The future: New beauty trends and technology

The world is changing, and this time, the change is happening faster than ever before. The fourth industrial revolution, a term coined by Professor Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, is the current and upcoming leap, in which new technologies and trends, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the way we live and work. According to Schwab, this new leap is characterized by the speed of technological breakthroughs, their pervasiveness, and scope, which have a tremendous impact on every aspect of our lives – including the way we buy cosmetics, sparking exciting new beauty trends.

Looking towards 2030

As the fourth industrial revolution truly mainstreams in the coming years, the relationship between brands and consumers will shift just as dramatically as everything else does. If we can judge by observing recent new beauty trends, this shift will put the consumer in the driver’s seat – customers will dictate what they want to see from beauty and personal care companies and how they want to receive it.

Seismic changes we already see happening are making consumers move in opposite directions – their behavior is never binary, but the demographics are getting increasingly unreliable, as most people now fluctuate across a wide spectrum of behavior fueled both by emotion and information, that’s never been as readily available as it is now. This polarisation creates significant challenges for businesses, especially multinational companies who must navigate very different cultures and mindsets.

New beauty trends to expect

In 2030, brands will create products that heed new beauty trends for natural ingredients, as these will be wholly embraced by consumers who want both organic and sustainable production and, therefore, organic and sustainable products. These products will also feature waste-free claims –waste streams will enter the product development pipeline in response to sustainability trends. Packaging functionality will also be reinvented to reduce waste and to enhance the sensory experience of the consumer.

The ultimate goal is the promotion of a total wellness platform that will transcend categories. This means that the topical and internal products will be working synergistically to provide the total solution for the consumer.

But in this near future, brands will also need to create new services, services that will bridge beauty with technology. The ability to measure, monitor and integrate data will change consumer behavior, as they already wish to and need to integrate beauty products seamlessly into their lives, which are already entirely connected. Hand-in-hand with this comes virtual and augmented reality. They will need to be used in retail – paired with data and movement tracking – to enhance consumer experience and product interaction.

Also, as consumers switch from aging to longevity, and move towards emotional and mental aging, biohacking is becoming more and more popular. New cosmetics will need to understand this if they want to become essential for these future consumers.

How to win in this new playing field

Consumers are moving to a more minimal approach and they tend to make investments in high-quality, high-performing products. This leads to a less-is-more approach, creating less waste, reusing and upcycling wherever possible. So, keep it simple in every way. Simplicity will grow to encompass all aspects of beauty products, not just the ingredient listings. Product mix, access to information and supply chain will all follow suit and make it clear and simple in order to cater to the needs of an informed consumer.

Of course, an informed consumer still needs information, but a successful brand will also need to appeal on an instinctual level to provide the fullest possible story to the customer and to avoid potential misunderstandings. Brands will need to expand their understanding of biotechnology and explain how biotechnology can be used to create safe, functional products. If they want to thrive in this quickly approaching future, the brands will need to utilize the dramatic paradigm shifts that will affect the beauty industry.

At the forefront of this evolving new dermo-cosmetic science lies “Provital’s Bioimage and Bioinformatic Platform”. At Provital, thanks to their Bioimage and Bioinformatic Platform, they have developed in-house algorithms for image quantification, computational genomics, and machine learning, and we’ve also built a network of collaborations to access next-generation sequencers, high-throughput, and super-resolution confocal microscopes, as well as associations with unique European facilities. Provital’s Bioimage and Bioinformatic Platform provides an advanced approach that promises to unveil new efficacies for cosmetic products, keeping companies at the forefront of new beauty trends.