What sparked your interest in the beauty industry?
I have a long-standing research interest in both branding and globalization. However, I was really alerted to the beauty industry as the subject for a major book when I was invited to write a history of a major European consumer products company. This company, which made detergents and food products, sought to diversify into beauty after World War II. Beauty as such did not exist as an industry then – it was called “toilet preparations” – so this firm went round the world collecting any data it could find, and trying to assess its growth prospects. They discovered an industry that was already big, and growing fast every year, led by the giant American market. This particular company went on to spend over four decades trying to build a presence in beauty before it made some key acquisitions.
I learned not only that the industry was big, but also that it contained major challenges which even the biggest and best-managed corporations struggled to overcome. As I explored this story, I discovered that there were legions of books about the industry, but very few of them indeed took beauty seriously as a business. I resolved to try and fill this gap and as I travelled the world doing research, I fell in love with the industry and its people. I wanted to give them a history of where they had come from, which hopefully would provide them with a strong basis to see where they could go forward.
Europe is often considered the epicenter of the beauty industry. Do you see that paradigm shifting over the next 100 years?
One of the key points of the book is that things we take as normal today are in fact contingent on time. The status of French perfume, and Paris as the capital of fashion and chic beauty, provides one example. France’s status as a luxury capital emerged in the seventeenth century. However it was not really cemented until the mid-nineteenth century – England was a bigger producer of perfumes earlier in that century. Paris and France have retained status ever since, for sure, but there have been times when creativity weakened sharply, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile that same era saw the remarkable growth of American prestige fragrances, led by pioneers like Estée Lauder and Charles Revson, and by the transformation of the New York fashion industry, as designers such as Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein began attracting global acclaim.
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Rather than saying that the best brands come from Europe, it’s more appropriate to say that we have alternative visions of beauty – New York epitomized accessibility, while Paris represented style and complexity. There is an enormous amount of linkage between Paris and New York in terms of creative talent and corporate networks. Beauty is about aspiration, creativity and quality. Looking forward one hundred years, there is no reason that either Europe or the United States will retain a monopoly on any of these factors. Brazil is a major fragrance consumer and has wonderful local companies such as Natura. India, also a traditional perfume consumer, has emergent fashion and art sectors, and some promising local companies, such as Forest Essentials, in which Estée Lauder recently took an equity stake. If current economic trends continue, it is hard to imagine that other aspirational beauty capitals will not emerge in one or more of the emerging markets. On the other hand, it is less clear if it will take ten or fifty years for this to happen.
In recent years, tube lipstick and liquid foundation have declined in popularity as consumers have moved to wearing lip-gloss and powder compact foundation. Do you see the trend shifting back to lipstick in the tube or liquid face foundation in the near future?
It is always more of an art than a science to predict fashion shifts. While powder compact foundation is still going strong, the lip gloss craze may already be waning. In the long run, trends typically fade. It’s just the way fashions work in the industry. Before the past decade of the lip gloss trend, the gloss thing was a rather adolescent and even pre-adolescent habit. At this point, after a decade of high-end brands making lip gloss look great on, say, a Prada model, I see it devolving back to its teen roots.
I also discern some decline in fashion circles in the wet-lipsticks in tube that were also popular in the past decade. As for powder foundation, I suspect they are destined to be shoved aside by the newish foundations that aim to give a powdery look, but are in fact liquid with light-diffusing ingredients that give the look of powder.
One of the most amazing stories in the history of the beauty industry over the course of the last century has been the transformation in its status. We started the early twentieth century with lipstick, hair coloring and many other products still regarded by most Americans as morally disgraceful. Yet by the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, the government declared the production of lipstick as a wartime necessity, equivalent to explosives.
Beauty was acknowledged as a necessary part of the war effort, at least in democracies. In contrast, Nazi Germany and Japan both reduced cosmetics production to close to zero. The story has continued ever since. Access to cosmetics is regarded as a fundamental human right in a democracy, even in war. It has been repressive regimes, like China’s Mao Zedong which repressed the business. Even as the nation remains at war, the industry and its advertising machine can be expected to continue to boom, although without doubt catastrophes such as September 11 affect consumer moods and shape sentiments.
In your book, you discuss how to start a beauty brand on a shoestring budget. In the past decade, we have seen beauty brands launch, get really hot very fast and then fade. What advice would you give someone who is launching a new beauty brand?
Most start-ups in every industry fail. And the beauty industry is perhaps the most unforgiving industry of all. It is not at all surprising that most promising launches end up disappointing. Indeed, in some ways it is the number of successes that is more surprising. We know that even the big prestige brands lose money year after year. The United States is one of the world’s most difficult markets in this respect.
Within this context, the most important advice I could offer for someone starting a beauty brand now is, first, to focus on using the internet for public relations, distribution and consumer research. It has leveled the playing field in the space of five years, and is disrupting traditional methods and channels.
Second, be disciplined in your product line-up. There are so many niche brands because the barriers to entry are so low that it's hard to cut through the clutter. Cultivate your hero items, find your consumer, what appeals to them about your brand and what their needs are, and then grow your line.
The recent remarkable roll-out of TATCHA Aburatorigami facial blotting paper in the United States, and now globally, is a striking example of the merits of focus and discipline in the beauty industry, as well as sophisticated use of electronic media.
What are some of your favorite products?
There are so many great products out there that it is harder than ever to choose a favorite. I like to experiment. I am currently using Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream, and I am also a great fan of their Facial Fuel with SPF 15 sunscreen, especially as the sun gets stronger outside. My favorite shave cream is Korres Absinthe Men’s Shave Cream. I also like their Marigold and Ginseng Aftershave Balm.
What about facials?
I love to experiment with products, but facials...I’m not a fan. Even this guy has his limits!
Posted by Pierce Mattie on April 22, 2010 10:05 AM
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