Natural Beauty Products

natural beauty productsWhat is your New Year’s resolution? Perhaps, like many, you plan to exercise more and eat less processed food and more organic, whole food such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. If you are a woman, maybe you want to incorporate more natural and organic personal care products into your daily care regimen.

The average American woman uses a dozen personal care products every day, one reason women, on average, are exposed to 83 more unique ingredients on a daily basis than men. The younger a woman is, the more likely she is to look for natural cosmetics and other beauty products. In a survey by beauty brand Kari Gran, 75% of women aged 18-34 said that buying natural beauty products is important to them. Fifty-four percent of women aged 55-64 said the same.

The top ingredients that buyers of natural beauty products try to avoid are fragrances, parabens, phthalates, sulfates, and gluten. Meanwhile, cosmetics companies are incorporating ingredients such as green tea, jojoba, moringa, rice, and sea buckthorn, to name a few, into their products. Individually, these ingredients are promoted as detoxifying, moisturizing, hydrating, anti-aging, and rich in antioxidants.

Today’s market size shows the total sales of natural beauty products in the United States in 2017 according to Nielsen. Despite the growing demand for “clean” and “natural” beauty products, there are currently no regulations defining these terms. Worldwide, organic personal care product sales are expected to rise to nearly $25 billion by 2025.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2017
Market size: $1.5 billion
Source: Rina Raphael, “The Beauty Industry Goes Au Naturel,” Fast Company, October 2018.
Image source: mohamed_hassan, “cream-skin-care-cosmetics-lid-3521957,” Pixabay, July 2018 available online here.

Moroccan Argan Oil Hair Products

Some say it strengthens hair and tastes good drizzled on a salad. Moroccan argan oil is the latest new trend in the personal-care market. Argan oil is appearing in more and more products as one of the highlighted ingredients. Under fair trade production standards, dime-sized kernels from acorn-shaped nuts are extracted by hand by Moroccan women earning the equivalent of $4 a day. These kernels are then ground down and the oil extracted. The wholesale price of argan oil in 2011 was approximately $30 per liter while in beauty boutiques around the world, a liter of argan oil sells for around $400.

In 2012, Morocco exported 700 tons of the oil, twice that exported in 2007. Today’s market size is the number of hair products containing argan oil that were introduced in 2008 and 2012.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2008 and 2012
Market size: 29 and 588 respectively
Source: Matthew Boyle, “Cosmetics’ Hot Elixir: Argan Oil From Morocco,” Bloomberg Businessweek, July 25, 2013, available online here.
Original source: Mintel
Posted on August 6, 2013

Toiletries Market

Manufacturers of toiletries—that whole long list of things found in the bathroom for personal care: shampoo, deodorant, hand lotion, face crème, foot crème, toothpaste, perfume, hair mousse, etc.—saw robust growth over the period 1997 through 2007 but lost many of those gains between 2007 and 2009, a pattern repeated in so many industries.

Today’s market size is the size of the toiletries market as measured by U.S. manufacturers’ shipments in 1997, 2007, and 2009.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1997, 2007 and 2009
Market size: $24.3, $48.8 and $38.5 billion respectively
Source: 1997 Economic Census, 2007 Economic Census, and the 2009 Annual Survey of Manufactures.
Original source: U.S. Census Bureau
Posted on December 15, 2011