CoronaVirus is a beauty-industry disruption like nothing we’ve ever seen.
The beauty industry is resilient and it is resourceful because people who work in this business are capable, creative, and compassionate.
Cosmetics and Personal Care Makers Pivot to Produce Hand Sanitizer and Donate Supplies
In recent day and weeks, ingredient makers, manufacturers, brands, and beauty industry allies have been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in noble ways.
Production facilities that have never before made hand sanitizer are now turning it out in bulk, thanks to companies like Clarins, LVMH, Coty, Amway, L’Oréal, DSM, and IMCD as well as to small brands willing to pivot like Mizzi Cosmetics in Portland, [WHERE], The Sexiest Beauty in New York City, and Moonlit Skincare in Los Angeles, California.
Personal care and household products manufacturers have also stepped-up production of industrial disinfectants. And global companies, like Avon, are donating soap to help keep people’s hands clean and, in turn, minimize the spread of the virus.
The beauty industry is sharing masks and other protective equipment, on hand at various facilities for everyday use in R&D labs, clinical testing facilities, and other sanitary sites. They are sharing this equipment now with medical professionals who find their own back-stocks running low.
Beauty brands and companies of every size, from those owned and operated by a solitary entrepreneur, to those in business at the multinational corporate level are raising monies to fund the various groups and organizations treating the sick and supporting the efforts that will get us through this crisis.
Beauty Insiders, Organizations, and Brands are Working Differently in 2020
Some individuals in our industry are fully occupied now with caregiving responsibilities, working around the clock teaching kids, feeding family, and caring for people with illness and particular needs. Others are problems solving for their businesses and employers on a moment-to-moment basis. And most have a foot in both their domestic and professional worlds at any given time right now. All the same, the business of beauty marches on.
The Fragrance Foundation and countless brands just celebrated International Fragrance Day, which was Saturday (March 21st), with online content and uplifting are by painter Rebecca Moses as well as with discounts, promotions, and educational features.
Ambitious beauty brand and service professionals, accustomed to working in spas and salons, have taken their services online, offering live video consultations and tutorials that customers can connect with while they stay home.
Legacy brands are regrouping to focus squarely on direct-to-consumer retail strategies. And diligent, optimistic entrepreneurs are launching new brands to the marketplace even now.
Pandemic Pushing Beauty Makers Toward New Sourcing, Packaging, and Collaboration Strategies
I’ll be honest, as a writer in our current moment, I don’t know exactly what to do. But I do know that if we trade notes, share experiences, and pool our resources, we will come through this pandemic in pretty good shape.
In reply to a recent post I made here on LinkedIn, independent beauty brand leaders have expressed an interest in buying packaging in partnership with other small brands to—together—purchase the necessary minimum order quantities (MOQs) set by many suppliers based here in the US.
And insiders, working at multinational organizations, have asked if it might serve our industry well right now, and in the near future, if manufacturers shift where exactly materials are sourced from.
The pandemic assures that there are manifold challenges for every person, brand, and business in and beyond beauty. Smart businesses in the cosmetic, personal care, and fragrance space are cooperating to support their communities during this crisis. And I am confident that smart businesses all along the cosmetics and personal care value chain will continue to cooperate in new and meaningful ways even, with what we might think of, as their competitors on the other side of this pandemic.
Hygiene and Personal Care Basics Lift Consumer Trust
And consumer trust of the beauty industry at large is up, thanks to the efficacy of soap and sanitizer and the reliability of manufacturing facilities, working to keep these much-needed personal care products in ready supply to the medical community and everyday people as well.
In fact, online search statistics from the data-science company Spate show that by the end of the first week in March, Google searches in the US for ‘hand sanitizer’ were up 275% year-over-year. And that same week, searches for ‘how to wash hands’ were up nearly 80%, according to Spate.
Life as we knew it has been thoroughly disrupted by the CoronaVirus. Nonetheless, beauty is a very human endeavor. And perhaps now, more than ever, we are in it together.
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this DUviews item was originally posted to LinkedIn and now appears on DeannaUtroske.com
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