I missed the talk on sustainable packaging in the main conference hall, so I decided to catch Emotional Beauty: Towards a more holistic view of age and self-perception. As stated on the program and website, it was about how the cosmetic industry is shifting its view on aging, how we’ve entered what was being labeled the “Emotional Era”, and how two companies worked together to develop a “quantitative evaluation of the emotional benefits of an active ingredient.” Although the presentation was completely in French, fortunately, all of the slides for the presentation were in English. The goal seemed to be how we should get away from the term anti-aging and instead help consumers embrace a more positive view on the aging process with the help of products being offered. Then it went through various ways that a certain ingredient compared to a control substance by analyzing skin properties, analyzing the voice as volunteers were asked to voice their self-reflection while looking in the mirror, and other tests. Interesting idea, but I wish I could understand the presenter beyond the basic french words I could pick out. Since this conference, I stumbled across this article from Avon basically looking for the same answers targeting Latin American women. I wonder if the service that Avon used conducted similar types of experiments to gather their data.

While hanging out in the US Block I caught a portion of a lecture about the rising trend of products containing CBD and the regulation surrounding it in the EU. One of the guests works for a biotech company in Lyon that synthesizes copies of a single sample of skin. From there you can test products on multiple samples of the same skin without needing to subject a whole living being. Side note, there was also a booth featuring artificial human pores for product testing. So far he said that CBD does have topical, soothing effects on skin and although there isn’t hype, there is hope for CBD’s future in cosmetics. Also, a spokesperson for the UN said that medical use for THC may be on the horizon in another couple of years.

One presentation on Mindful Happiness focused on how the mental well being of a company’s staff can affect performance and overall health. David, the founder of WAWNOW teaches management teams to individually coach their associates, address any weakness, and help people by instilling changes to build their confidence and self worth.

One talk I think I enjoyed the most was about the LOOP platform to help beauty product containers become more reusable for a number of cycles before eventually being recycled. A bit sad that I didn’t get a good picture where the head didn’t cover the number of uses for the redesigned Axe deodorant package. The company helps businesses redesign their packaging away from plastic to either glass or metal with an attractive look that consumers might want to keep of they choose to. Consumers can use the product and once it’s done and empty can return it to a participating business or possibly having it picked up from their home. These items include shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and any other package that we end up having to throw away because the design wasn’t easily made for reuse. LOOP cleans and sterilizes the package for refilling and being sent out into the stores… Or the consumer can reuse the packaging for their own purposes (creme jars for example can be re-purposed to hold household items). Paris is one of the places that is participating and Carrefour will be going live with some products soon. I’m very curious to see how this goes because it would be so helpful in reducing waste, but the real challenge is if a significant portion of the population can change their habits. I’d expect that like any other new idea that, hopefully, there’ll be a lot of feedback and the service will evolve to meet the consumer’s needs in order to make it easier. It’s strange to think that we’re trying to come back to the age of the milk man when glass bottles were picked up and sterilized to be sold with a fresh batch of milk in the grocery store later. In order to keep more plastic out of landfills, it’s at least one possible solution.

I wasn’t really sure what I was going to get out of this event. Every person I talked to expected me to be representative of some major salon or cosmetics business. I was just curious and anything to do with psychology as well as environmental issues tend to perk my ears. Plus, it was a side of the beauty industry I hadn’t been exposed to. The intention was to stay about 3 or 4 hours, but I hung around most of the day with half dedicated to the US talks. My only complaint is that I wish I knew about it earlier to catch any of the earlier talks. Still learned quite a bit that day and appreciate that I’ve been able to weave an occasional tidbit into conversations here and there. If they do this again next year, I’ll have to come back.