13 Trends Shaping the Face of Beauty in 2018

2017 was a banner year for beauty tech. From major beauty brands investing in augmented reality to an industry-wide push towards customized beauty products and experiences, technology-backed cosmetics brands will transform the sector in 2018.
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13 Trends Shaping 
the Face of Beauty 
in 2018
1
2017 was a banner year for beauty tech. From 
major beauty brands investing in augmented 
reality to an industry-wide push towards 
customized beauty products and experiences, 
technology-backed cosmetics brands will 
transform the sector in 2018.
On the product side, Rihanna’s Fenty line changed the conversa-
tion of inclusive beauty across the industry. Meanwhile, clean 
beauty products entered the mainstream with beauty becoming 
increasingly associated with health and wellness.
Despite a difficult retail environment, beauty is thriving and the 
number of brands in the space is exploding. 
Direct-to-consumer beauty brands, which saw the largest number 
of deals in 2017 across the industry, are chipping away at the 
market share of personal care incumbents who are responding 
with increased M&A activity, incubator and accelerator programs, 
new in-store technologies, and more.
What does 2018 and beyond have in store for the beauty industry?
From beauty devices integrating with the smart homes to 
genomics and biotech impacting cosmetics recommendations 
and R&D, we identified the most important beauty trends to look 
out for this year.
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1 Product Development
 » Mirror, mirror: smart cosmetics devices revolutionize thehome 
and beauty on-the-go
 » Beauty industry embraces crowd-led innovation
 » Big beauty brands try to incubate their own disruptors
 » The fast rise of male personal care & gender neutral makeup
 » J-Beauty is the next-gen East Asia beauty boom 
2 Manufacturing
 » Cosmetics à la carte
 » Beauty starts at the lab … and the farm 
3 Pricing & Distribution
 » Beauty pricing becomes transparent 
 » Beauty incumbents go direct-to-consumer
4 Marketing & Merchandising
 » Beauty learns viral merchandising
 » Beauty further integrates with fitness & wellness industries
5 Customer Experience
 » High-tech: the new makeup aisle
 » Unbundling of the spa & salon continues
6 Conclusion
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Product Development
1. Mirror, mirror: smart cosmetics devices 
revolutionize the home and beauty on-the-go 
As technology becomes further integrated into our everyday 
lives, smart home startups are creating a range of products and 
services aimed at making our homes safer, more efficient, and 
more connected than ever before.
Smart beauty devices are beginning to penetrate the home. Over 
the years, beauty brands large and small have introduced an 
assortment of high tech beauty devices. Recently, many of these 
devices offer consumers new ways to integrate their personal 
care routines into their homes using technology.
For example, the HiMirror, originally launched in 2016 by the New 
Kinpo Group, offers an Amazon Alexa voice-controlled smart mirror 
that offers beauty advice for users. The HiMirror integrates AI to 
offer a daily skin analysis and personalized recommendations as 
well as augmented reality to allow users to virtually try on makeup. 
3D scanning technologies can aid in personalized skincare 
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regimens in the home and on-the-go. Product design firm 
Cambridge Consultants has developed the Skintuition skin 
diagnostics platform while Neutrogena recently revealed the 
Neutrogena Skin360, a sensor-based skin scanning device with 
an accompanying app to measure a user’s skin over time. 
Beauty-focused devices can even make the home more relaxing 
for its inhabitants. For example, Moodo introduced a home IoT 
scent-diffusing machine that uses WiFi and Alexa integration to 
activate scent pods to keep the home smelling fresh. 
We could see unexpected players foray into home-based beauty 
devices. For example, Germany-based grocery store chain 
Lidl, which offers a private-label budget beauty line, recently 
announced a DIY face mask maker, which creates custom 
hydrogel face masks using collagen, fruit juice, milk, or yogurt.
Many of these devices could be used in smart homes as well as 
on-the-go including:
 » L’Oreal’s smart hairbrush, announced at CES 2017, that offers 
data-driven input for better haircare and brushing
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 » SalonLab Analyzer, a sensor-based handheld device that mea-
sures hair moisture, quality, and color
 » Foreo’s UFO face mask device that combines LED light therapy, 
cryotherapy, and vibrations in a 90-second treatment
It’s worth noting that many of these devices lock customers to 
its parent brand’s products. Smart beauty devices that provide 
brand-agnostic product recommendations could broaden the 
appeal of such products for consumers in the future. 
Some devices, like the Lidl Silvercrest face mask maker at £34.99, 
are in a more affordable price range and we could see them being 
integrated more widely across households in the near future. 
However, the cost of many of these products is largely prohibitive 
to many consumers (the Moodo smart scent diffuser is $189). 
As IoT and other technologies become more widespread, we 
ultimately expect to see beauty devices become more affordable 
and connected beauty routines become more mainstream across 
smart homes.
2. Beauty industry embraces crowd-led 
innovation
It’s no secret that today’s consumers increasingly seek 
transparency when it comes to their beauty products. By involving 
consumers in the ideation and product development process, 
beauty brands are solving for shoppers’ needs. 
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Crowd-led feedback, whether on a dedicated platform or social 
media, allows for a constant feedback-loop between consumers 
and brands. 
While personal care corporates have budget for large-scale 
market research initiatives, most startups don’t have that kind of 
budget and have employed crowd-led models to gather feedback, 
gain immediate consumer loyalty, and develop products in a more 
affordable, scalable manner. 
Crowd-led feedback is not a new phenomenon. Multicultural 
personal care products company Sundial Brands (acquired 
by Unilever in November 2017) embraced crowdsourcing of 
customer feedback to develop better products before it was a 
mainstream phenomenon. This led to the development of a line 
of Jamaican black castor oil products, which ended up becoming 
one of Sundial’s largest lines. 
Many of today’s high-momentum beauty brands such as Glossier, 
Peach & Lily, and Wander Beauty employ emails, surveys, online 
communities via social media, consumer product-testing, and other 
strategies to solicit feedback from customers on potential products.
Crowd-led models can also democratize beauty R&D. Founded 
in 2015, Volition Beauty is a fully crowdsourced beauty brand 
capitalizing on consumers who want to design their own cosmetics. 
The company offers a platform where anyone can submit ideas for 
beauty products and if an idea receives enough community votes, 
Volition works with top beauty labs to productionize those cosmetics. 
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Sephora also recently bet on this crowdsourced model by 
beginning to distribute a few of the brand’s best-selling products 
in select Sephora stores in August 2017. 
Beauty brands can also use the crowd to outsource customer 
service. Limitless Technology, which uses cloud-based mobile 
technology and AI, rewards a company’s brand ambassadors for 
on-demand customer service. Unilever Ventures has invested in 
the company, which currently works with three Unilever’s brands 
including haircare line TRESemmé. 
Communities that provide feedback and engage in R&D are 
enabling crowd-led models across the beauty industry. We expect 
to see more beauty brands use crowd-led methods and dedicated 
platforms to resolve customer questions, deliver product 
feedback, or develop personalized beauty products at-scale. 
3. Big beauty brands try to incubate their 
own disruptors 
Corporates are facing more competition than ever and with 
up-and-coming D2C beauty brands gaining market share, 
incumbents are pressured to develop compelling brands that can 
successfully compete. 
Often, it can be cheaper to incubate or accelerate new companies 
(that could serve as potential partners or acquisitions down the 
line) instead of developing in-house brands. 
Below we highlight a few beauty accelerators and incubators 
established by corporates that are displacing traditional R&D in 
cosmetics. 
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 » Kendo: Beauty brand incubator Kendo was started by former 
Sephora Americas CEO David Suliteanu in 2010 and is now 
part of LVMH’s Perfumes & Cosmetics groups. Kendo incu-
bates brands such as Fenty Beauty, Kat Von D, Marc Jacobs, 
and Bite Beauty that are ultimately distributed in Sephora along 
with other outposts. Kendo aims turn these brands into global 
beauty powerhouses. For example, the launch of Fenty Beauty 
by Rihanna in September 2017 launched an industry shift 
towards inclusive beauty.
 » Sephora Accelerate: Sephora Accelerate launched its first cohort 
in 2016 to help empower female beauty entrepreneurs, who are 
still largely underrepresented in the industry. Sephora offers 
nominal funding for 8 to 10 selected startups (must be invited 
to apply in the first place), which mostly covers travel expenses. 
The companies participate in a weeklong beauty bootcamp fea-
turing workshops, events, and mentorship (which continues after 
the week program) culminating in a final Demo Day. Though not 
all brands make it onto Sephora’s shelves (to-date, only organic 
skincare brand LXMI, essential oils company Vitruvi, and ethical 
fragrance brand The 7 Virtues are distributed in Sephora), the 
company offers continued mentorship and networking for these 
brands. The company just announced its 2018 cohort.
 » L’Oreal Founders Factory: With a strategic investment in London-
based digital accelerator Founders Factory, L’Oreal selects 5 
early-stage startups each year to integrate in its accelerator pro-
gram. These selected startups go through the Founders Factory 
program but also receive  additional mentorship and expertise 
from L’Oreal executives. L’Oreal selected 5 startups (seen below) 
to participate in its first cohort in January 2017. 
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4. The fast rise of male personal care & 
gender neutral makeup
While the mainstream media has historically targeted women 
when it comes to beauty and grooming products, increased 
options for men’s personal care products are emerging.
Personal care and pharmaceutical companies have been selling 
male-focused personal care products such as razors or hair loss 
prevention pills for over a century. However, many of today’s brands 
are employing direct-to-consumer distribution and refreshed 
packaging to attract a new generation of male consumers who 
approach masculinity differently than previous generations. 
Social media, including Instagram and YouTube, has enabled 
more communities and conversations around men’s grooming 
habits. For example, beauty brand Glamglow (which is famous for 
its face masks) has taken advantage of social media to engage 
men by using the hashtag #menwhomask accompanied by 
photos of men wearing the company’s products. The brand also 
has launched male influencer partnerships with the first official 
face of the brand — actor and model Nick Bateman.
“Boy beauty” and gender neutral makeup support this new market of 
male-focused beauty products. Companies like Asos, Calvin Klein, 
Yves Saint Laurent, Clinique, and others offer makeup for men 
while startups like Context and incumbent brands including MAC, 
Tom Ford, and Marc Jacobs have launched gender neutral makeup 
lines. To cater to this trend, beauty incumbents such as Maybelline 
and Covergirl have also announced male brand ambassadors. 
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Brands are not just including men but also making men their 
core target market. With the advent of subscription commerce 
for men’s personal care products, such as Dollar Shave Club and 
Harry’s Razor Company (which recently raised a $112M Series 
D tranche), we’ve seen increased focus on rebundling men’s 
personal care products. 
Since Unilever’s $1B acquisition of Dollar Shave Club in 2016 
(the largest acquisition to-date in the grooming sector), we’ve 
seen increased M&A of men’s personal care brands. For example, 
Integumen acquired Scottish skincare brand Stoer & Co in 2017. 
Edgewell has also stepped up its activity with acquisitions 
of men’s grooming and skincare company Bulldog Skincare 
Holdings (2016) and most recently, men’s luxury skincare brand 
Jack Black (2018).
Beyond shaving, startups are reimagining the conversation 
around hair loss for men. Hims produces a suite of haircare 
products and supplements designed to prevent hair loss for men. 
The company just received a $40M Series A round in March 2018 
from Institutional Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures.
Personal care brands are also expanding options for men of color 
(leaning into the beauty industry’s push for inclusive cosmetics). 
Walker & Company Brands, which has raised over $33M in equity 
funding, offers the Bevel shaving system, which sells direct-to-
consumer razors geared towards men of color. Other brands are 
gaining traction including Frederick Benjamin, another shaving 
brand geared towards men of color, which began selling at beauty 
chain Ulta in February 2018. In South Asia, Delhi-based Bombay 
Shaving Co., which has seen over $3M in funding, is developing a 
shaving system for Indian men. 
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We expect to see more D2C brands focus on men’s personal care 
products, especially those for men of color in aligning with the 
inclusive beauty trend.   
5. J-Beauty is next-gen East Asia beauty 
boom 
K-beauty hit the United States in 2011 when Sephora began carry-
ing Korean skincare brand Dr. Jart+. Since then, Western shoppers 
have clamoured for Korean beauty products. E-commerce 
platforms such as Peach & Lily and Soko Glam along with 
brick-and-mortar retailers like Sephora —  and now Walmart and 
Target — carry K-beauty products.
While K-beauty shows no signs of slowing down, other countries 
in Asia — Japan in particular — are beginning to garner attention 
for their beauty products. In 2018 and beyond, we will see 
J-beauty capture increased consumer, retail, and investor 
attention. 
What’s influencing this focus on Japan’s beauty segment? 
According to the International Trade Administration, Japan has 
the highest per capita spending on cosmetics despite very strict 
regulations (Japan’s Ministry of Health & Welfare only recently 
authorized its first product to be labelled as “anti-wrinkle”). The 
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country has strong beauty traditions that emphasize rituals, sim-
ple regimens with multi-purpose products, and skin-supporting 
foods, which are seen across the Japanese diet and beauty 
products, which often include ingredients such as seaweed, green 
tea, rice, and more. 
Beauty, health, and wellness are embedded in Japanese culture 
and many consumers are attracted to Japanese beauty products 
due to some consumers’ perception of it as a minimalistic, 
luxurious approach to beauty.
Western consumers are already consuming J-beauty products. 
For example, luxury beauty brand Tatcha, which distributes in 
Sephora, offers a skincare line inspired by the traditional geisha 
beauty rituals. We’re also beginning to see increased buzz around 
J-beauty brands such as SK-II and DHC in the United States. 
J-beauty brands could bring more tech to the beauty industry as 
well. Japan has a history of cosmetic innovation having pioneered 
areas such as oil cleansing (which L’Oreal-owned Shu Uemura 
introduced in the 1960s), stem cell-based beauty, cosmetics 
devices, and more. 
Shiseido’s investment and patent activity point to increased 
beauty tech capabilities in the future. The Japanese cosmetics 
company acquired two AI startups last year – MatchCo and 
Giaran – that scan selfies and offer personalized products and 
tips, supporting mobile sales. 
Shiseido’s patents show continued efforts to design new skin 
cosmetics. In one 2017 patent, Shiseido describes technology to 
analyze video images and determine the subject’s skin condition. 
Shiseido has even patented “artificial skin,” which could be used 
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for testing skin pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. According to 
the patent, Shiseido’s method improves on previous artificial skin 
types by increasing communication between the dermis and the 
epidermal basement membrane.
While some argue that country-based beauty could be more of 
a marketing play and feed into exoticizing non-Western cultures, 
greater media attention and increased J-beauty exports to the 
West indicate new opportunities for Japanese beauty brands to 
target new markets. 
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Manufacturing
6. Cosmetics à la carte
Though personalization is not a new phenomenon, we’re seeing 
beauty brands adopt new technologies to cater to individuals’ 
cosmetics preferences. 
While Function of Beauty ($9.6M in total disclosed funding) 
and Prose ($7.6M) have gained attention for their personalized 
shampoos and conditioners, skin tech brands are increasingly 
incorporating AI and other technologies for personalized skincare 
recommendations. 
Proven ($4.7M) uses data from the world’s largest beauty 
database and machine learning algorithms to personalize 
skincare products while HelloAva ($300K) has launched a chatbot 
to guide users through a quiz to determine user-specific skincare 
recommendations. Beyond the use of AI, Curology ($19.1M) 
offers a telemedicine-based approach to dermatology by sending 
custom prescriptions and relying on patient photos to measure 
progress over time. 
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Corporates are betting on personalized beauty as well. For 
example, L’Oreal’s Founders Factory invested in customized, 
natural skincare brand InsitU in 2017. 
LOLI Beauty ($610K) is pioneering a new strategy, translating the 
meal kit model to the beauty world to put personalization in the 
hands of consumers. Subscribers receive monthly boxes of ingre-
dients, along with instructions to make their own beauty products. 
This model could see continued momentum, as it unites the trends 
of personalization, subscription, and transparent ingredients.
Genomics is also beginning to personalize beauty recommenda-
tions. While mainstream gene testing companies are offering skin 
assessments such as Pathway Genomics’ SKin IQ, companies 
are beginning to offer beauty-focused DNA kits. SkinGenie uses 
genomics and AI to provide risk predisposition scores to specific 
skincare traits and curated product recommendations based on 
a user’s genome. SKINSHIFT offers a DNA test with customized 
product recommendations from the company’s line of skincare 
products. 
In the future, consumers will expect customized beauty on a more 
frequent cadence. Romy Paris has developed a device, dubbed 
the Figure formulator, that blends daily personalized serums 
with an accompanying mobile app that coaches users based on 
environmental factors, sleeping habits, and more to provide daily 
recommendations and regular reports. 
Though 3D printing hasn’t played a mainstream role in beauty 
manufacturing just yet, we have seen early experiments such 
as Mink’s 3D printed customized makeup and Smashbox’s 3D 
printed lipsticks back in 2016. 
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Corporate patents point to the role of additive manufacturing 
for beauty products in the future. For example, L’Oreal patented 
a connected 3D printer, which could capture visual data from 
shoppers at home, identify skin tones, and print custom makeup 
blends. Such systems that interlay multiple technologies could 
help expand personalization options.
While turnaround time is a concern for current customization 
initiatives, the beauty industry will continue experimenting to 
integrate these technologies for custom manufacturing of beauty 
products. 
7. Beauty starts at the lab … and the farm
With an increase in beauty products featuring organic and plant-
based ingredients, interest in plant-based ingredients is sweeping 
across both food and beauty. Ingredients trending in food brands, 
including turmeric, moringa, coconut oil, and probiotics, are being 
integrated by beauty brands, and vice versa. 
As the line between food and beauty products thins, we expect 
to see beauty brands explore agriculture technology and partner 
more closely with farmers for ingredient sourcing. 
Ingredient sourcing is a major concern for beauty brands, 
especially ones focused on natural products. Weather, soil, wind, 
and other factors can make working with raw, natural ingredients 
difficult. Popular beauty ingredients such as jojoba oil, rosehip oil, 
and others have faced global crop shortages, putting brands that 
rely on those ingredients at risk. 
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We are beginning to see the seeds of agtech and beauty’s 
convergence on a mainstream level. Agtech innovations such as 
next-gen farms (which are weather independent and could help 
insulate crops from potential supply chain shocks of centralized 
farms), farm management software, and robotics could aid in 
sustainable ingredient sourcing and increase speed-to-market for 
key ingredients in beauty products.
Many natural beauty brands are already employing vertical 
integration by working with and basing their businesses on farms, 
which can function as labs to test ingredients and natural technol-
ogies. Popular natural beauty brands such as Juice Beauty, Tata 
Harper, Beekman 1802, and others are furthering the farm-to-face 
movement by renting or buying farms to better evaluate and 
control the ingredient production process. Biodynamic beauty, 
which emphasizes farm conservation, is beginning to take off, 
which could increase the standards for organic beauty products. 
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Indie brands are beginning to work directly with farms and 
agriculture research firms to improve ingredient sustainability 
and develop new ingredients. For example, jojoba-infused luxury 
organic skincare line Ogee, which is working towards becoming 
a certified B Corp, offers a percentage of its sales to the Organic 
Farming Research Foundation to increase resources for bringing 
more organic crops to beauty ingredients. Another brand, New 
Zealand-based Te Mana Skincare, has partnered with AgResearch 
to develop a merino wool collagen protein that reportedly offers 
exfoliating and softening properties in its beauty products.
We could begin to see more beauty brands converge with farming 
and agriculture and consumer desire for transparency of beauty 
products to engage with customers via agro-tourism. Lily Farm 
Fresh Skincare, for example, just announced that it will make its 
farm center and USDA-approved skincare laboratory available 
for public viewing to help consumers understand the beauty 
production process as well as interact with the farmland where its 
ingredients are grown. 
Even beauty incumbents such as L’Oreal have begun 
partnering more closely with with farmers. The company’s 
Seed Phytonutrients haircare brand, set to launch in April 2018, 
supports independent American organic farmers and uses 
sustainable packaging. We could see personal care incumbents 
increase their partnerships with the agriculture industry to 
develop organic beauty lines. 
Beyond agtech, biotechnologies will further impact the production 
of future beauty ingredients. With the increased traction we’ve 
seen from lab-grown meat companies such as Memphis 
Meats, MosaMeat, SuperMeat, and others, we expect to see 
bio-engineered beauty ingredients follow a similar trajectory.
Companies bioengineering new food sources through cell 
cultures, fermentation, and genetic editing have been exploring 
initial cosmetics use cases. 
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For example, unicorn Ginkgo BioWorks ($436M in total disclosed 
funding), which designs custom microbes for clients, has 
genetically engineered fermentation of yeasts to produce rose 
oil with new and unique scents without relying on expensive 
rose petals. Vegan gelatin producer Geltor also claims to serve 
cosmetic markets.
CRISPR’s gene editing technology, while still nascent, could play 
a huge role in beauty ingredient production in the future. Though 
no concrete beauty use cases for the technology exist today, 
potential benefits of the technology include helping farmers 
grow pathogen-resistant crops or creating new species of plants. 
Such benefits could translate to the production of ingredients for 
natural cosmetics. 
However, future cosmetics’ use cases are on the horizon. The 
USDA has approved the first CRISPR-edited plants, which could 
usher in gene-edited foods, and ultimately beauty products. 
Launched in 2011 by CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna, Caribou 
Biosciences is a key CRISPR-Cas technology startup founded 
for non-therapeutic research purposes across various industries. 
The company has noted potential new bio-based materials use 
cases “from fragrances and flavors to industrial cleaning and 
transportation.” Beyond fragrance, we could potentially see 
CRISPR technology use cases expand to gene-edited ingredients 
across makeup, skincare, and haircare products. 
The organic beauty movement will lend itself to more crossover 
between cosmetics, agriculture, and biotechnology as beauty 
brands seek to produce more nutrient-rich beauty products.
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Pricing & Distribution
8. Beauty pricing becomes transparent
When Birchbox launched back in 2010, its subscription 
e-commerce model upended the way consumers discovered and 
shopped for beauty products online. Today we are seeing new mod-
els beyond beauty subscription e-commerce emerge as shoppers’ 
demand for cosmetics transparency is at an all-time high. 
Deciem’s cult skincare brand The Ordinary emphasizes 
hyper-transparency, which manifests in both its ingredients and 
pricing. The Ordinary offers highly affordable skincare, with 
products often named after featured ingredients, with consumers 
often using a few or more products in a regimen. As the company 
uses established, science-backed ingredients that are cheap to 
manufacture, it is able to drive the price of products down to be 
inexpensive (e.g. $5 to $20 range).
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Consumer desire for transparency is inspiring new models for 
delivering quality cosmetics minus markups. BeautyPie offers 
a monthly beauty membership that advertises itself as “luxury 
beauty at factory cost prices.” Customers pay $10 a month to 
buy unbranded beauty products at factory cost. For example, a 
customer would pay $5.38 for a cleanser instead of paying $32 
for the retail cost. Members can purchase up to $100 total in 
retail value of products in a month.
BeautyPie is not the only company producing unbranded products. 
Public Goods ($840K in total disclosed funding) employs a similar 
model to BeautyPie, with a whole line of bath and beauty products 
in its overall household goods assortment. Online-only CPG brand 
Brandless ($52.5M), which offers a limited range of products at 
$3 each, recently launched basic beauty products in October 2017 
including a facial cleanser, shampoo, lip balm, and more. 
We will see more beauty lines emphasize transparency, which will 
be reflected in beauty lines’ “brandless” ethos and pricing. 
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9. Beauty incumbents go direct-to-consumer
Direct-to-consumer beauty brands have been chipping away at the 
market share of beauty corporates. Personal care corporates are 
biting back by acquiring high momentum brands or incorporating 
D2C into their own business models. 
The end of 2017 saw significant M&A activity in beauty with 
personal care giants focusing on inclusive and natural beauty 
products. 
Unilever has particularly focused on ethnic markets indicated 
by its acquisitions of K-beauty brand Carver Korea in September 
2017 and aforementioned Sundial Brands in November 2017. Both 
Unilever and P&G acquired natural deodorant brands (Schmidt’s 
Naturals and Native, respectively) in December 2017. P&G, which 
sold the majority of its specialty beauty business to Coty in 2016, 
most recently bought New Zealand-based prestige skincare brand 
Snowberry. Other incumbents like Coty (which took a corporate 
majority in Younique in January 2017) and L’Occitane (which took 
a corporate majority in natural beauty line Limelight by Alcone in 
January 2018) have also ramped up their activity. 
Beyond acquisitions, incumbents are launching other D2C 
initiatives. For example, Unilever has launched a number of 
new brands in the last year to compete with direct-to-consumer 
personal care startups. 
These brands range across the spectrum of distribution channels 
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including fully direct-to-consumer personalized skincare 
subscription Sensei (currently in beta); ApotheCARE Essentials, 
which offers limited e-commerce and in-store distribution; and 
Love Beauty and Planet, launched at a much wider scale with 
grocery, drug store, and specialty beauty distribution. These new 
brands target consumers seeking natural beauty products and 
emphasize sustainability.
Acquisitions will continue to proliferate and beyond personal care 
corporates, we could see major players from other industries snap 
up beauty startups. Beauty incumbents will also continue pursuing 
D2C initiatives as they attempt to address gaps in their portfolios 
and better compete with independent cosmetics brands. 
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Marketing & Merchandising
10. Beauty learns viral merchandising
While companies like Mary Kay and Avon pioneered the peer-to-
peer selling model, they’ve since struggled to capture modern-day 
shoppers.
However, social sales models are seeing a resurgence. For 
example, Glossier’s online-only representative program, which 
reportedly has around 500 reps, features landing pages for 
each rep to promote and sell Glossier products. Similarly, 
BeautyCounter, which doesn’t spend budget on traditional 
advertising, relies on its network of independent consultants to 
sell products. 
Billion dollar beauty brands are employing social sales as a core 
part of their merchandising strategy. Younique (acquired by Coty 
in January 2017) uses a digital selling model which includes 
personal e-commerce sites for sellers, online selling “parties,” and 
more while Rodan + Fields employs before-and-after selfies and 
social media to attract sales. 
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Beauty retailers are also capitalizing on social media platforms to 
drive sales. Sephora has  experimented with Instagram shopping 
where users can view Instagram Stories, which turn into shoppa-
ble posts and within a few clicks, are redirected to the original site 
where they can make a purchase. Smaller beauty brands are also 
taking advantage of their strong social media communities by 
selling their products via Instagram shopping. 
Influencer marketing also plays a large role in the beauty industry. 
Startups like Reelio, Mavrck, and Popular Pays that connect 
brands with influencers have worked with companies such as 
Clinique, Ulta Beauty, Unilever, and others.
Big beauty brands are even developing programs designed to 
attract up-and-coming beauty influencers. Conde Nast-owned 
beauty magazine Allure partnered with Coty-owned Covergirl 
to launch “Allure Incubator.” While not a traditional incubator 
focused on developing startups, the program pits aspiring influ-
encers against each other until one is chosen to join Covergirl’s 
influencer network Covergirl Collective. 
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We expect to see more beauty brands adopt these models as well 
as new viral merchandising strategies in the future.
11. Beauty further integrates with fitness & 
wellness industries
Beauty products and experiences are increasingly being 
associated with health, fitness, and wellness. 
For boutique fitness studios, post-workout beauty products are 
becoming just as important as the workouts themselves. Many 
studios have partnered with luxe beauty lines to offer attractive 
amenities, which can attract increased customer attendance. 
Barry’s Bootcamp, for example, offers products from luxury 
haircare line Oribe in its locker rooms. 
Evidence of fitness and beauty’s convergence is evident in the 
active beauty category, which originally offered sweat-proof 
makeup designed to be worn while exercising and now has 
expanded to beauty products that emphasize post-workout 
benefits of cleaning up and calming down. This rise of “athleisure 
beauty” has spurred a new crop of beauty brands such as 
Sweat Cosmetics, Birchbox’s Arrow line, Rae Cosmetics, and 
others. Incumbents such as MAC, Tarte, and Clinique have 
evolved to offer dry shampoos, sweat-proof mascaras and tinted 
moisturizers, and more. 
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As beauty brands cater to consumers’ exercise regimens, fitness 
brands are also beginning to foray into beauty. For example, 
ClassPass has recently been experimenting with on-demand 
beauty and wellness offerings including infrared saunas, 
cryotherapy, and beauty services including massages and facials.
Partnerships have seen traction with high-momentum beauty and 
fitness brands promoting each other’s products and experiences. 
For example, cult beauty brand Glossier and luxury fitness chain 
Equinox are partnering to offer Equinox members Glossier 
product discounts within Equinox’s app as well as sell Glossier 
products after hosting Equinox workout classes for members.
Beauty and wellness are also converging. As beauty becomes 
increasingly associated with gut health, what we put in our 
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bodies becomes just as important as what we put on our bodies. 
Celebrity-launched beauty lines such as Gwenyth Paltrow’s 
Goop and Miranda Kerr’s Kora Organics emphasize the wellness 
benefits of their beauty products. 
While beauty supplements aren’t a new concept, there is a 
renewed emphasis as startups are offering suites of vitamins and 
supplements that promise beauty benefits such as weight loss, 
clearer skin, and stronger hair.  
Beauty retailers such as Sephora and Ulta distribute beauty-fo-
cused vitamins and supplements. Sephora, for example, sells 
products from Hum Nutrition ($7.5M), which offers personalized, 
nutritionist-designed vitamins, as well as from Moon Juice, which 
offers adaptogenic beauty powders focused on hair and skin. 
Investors have recently backed other new vitamin startups 
that focus on hair and skin, including Vital Proteins, as well as 
luxury-focused vitamins and supplement startups such as The 
Nue Co. and WelleCo (which raised a private equity financing 
round in February 2018).
We expect to see increased crossover between beauty, health, 
wellness, and fitness with major players from these industries 
beginning to play in these adjacent sectors. 
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Customer Experience
12. High-tech: the new makeup aisle
With the overwhelming number of cosmetics brands today, the 
in-store experience for beauty retailers is crucial in helping 
consumers discover new cosmetics and ultimately drive sales.
Sephora, in particular, has pioneered a variety of in-store 
technologies for beauty retail to draw foot traffic including digital, 
interactive screens that suggest products and teach customers 
new makeup tricks, Color IQ facial scanning to help customers 
find the perfect skin tone match, and even a touchscreen to let 
visitors smell scents for fragrance.
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In-store technologies can help increase customer engagement 
with brands as well as boost in-store and mobile sales. Beauty 
retailers are partnering with startups to drive such in-store 
interactions. Companies like Perch, Vengo Labs, and Ksubaka 
offer interactive digital displays to attract shoppers while 
NewStore powers apps for brands that offer in-store capabilities 
for personalization and omnichannel shopper tracking, among 
other features. 
Shopper tracking technologies can also increase mobile sales 
and conversion rates. Smashbox partnered with ModiFace for 
eye tracking insights of customers to heat map where areas 
on a screen are receiving more attention by users. This helps 
Smashbox understand which features users are the most inter-
ested in and iterate on its website to make the beauty shopping 
experience more seamless for consumers. 
Augmented reality became mainstream in the beauty industry in 
2017. Perfect Corp and ModiFace, which both offer virtual try-on 
technology for beauty brands, established themselves as the 
go-to providers of augmented reality for the beauty industry and 
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work with top cosmetics brands including Sephora, Estee Lauder, 
and L’Oreal. Both companies combine augmented reality and AI to 
let shoppers virtually try on different looks, while simultaneously 
collecting behavioral data for brands. 
In 2018, we are seeing beauty applications for augmented reality 
expand beyond trying on makeup. L’Oreal recently worked with 
ModiFace to add an augmented reality feature to its “Style My 
Hair” app that helps consumers visualize what their hair will look 
like after a coloring treatment. Benefit Cosmetics (owned by 
LVMH) partnered with ModiFace to launch an augmented reality 
tool to help users try on different brow types before getting waxed 
or plucked. 
Though most attention has gone towards augmented reality 
applications, virtual reality could also play a bigger role in the 
beauty industry moving forward. 
NYX Professional Makeup recently partnered with Samsung to 
launch an in-store VR experience to virtually connect consumers 
with beauty gurus. Japan-based Vaqso ($600K in total disclosed 
funding) produces clips for VR headsets that emit scents related 
to the VR content, thereby enabling multisensory VR experiences. 
We could see the technology’s application extend to fragrances.
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Beyond in-store experiences and revenue drivers, these 
technologies could be further employed for beauty education and 
training. Estee Lauder partnered with Perfect Corp to launch the 
“Estee Lauder Augmented Reality Training” to train its global sales 
associates. The company uses technology to host live monthly 
training sessions for its sales staff to cover new products or 
makeup application tips. 
13. Unbundling of the spa & salon continues
Beauty services are decoupling from the traditional institutions of 
spas and salons thanks to on-demand technologies. 
Founded in 2008 and with over 90 locations today, Drybar 
($97.7M) was an early salon upender by offering salons solely 
devoted to hair blowouts. Beyond hair care, companies like 
Heyday, The Ritualist, and SkinLaundry offer on-demand facials 
while startups such as Glamsquad send stylists directly to peo-
ple’s homes or offices for makeovers, hair styling, or manicures.
Personal care incumbents and and retailers are betting on beauty 
experiences as well. 
Unilever Ventures and UK-based retailer Debenhams invested 
in on-demand beauty platform Blow. Debenham’s investment in 
particular, which supports our trend of retail, fitness, and beauty 
merging together, aligns with the struggling retailer’s new strategy 
and will bring Blow “bars” into its stores.
Following our trend of beauty devices integrating with the smart 
home, we are beginning to see  many of these beauty services 
being unbundled, from spas to salons, and experienced in 
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consumers’ homes. 
Corporate patents point to this trend. AmorePacific filed a patent 
for a “face massaging device” that can “provide various massage 
functions...similar to massage carried out by human hands” to 
prevent aging and improve skin elasticity. Such devices could 
potentially point to a future of at-home spa and salon services.
Unbundled beauty services will proliferate and allow consumers 
to access beauty services outside of traditional environments and 
in the comfort of their own homes. 
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Conclusion
Beyond these major industry trends, the beauty industry is 
beginning to see greater regulatory scrutiny amidst increased 
“greenwashing” across the sector (where brands claim their 
products are organic or natural when such may not be the case), 
and a greater consumer desire for transparency when it comes to 
beauty products.
Introduced in May 2017, the Personal Care Product Safety Act 
would give the FDA more power to regulate ingredients and ban 
toxins in cosmetics and personal care products. On the state 
level, California recently introduced a bill dubbed the California 
Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act that would forbid importing any 
animal-tested cosmetics brands into the state after 2020. We 
expect these regulations to force both personal care incumbents 
and smaller beauty brands to rethink their approach to cosmetics 
formulation, especially when it comes to natural-labeled products. 
Similar to how consumers are seeking greater health benefits, 
transparency, and sustainability from their food, beauty shoppers 
are looking for the same benefits in their cosmetics. 
And so, beauty brands are increasingly becoming tech-enabled. 
Technologies including AI, 3D printing, and perhaps even 
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blockchain, are and will continue to make the beauty product 
lifecycle more efficient and personalized for consumers. 
Between these short-term pressures and long-term changes, the 
beauty industry will be an exciting space to watch in 2018 and 
beyond.