Filterless beauty
According to data provider Nielsen, IsaDora is Sweden’s number-one makeup brand in the semi-selective segment. After 40 years of building the company, this fall sees not only product launches but also a major revamp of the visual communication.
— We are renovating our brand identity and platform and want to take a stand and try to break the beauty norms to redefine beauty. For us, beauty is about being true, honest, and empowering, says Felicia Ibsen, Global Brand Director.
The most important commitment in this new ”true beauty” communication, she continues, is to be 100% retouched- and filter-free.
— We want to show consumers what they get and be very honest and authentic about it. From this September, none of our images or models will be retouched. For us, true beauty is retouch-free, and this is not only entailing how we work when it comes to models and communication but also our environmental and social commitments. So we are engaging our commitment in everything we do in our supply chain and are also committing to be 100% vegan by the end of 2024.
Best of Brooklyn
Based in New York, haircare brand amika’s portfolio currently has 11 different lines for different target groups — and a growing fan base across the world.
— I’d say that their key to success is that they’re not afraid to really boost their products with ingredients, says Cecilia Gelkner, R&D Product Engineer at Nordic distributor HeadBrands. They don’t just add the ingredients to have a little bit of effect but really push it and make sure that the effect is noticeable from the first time that you try it. This also means that you can accidentally try a product that was not made for your specific hair type and either fall in love, or it’s just not a match for you. But they really dare things, so it might take some time to find the perfect series — but when you do, you can really see an effect on your hair.
This fall, the brand adds a new hair mask to the intense moisture line, where the key ingredient is hyaluronic acid.
— It’s a really popular ingredient for a reason with great humectant properties, says Gelkner. This, in combination with Polyglutamic Acid, gets its film-creating properties of the polyglutamic acid combined with moisture penetrating the strand, so that the moisture stays within it. You also have sea buckthorn extract, which is a part of all of the products, to create a base protection with antioxidants to protect the hair from pollution and free radicals.
Nature first
15 years ago, New Nordic launched Hair Volume, a supplement for hair with herbal extracts, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. Five years ago, the food supplement and natural medicine company presented Beauty in & out, picking out selected active ingredients from the supplements range and adding them to topical products, like shampoo, conditioner, and a hair mask. This fall, the focus is on the part of the head where the hair is actually growing out, for the launch of the Scalp Comfort supplement.
— It contains fatty acids which are very important for the skin to make it soft and not to itch or be irritated, says Ylva Tamner, Country Manager. Evening primrose oil is a very well-known ingredient for the eczema skin, we have propolis and safflower oil which is softening, and biotin which we know from the Hair Volume is good for the hair.
New Nordic has grown into becoming a leading player within the supplement segment, also exporting to more than 40 markets.
— A typical product from us is where it’s put together a lot of different ingredients to work together to solve a problem for the consumer. This new scalp product comes in capsules because there are fatty acids in it. We recommend starting the first eight weeks with a dosage of six capsules a day to boost the effect quicker and, as with almost all our supplements, at least three months before you evaluate.
Democratising beauty-tech
As part of what’s said to be the most expensive investment in beauty in history (+€100 million), Geske was the main sponsor — and visible pretty much everywhere — of Cosmoprof in 2022 and 2023. After some delays in product development, the German beauty-tech brand’s range reaches the Nordics later this fall.
— One thing that makes Geske so exciting is that before you could even buy the product, it has won an incredible amount of awards; Red Dot Design, CES, and German Innovation Awards, says Danielle Soeiro at distributor Strindberg Wellness.
According to her, what makes Geske so unique is making beauty tach accessible to everyone.
— Beauty-tech is quite expensive. Especially with how the world is today with war and high interest rates, I think people’s spa visits are going to decrease and instead, they’ll be trying to find at-home solutions. But with that, there’s also the risk that people are to use it incorrectly, so having valuable education and information accessible and easy to understand is key. Geske has invested a lot of money in a free, customised, and AI-integrated app that gets installed in your local language on your phone.
— When you start the app, it’s going to ask you for a face scan to identify which areas you might want to pay a little bit more attention to. And when you get the recommendations, there’s also gamification built into the app, to get points every time that you do what you’re supposed to do. There are thousands of videos in the app on how to use products correctly and safely. And for CE-marked products, it’s normally a 1 to 2-year guarantee — Geske has 15 years. Still, the products are only 159 to 899 Swedish or Norwegian. This is for everyone. And I think it’s going to encourage people to try a MicroCurrent Face Lifter and do it safely, with the guidance of an AI app.
