’s a passing fad. “It’s still early, still a bit niche,” she says. “But I don’t think this is something that will disappear. It’s a way of life.”

Read the full article in Fast Company.

Photography: @chuttersnap via Unsplashed

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