As calls for progressive action to reduce environmental impact grow, one brand has appointed ‘Nature’ to its board of directors and provides insights to help others follow suit. Established names are unveiling new brands and production headquarters, while a new skincare entrant creates a coffee-focused brand that repurposes coffee grounds.;

In our bi-weekly roundup, we delve into all that’s new in the world of cosmetics and personal care. Here, we bring you the latest in news, insights and launches to give you everything you need to know about the exciting, innovative and ever-evolving beauty sphere.

Faith In Nature legally appoints ‘Nature’

Body and haircare brand Faith In Nature has officially appointed ‘Nature’ to its Board of Directors, marking a shift in the environment’s influence and impact on beauty decisions and operations.

In reaching this step, the brand teamed up with environmental and corporate lawyers to explore this principle, how it would work and implement the change. It has now amended its company constitution to include Nature as a director, which legally provides it with the same voting rights as any other company director.

By incorporating a legal ‘guardianship’ model, Faith in Nature will see Nature adopt a proxy role whereby a human legally bound to speak on behalf of the natural world acts for Nature, in a similar way to how a guardian acts on behalf of a child in legal courts. The brand’s decision is the extension, it states, of a growing legal precedent around environmental personhood — the attribution of legal rights to non-human entities — and strives to introduce a forward-thinking way for brands to lower their environmental impact.

Faith In Nature’s board representative position for Nature will be on rotation and will start with Brontie Ansell, Director and Co-Founder of Lawyers for Nature. The representative will have a committee of environmental experts on hand, the brand states, who will make the case on behalf of Nature for significant board decisions. The brand has open-sourced its legal process to promote how this works and encourage other businesses to do the same.

“Making Nature a Director is a tangible step that businesses can take to ensure that their operations take into account the rights and needs of the natural world,” says Grant Wilson at the Earth Law Centre.

Avon prepares for new R&D

The beauty business, renowned for building a network of global representatives, is set to launch new research and development (R&D) operations in Brazil and Poland.

Embarking on its latest expansion in the South American and European markets comes after Avon seeks to progress its global innovation programme and make considerable cost reductions.

Avon’s move into these two new markets will see the company close its R&D operations in New York, US. Following its closure and subsequent shift to Brazil and Poland, Avon hopes to prompt closer connections with its representatives and consumers. In addition, it wants to create communities throughout its supply chain operations and with the Brazilian-headquartered personal care cosmetics group Natura, which also has its existing R&D at the Cajamar site, where Avon will hold its operations.

Transferring its operations is part of Avon’s open-up and grow strategy, which strives to deliver sought-after and affordable beauty at value through an omnichannel, high-touch relationship-selling model.

“We believe this evolution of our R&D operations will give us access to a wider ecosystem of partners to drive our innovation pipeline,” says Angela Cretu, CEO of Avon.

Beauty report signals big changes in social media marketing

Amid economic uncertainty, the beauty industry has experienced increasing concerns over consumer fatigue, despite the space being perceived as affordable luxury, a new study by data research and insights company Launchmetrics shows.

Indicating the waning popularity of social media in beauty in the first half of 2022, the report states that “overall consumer engagement across social media has decreased year-over-year”. The study looked at 741 beauty brands, which collectively have $12.5 billion in media impact value (MIV) and 3.1 million placements. Launchmetrics developed its algorithm, MIV, to evaluate the impact of placements and mentions across brands in the industry.

The report found that Instagram and YouTube, while still the leaders in reach, show a decline in MIV year-on-year, signalling a shift in social media marketing. Beauty brands are seeing MIV growth using TikTok, specifically from shorter-format videos. TikTok increased beauty brands’ MIV by 176% in the period, while YouTube decreased this by 21%.

“The era of in-depth tutorials by beauty vloggers has passed,” said Launchmetrics. Looking at the beauty brands, the report found that longer-format videos, typically over ten minutes, perform best on YouTube and lifestyle videos made up many of the top videos and generated the highest MIV. TikTok showed the opposite, with the best-performing videos under one minute and featuring celebrities, influencers or entertainment content.

Amyris launches two new consumer brands

Synthetic biotechnology company Amyris is launching two new brands under its growing consumer portfolio. It has launched Stripes, a perimenopausal wellness brand founded in collaboration with Naomi Watts, and EcoFabulous, a clean, sustainable beauty brand designed for Gen-Z consumers that aims to provide high-performing colour cosmetics and skincare products at an accessible price point.

Promoting its Lab-to-Market technology platform, Amyris aims to move towards sustainable consumption through its new launches, which it is rolling out on Amazon in November, with physical retail store announcements to come.

Amyris’ latest launches represent the company’s ambitions to expand beyond its existing consumer brands in the hair, beauty, skincare, baby care and colour cosmetics categories, which include Biossance, JVN, Rose Inc., Pipette and Costa Brazil.

Italian coffee company enters skincare

Three sisters have taken their knowledge and experience of coffee and launched a new coffee-centred skincare brand, Amarey. Andrea Dominique, Jaqueline and Micaela Illy are three sisters whose curiosity into coffee began as part of the family of the Italian coffee company, Illycaffè.

With a focus on reducing waste, the sisters were inspired by family traditions spent repurposing excess and unused coffee grounds and using these in beauty rituals and coffee scrub products. After seeing the potential for the use of coffee in cosmetics items, the sisters began studying their properties.

In conceptualising and bringing its skincare name, Amarey, to market, the co-founders’ aim was to improve every part of the Coffea Arabica plant and replicate the advantages and appeal it shows in the beverage industry in the beauty world. The sisters also sought to produce a coffee-led line that moved from a linear business model to a circular one that takes waste and leftovers of coffee production and inputs it back into their beauty formulations.

Together with Illycaffè’s Università del Caffè academy and the Biofarma company, the sisters have developed their brand’s formulations. The products centre on regenerated Arabica coffee extract, flowers and powder. Amarey’s first collection comprises a face serum, face cream and a solid cleanser.

The brand has selected recycled glass packaging, where possible, and recycled plastic. Its secondary packaging comes from coffee silverskin, made from the cellulose leftovers of coffee bean roasting.

Amarey will launch a body scrub by the end of 2022 to add to its inaugural collection and currently has an eye cream formulation in development.

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