Create your own cosmetic brand

Creating your own brand of cosmetic products is a challenge that hundreds of passionate people take on every year. Developing your own products means putting a little bit of your soul into each of them, because there is nothing more motivating than developing a product that resembles us: active ingredients from plants from our region, with scents that remind us of childhood memories or visuals straight out of our imagination.

However, we quickly find ourselves slowed down in our momentum by technical constraints and regulatory obligations. It's not so easy to find your way around when you dive in at the deep end! To avoid you putting on your diving suit and suffering an unpleasant thermal shock, we have written a short article on the different steps to follow when creating your brand.

Creating your own cosmetic brand: brand identity

If you're embarking on this project, it's because you must have a clear idea of what your brand's originality is. What if I told you that you need to dig even deeper into this concept?

Today's consumer is less and less sensitive to slogans and marketing promises that all sound the same... What catches their attention now are the commitments made and concrete actions taken by companies in favor of a fairer and more sustainable world. Today, the ethical, societal and environmental values of a brand make its identity, they should not be neglected!

It is important to have a global approach in developing a brand. Beyond the formulas, have you studied what packaging will be perfectly in line with the values you carry (refillable pack, glass pack, zero waste solid product, etc.)? Have you thought, if you open an e-commerce, about the containers and means of physical protection of your products for delivery? For example, wrapping a glass product, refillable and eco-responsible, in bubble wrap is somewhat contradictory. It would be better to favor an eco-responsible protection method or the use of reusable packages like #Hipli for example. Is your communication strategy adapted to the identity of your brand? Does the manufacturer of your product respect the commitments you advocate?

As you can see, each stage of development and each partner must be carefully studied. Your brand identity must be very clear to the consumer. If your identity is clear and the consumer shares your ideals, he will like the concept of your products and will not hesitate to enter your community.

Differentiate yourself

The cosmetics market is full of great brands: big ones and small ones. But rest assured, there is room for everyone, as long as your offer stands out and you bring your "special touch"!

Ethical products for mom, baby and the whole family? Superbly done: https://comettecosmetics.com/ .

Organic and gender-neutral products? So in tune with the times: https://mastelcosmetics.com/ .

It is therefore important to find your differentiating element. What can you bring to the consumer that he cannot find in the cosmetic brands currently on the market? Do not hesitate to make divisive proposals to stand out. It is more interesting to have a "small" very engaged community at the risk of not pleasing everyone, rather than moderately pleasing the greatest number with the effect "it's a nice brand, but not exceptional".

Get brainstorming!

I'm starting, looking for partners

Your brand identity is clear and you have positioned yourself on a new feature that sets you apart from your competitors. Let's move on to finding your future partners. This is a point that should not be overlooked, because working with a trusted partner will make your daily life much easier!

There are no rules here... It's a matter for men (and women of course 😉)! Choose providers who take the time to support and advise you. Especially in the context of initial development, it is important that you understand each step in the development of your product: the mandatory steps, the actions that create real added value for your product... Select providers who agree to explain to you what each cost corresponds to. It's your money and you must invest with full knowledge of the facts!

Do not hesitate to contact us on this point, we have a portfolio of contacts who could be your future trusted partners.

The formula

The formula is the heart of your product, so it is an essential step. Whether you entrust the development to a formulation laboratory or make it yourself, take the time to study all the solutions in order to achieve the perfect balance between a beautiful galenic, an effective formula and an adequate formula cost.

To achieve this osmosis, you have to work on sourcing the ingredients. If you make the formula yourself, don't hesitate to ask several suppliers for the ingredient catalog. You should also remember to check whether the minimum orders correspond to your manufacturing forecast!

If you are not a chemist at heart, you can entrust the formulation to a laboratory. And here, two cases arise:

- The turnkey formula : already developed, the formula is offered to you with its regulatory file. The advantage is that this solution is often less expensive and the development time is greatly reduced. The average development time for a cosmetic product is between 9 months and 1 year (yes, yes!). With the turnkey formula, you can shorten this time to 3 months (the time to conduct the compatibility test with your packaging). It can be almost zero in some cases (solid product without pack for example).

- The tailor-made formula : as I like to say, it is the crème de la crème of formulation. The formulator bends over backwards to meet your specifications and create a formula that 100% meets your desires and your brand identity.

On your marks! Ready? Formulate!

The packaging

Packaging, or packaging in French, is the showcase of your product. As a consumer, we buy a first time because we like the packaging, and we buy again if the formula suits us. It is therefore an element on which nothing should be left to chance. In this article, I will group together container and label for the sake of summary.

First, the container. As presented in the section on brand identity, your packaging must reflect your values. Here again, you must focus your energy on finding the ideal balance between packaging that resembles us, and a packaging cost that suits our business model.

Next, the label. Of course, you will need to display the mandatory information. Your product development partner will be able to tell you what these information are based on the category of your product. I am thinking in particular of sunscreen products for which there are a large number of mandatory information on a very small label. In order to set up the graphic charter for your first label which will then be used for the entire range, you can go through a graphic designer.

The allegations

Claims are the promises you make to your consumers. From an ethical and regulatory point of view, they must be justified! It is very important to check the regulatory compliance of your claims and, for this, there are several guidelines, including the 5 common criteria established by Commission Regulation (EU) No 655/2013: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:190:0031:0034:FR:PDF .

In some cases, it is very difficult to judge the regulatory compliance of a claim or even the strength of its demonstration. Your development partner has experience in this area, ask for advice! This is a subject that the authorities regularly control.

The regulatory file

The regulatory file, more commonly called the DIP (Product Information File), is THE document that describes your product. It must be made available to the authorities in the event of an inspection.

It contains the RSPC (cosmetic product safety report) validated by a toxicologist. In this report, the toxicologist ensures the safety of your product for humans: content-container migration, microbiology, consumer exposure to the cosmetic product, toxicological profiles of the ingredients, etc. If you want to know more about the content of this report, I invite you to consult Annex I of the European cosmetic regulation n°1223/2009: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32009R1223&from=fr .

To this report, you must add your manufacturer's documents such as the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) declaration and the manufacturing operating procedure. Proof of any certifications of your product (b

iological, cruelty free, etc.) as well as evidence of the claimed effects must also be present in the file.

All set? All that remains is to declare your product on the European Cosmetic Products Notification Portal (CPNP) and the adventure can begin!