Kitchen Collaborative at Cosmoprof 2010

We made our annual trip to the Cosmoprof North America this week, which is a well-known business-to-business beauty trade show event that takes place in Las Vegas. The show covers cosmetics, packaging, contract manufacturing/private label, hair care, nails, and tools. Of course, I was most interested and focused on the overall beauty trends taking place and the brand visual communication and messaging – which has evolved quite a bit since last year!

Trends

In terms of trends, sustainability and naturals seemed to be everywhere. In hair care, it was all about hemp, paraben-free, argan oil, organics, and vegan ingredients, with the responsibility message having a prominent role in the booth messaging. In hair care alone, DermOrganic, Soma, and newcomer Neuma were just a few examples of products had some or all of these ingredients in their products and also made sure to communicate it in their messaging. Some of the packaging and product displays were also designed with sustainability in mind – for example, in the nail care category, Spa Ritual (who also utilizes vegan ingredients along with a less toxic formula) has a bamboo product display, with a removable card that allows retailers to update the look from season to season without having to change the entire display.

Bamboo product display by Spa Ritual.

Branding Best Practices

Although there were many well-branded companies at the show, there were a couple of newer brands that caught my attention. In both instances, not only were the booths well designed, but the brands seemed to be well-executed and consistent at all touch points. First place went to Macademia, a relatively new hair care line that is growing more and more in distribution (I recently saw them at mega beauty chain Ulta). The booth has striking graphics, tactile materials, and carefully chosen furnishings and accessories that tied the look together nicely. Macademia’s packaging and website are also quite well-designed, with a contemporary yet natural color palette, intricate botanical pattern, and solid brand identity.

A strong second place went to newcomer Neuma, who also had an attention-grabbing booth with well-designed printed collateral, product samplers, and reusable promotional bag. Although there were some details that could use some refinement as the brand grows, I was overall impressed by how they clearly seemed to understand how important it is to make a brand impact – especially as a new company. Neuma also paid attention to all brand touch points, with consistency across their website, printed collateral, promotional materials, packaging, and booth.