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Only organic for me darling

Posted in General, Marketing, Nikki Preston May 29th, 2007 by Nikki Preston

Not only have Brits done a U-turn in recent years and demanded the food we eat be completely natural, but according to market research it is becoming just as important for what we slap on our bodies to be organic too.

The likes of shops such as Neal’s Yard and The Body Shop (now owned by L’Oreal) are well ahead of the crowd in organic, natural and fair trade skincare, but is this niche market set to become the norm?

This year has already seen a fifth of launches in the market coming representing the natural and organic beauty market – 15 per cent more than those launched during 2006.

Stella McCartney has already launched a luxury organic skincare range in the last few months and other cosmetic giants such as Estée Lauder and L’Oréal are sure to follow suit.

But are we taking this obsession with healthy and natural food and drinks too far by insisting everything we use, regardless of what it is, must also meet the high standards we are setting for food and drink?

In the future will we as consumers be demanding skincare regime that is low in fat and preservatives and breaks down the ingredients to be printed on the front of the pack, so that instead of looking at how many carbohydrates it has we will instead be comparing vitamin content.

Lush, the shop you smell well before you see it, found a niche in the cosmetics market by displaying soap, body scrubs and moisturisers to look so delicious that you just wanted to eat them. And now not only do we want our beauty products to look like food, but we also want it to be sourced in the same way.

And will it stop there or will the line between food and drinks, and skincare products continue to blur to the point that something you drink also serves as a beauty regime? Nestle is already in looking into it so it can’t be far off.