The post Organic Beauty & Wellbeing Week to launch in 2017 appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

Following the success of Organic Beauty Week in 2016, this year the event will move out from within the umbrella of Organic September and be an event on its own.

The event will have a new date in May, thus opening up the opportunity for organic beauty to touch two points in the year.

In 2016, Organic Beauty Week achieved its best ever reach, with 21 editorial placements in key media – a 200% increase on 2015 by number of placements and 19% up by total reach. There was an eight million social reach, and #organicbeautyweek had over 1,200 tweets and more than 800 posts on Instagram, and #lookforthelogo had over 50 tweets and more than 1,500 posts on Instagram.

Lauren Bartley, business development manager, health & beauty, Soil Association Certification, explained the move: “With increased consumer awareness and demand for organic beauty, we will be moving Organic Beauty Week out of Organic September and creating a dedicated week in the calendar year to Beauty and Wellbeing. Organic Beauty & Wellbeing week will take place in May 2017 as a pop-up shop for consumers, press and beauty buyers to learn about and shop for certified organic beauty and wellbeing in an experiential way.”

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The post Video interview: Jayn Sterland appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

Natural beauty: The shock of the not new

The beauty industry is in a state of perpetual reinvention, the need for constant innovation and ‘newness’ unquestioned. To some extent that’s true for the natural and organic beauty sector too.

But just how sustainable is that relentless quest for the new? Not very, according to Jayn Sterland, MD at Weleda UK.

In a special video interview, Sterland, a participant at last week’s Natural Beauty Roundtable, says: “A really well established beauty brand will only grow their business, in the main, through adding newness. So a lot of the really mature brands will spend all of their time, energy and effort, and their main marketing effort, talking about the ‘new new’.

“How is that sustainable? Why aren’t we looking at last year, or even ten years ago, or 20 ­– and getting it right first time. I work for a company that rarely innovates, and when we do innovate it might take us 10 years to have a product that we know works. So, working to trends isn’t how we work.”

Sterland acknowledges that “what retailers want is something new and exciting every day, to get shoppers to come through the door, or go online.”But she says it creates an “imbalance” that natural beauty brands need to reconcile. “The critical thing,” she says, “ is to make a product relevant today, even if – like Weleda’s Skin Food – it’s 90 years old”.

“Organic and natural is just about the purity of an ingredient, it’s nothing to do with the whole process of the business”

Elsewhere, Sterland calls on the natural beauty sector to speak with a unified voice and pull behind a single certifying body. And she says that the wider natural beauty debate “needs to elevate itself away from the natural versus organic question, and instead be asking how sustainable is what we’re doing?” She adds: “Organic and natural is just about the purity of an ingredient, it’s nothing to do with the whole process of the business.”

Sterland also argues that natural and organic beauty brands should work harder to appeal to mainstream consumers “because the more mainstream we can make sustainability, organic and natural the more good will come of it.”

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The post Nordic natural cosmetics sector experiences healthy growth appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

A new study by Organic Monitor has revealed that sales of organic and natural beauty products doubled between 2008 to 2014 in the Nordic region, and predicts that sales revenues will climb to €200 million in the coming years.

The largest market for natural cosmetics in the region is Denmark, where they comprise 4% of total sales of cosmetic and personal care products. One of the factors driving the market, says the report, is availability in a broader range of outlets, although health food stores still have the highest share of sales.

Organic Monitor also found that although imported brands are well established, Nordic brands are gaining market share, with Danish company Urtekram – which was the first brand to launch Cosmos-certified organic cosmetics in the region – being the market leader.

And certification is becoming increasingly important in the region, with consumers wanting the reassurance of ethical/environmental logos and symbols. The Nordic Swan is the most dominant symbol, recognized by more than 90% of consumers.

Natural Products Scandinavia, the Nordic trade show for natural health, nutrition, beauty and self care, takes place on 1-2 November 2015 in Malmö, Sweden.

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The post NATRUE reports success at Membership Assembly appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

NATRUE hosted its Membership Assembly in May when leading experts in the natural and organic cosmetics field gathered in Berlin to find about the organization’s development and discuss the challenges of the sector.

At the assembly 16 new Members were approved from around the world – ten from Germany, two from Turkey, one each from Italy and The Netherlands and two from Switzerland.

The first quarter of 2015 closed with almost 280 new NATRUE-certified products, taking the total to over 4,300 and confirming projections for a total of 1,000 newly certified products by the end of 2015.

NATRUE also reported increased interest from companies outside the EU – with 17% of brands now from outside the EU, up 2% on last year.

NATRUE’s visibility is also expanding, with plans for a new website unveiled at the assembly. Specially tailored content has been prepared – with new sections added for consumers, manufacturers and press – facilitating accessibility to information. New downloadable fact sheets on political, scientific and regulatory issues have also been introduced.

“Political presence in 2015 is even more important than it was when NATRUE was first founded,” concluded Klara Ahlers, NATRUE president. “The EU is working on several new regulatory issues. NATRUE is working as an advocate and ambassador for natural cosmetics and is the only cosmetic association active in all major and relevant bodies. In order for the necessary concerns about natural cosmetics to be heard, NATRUE ensures that facts are substantiated supplemented and incorporated into influential documents. Without NATRUE, certified natural cosmetics would have no voice in Brussels and consumers’ interests could not be defended”.

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The post UK organic beauty sales up 20% appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

The organic health and beauty sector delivered a standout performance in 2014 with UK sales of certified products reaching £44.6 million, up 20% year-on-year, according to the Soil Association’s Organic Market Report 2015.

Exports have also grown, according to the report, with export revenue topping £10 million for the first time. This growth has been particularly strong in Asian markets.

With increasing greenwashing in this sector, demand for reassurance through certification is also growing, and the number of companies employing the Soil Association symbol has risen to 204, up 51%, as “consumers look for the reassurance of organic certification in an unregulated market plagued by spurious organic claims”.

The report found that Neal’s Yard Remedies, the market leader in the health and beauty sector both internationally and in the UK, saw its organic sales increase by 12% in 2014. After opening a further ten stores, it now has 50 stores in the UK as well as 45 internationally.

The report also highlights Essential Care, which has rebranded as Odylique and whose exports are growing 50% year-on-year, and Pai Skincare which saw its sales double in 2014.

Consumer demands in this area are changing, according to the Soil Association, with customers looking for clinically proven results. “The leading organic brands are increasingly looking beyond the environmentally conscious core consumers that originally drove the market to appeal to a wider, less ideologically driven public looking for more natural products that work,” says the report.

The Soil Association report says that consumer education is at the core of the marketing strategies of the larger brands, citing Odylique and Pai as having information websites and Neal’s Yard Remedies helping raise awareness of the dangers of neonicotinoid pesticides.

A highlight of 2014 was the inaugural Organic Beauty Week which took place during Organic September and incorporated a range of events and product promotions which reached over four million people and helped deliver a tripling of week-on-week sales of organic beauty products during the week.

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The post Botanicals enhances formulations to meet COSMOS standards appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

Award-winning natural and organic skincare company Botanicals has enhanced its products to conform with the new European Organic Standard COSMOS.

COSMOS will come into effect after 31 December 2016 and bring together several European standards – BDIH (Germany), Cosmebio (France), Ecocert Greenlife (France), ICEA (Italy) and Soil Association (UK) – to form one internationally recognized standard.

Botanicals has now excluded the preservative phenoxyethanol in all its lotion-based products and used a higher percentage of organic ingredients to come into line with the new criteria, as well as improving the texture of its balms and cleansing melts for better absorption.

Company founder Wendy Stirling comments: “Sadly, current legislation allows the term ‘organic’ to be mis-used by companies that only include tiny amounts of organic ingredients in their formulations. The only way retailers and consumers can differentiate is to look for an organic certification symbol on the packaging.”

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The post Beauty Bites appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

Natural make-up brand benecos is increasing its distribution and is now available in Whole Foods Market stores. Graeme Hume from distributor Pravera Ltd said: “The benecos range is going from strength to strength in the UK and sales are up. We are definitely seeing an increase in demand for affordable natural and organic make-up from retailers and consumers.”

Faith Products has appointed Enzo Gallone as head of export sales. “We have such a strong core proposition,” commented Enzo, “and it is very much in demand across the world – we just need to find the right people, who share our passion for all things natural and eco-friendly, to partner and develop relationships with.”

Organic Monitor’s Consumer Insights report has found that parabens is the synthetic chemicals that most consumers look to avoid, stated by 63% of buyers, and awareness of all synthetic chemicals was seen to have increased significantly since 2007. Certification is becoming more important, according to the report, with 43% of consumers looking for symbols and logos when they buy beauty products, up from 33% in 2007, with most shoppers looking out for the Soil Association logo.

Male natural skincare brand Bulldog has been crowned ‘Small to Medium Business of the Year in the 2014 Natural Business Awards. “Scalable and saleable, Bulldog Skincare has successfully disrupted in a highly competitive marketplace,” said the judges.

UK eco-brand Barenaturals has teamed up with CLF as its national distributor for its vegan soaps, organic balms and natural skincare. Founder Darcy Croft commented: “Together we will be able to spread our wings and reach all those asking for our products further afield.”

UrbanVeda has won the Pure Beauty Award for Best New Natural Product for its Purifying Day Cream. The win represents its twelfth award placement in the 12 months since the company launched.

The latest feminine hygiene product from Organyc is its natural Intimate Wash which has a pH of 4.5 and contains a blend of organic ingredients including calendula and aloe vera.

Online beauty retailer LoveLula has scooped the prestigious Retail Innovation Award at the Pure Beauty Awards. It was praised for offering customers an unrivalled choice of natural, organic and ethically produced beauty products and for expanding the horizons of natural beauty in the UK.

New to shelves is Wassen Collagen drink, a supplement which aims to promote beauty from the inside out. The orange drink, which comes in sachet form, is designed to deliver essential nutrients to the dermis layer of the skin through the body’s blood supply.

Shea Mooti organic skincare brand for mums and babies is promoting its multi-award-winning range in the UK, Europe and the Far East with its new marketing partner Geometry Global with the goal of creating original and inspiring marketing campaigns to boost customer relationships.

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The post One life, one voice appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

Look around today and you’ll see a world in crisis. Divisive action in Syria and the Middle East, the news that British troops may be set to re-enter Iraq, and on the domestic front (at the time of going to print) Scotland is on the cusp of making history by voting for independence.

After more than 300 years as part of the United Kingdom, it looks like our Scottish cousins are set on breaking away for good. But while separation is on the cards for GB, it was a different story at the Natural Beauty Yearbook Round Table last month.

Held at Whole Foods Market in Fulham on the first day of Organic Beauty Week, key industry figures from the burgeoning world of natural beauty came together to discuss and dissect the latest topics and trends relevant to the natural beauty market. The subject of organic certification and its relevance to consumers was mulled over, as was the controversial presumption that all natural brands look to the multiples for shelf space. But throughout the course of the morning one resounding point repeatedly came to the fore, and that was for unified action from the industry as a whole.

It’s undeniable that huge progress has been made in the past ten years within product development, packaging, branding and the availability of ingredients that enables natural and organic beauty brands to stand toe-to-toe with mainstream cosmetic houses. Efficacy testing and scientific research is now avail-able as proof to the consumer that natural beauty products not only present their own benefits, but also deliver on results-driven consumer demands.

But while this may be true, and recognized by those in the know, it remains a complete unknown to the most important people of all: consumers. Brands, retailers, distributors and manufacturers need to be pulling together to present these findings in as simple a format as possible.

“We’re guilty of being too inwards facing,” said Tracey Robinson of Vert PR. “Yes we work in the industry, but we are all consumers as well.” Highlighting the fact that the industry is often guilty of preaching to the converted, it was agreed that the key messages, especially those that are actually of interest to the High Street shopper, need to be broken down and communicated to a wider demographic.

Yes, organic certification matters. Yes, it requires a lot of help, funding and marketing before it can be fully understood by customers, and retailers. And yes, we as an industry should be lobbying government to get organic beauty regulated. But the main reason customers buy organic beauty products is thanks to the lifestyle factor that they present – the ability to purchase a feel-good product. And as flimsy as that may sound, or as painful as it may be to accept the idea that sustainability, provenance and certification aren’t necessarily why many people buy organic beauty, it’s important to understand it.

Coming together as one voice to present our findings to a wider audience is one means of unification, but more importantly, retailers need to become united with their customers.

Julia Zaltzman is a freelance writer and editor of The Natural Beauty Yearbook

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The post Certifiably organic appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.

Walk into any department store in Europe and you’ll find yourself assaulted on all fronts by a dizzying array of cosmetic counters, a thick fog of chemically enhanced fragrance and over-zealous, commission-paid reps wearing painted-on Cheshire cat grins.

It’s enough to make you feel like you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and wound up in Alice’s not-so-Wonderland, especially when you throw in the price tag, ingredients and carbon footprint of some of the products on display.

So why not make a small change this year, and in exchange for being as mad as a March hare, try being as certified as a September bee?

That’s the aim of Organic Beauty Week, to create a buzz around its ‘Small Change, Big Difference’ campaign.

Taking place on 8-14 September it’s a celebration of organic beauty as a whole, with a spotlight on Soil Association certified brands.

Seeking to raise awareness of the many benefits associated with using organic beauty products, it also ties into the wider Organic September festival run by the Soil Association, which champions all aspects of organic living, from farming, food and drink, through to beauty, textiles and fashion.

Myriad events, promotions and partnerships are planned by a host of credible organic pioneers — both brands and retailers — but when it comes to communicating eveything that certification has to offer, it’s fair to say they’ve got their work cut out.

Organic health and beauty sales may have increased by 17 per cent last year, but there is still no legal regulatory body monitoring organic beauty. The COSMOS-standard, developed by the five leading European natural and organic standards organisations, remains very much in its infancy.

Described by the chief executive of the Soil Association Helen Browning as the “gold standard”, COSMOS has been developed to try and make sure there is an international voluntary regulatory framework to ensure the consumer is not misled, and have rigorous standards around beauty the way we do around food.

But when journos, PRs and industry insiders gathered at the Organic Beauty Week press launch in June it was unanimously agreed that it will take a concerted marketing campaign to successfully communicate the intricacies of COSMOS and all it has to offer, not to mention certification as a whole.

Whole Foods Market, one of the leading natural and organic retailers and an active participator in Organic Beauty Week took the significant decision in 2010 to remove all beauty brands from its shelves in the UK that make organic claims without being backed up by certification. Now that’s the type of change that is needed.

Retailers taking accountability away from the consumer and placing it on their own shoulders is one sure-fire way of making sure change happens. But in those four years since Whole Foods made its brave leap, how many other retailers have followed its lead?

So how about this September, in addition to offering up tasty organic in-store delights labelled ‘EAT ME’ and ‘DRINK ME’, why not hang a ‘CERTIFY ME’ label on all false organic beauty claimants, and ship them back to sender? One small change that is sure to make a very big difference.

Julia Zaltzman is a freelance writer and editor of The Natural Beauty Yearbook

The post Certifiably organic appeared first on Natural Beauty Yearbook.