Everything organic

Vivaness, was held from February 16 to 19 at the Nuremberg fairground in conjunction with BioFach, the world’s leading trade fair for organic products. Over 44,000 visitors attended both events, a slight rise compared to the 43.669 visitors recorded in 2010. Besides Germany (25,000 visitors), attendants mainly came from Austria, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The international visitorship rose to 42 %.

While Vivaness remains a small event, compared to Biofach (200 exhibitors from a total of 2,544), the exhibition is the leading event in Europe as far as natural and organic cosmetic products are concerned. This year, the 200 exhibitors (183 in 2010) came from 22 countries (21 in 2010) including Germany (83), France (38), Italy (31), Austria (8) and The Netherlands (5).

Every year, those interested in organic farming, and natural clothes and personal care products, including a number of politicians from Germany and abroad, meet in Nuremberg on the occasion of Biofach and Vivaness. The two German trade fairs have grown as Europe trendsetting event in the organic sector. No surprise that key players on this market have chosen Vivaness for launching their innovations or announcing their strategic moves.

Trendsetting event

This year, the organisers have put the light on innovative and creative products in all segments of the market.

A Novelty Stand gathered 67 innovations from skin care, body and hair care, perfumes and wellness to decorative cosmetics. Baby care and kids products were especially prominent. With its Babycare line, for instance, Töpfer GmbH showcased the first baby’s oil bath with 95 % organic olive oil. Other illustrations are the allergens-free Argital baby care line of NCM GmbH or Logona’s children’s face paints.

As far as ingredients are concerned, several innovations also struck the visitor’s eye: native oceanic collagen and plain seawater (oceanBASIS GmbH), sage, grape, lavender, juniper berry, cypress, rose, sallow thorn, ginger and lime (Primavera Life GmbH), argan oil, baobab oil and sea buckthorn (Provida Organics Kosmetik & Umwelt GmbH), mango butter, acai berry, cranberry and pomegranate (Droste-Laux Naturkosmetik GmbH & Co. KG), oat and evening primrose (Eubiona) and lemongrass (Ortscheid GmbH).

In the BREEZE section, Vivaness also showcased innovative products and concepts, trendy niche brands and young labels, selected by experts from the natural cosmetics sector. The section included products such as:

 Intelligent Nutrients a comprehensive line of hair, skin and body care products based on a seed oils of black cumin, pumpkin, raspberry, red grape and cranberry, designed by Aveda’s founder, Horst Rechelbacher,
 Swedish brand Estelle & Thild, proposing cleansing, day care, night care and eye care products,
 Câlinesse (Newcos SA, Switzerland & France), a certified beauty care range for women and babies with donkey’s milk,
 Nvey Eco, an Australian range of organic and natural decorative cosmetics and compostable make-up accessories.

Standards harmonization

The harmonization of the different standards for natural and organic personal care products was a hot topic at Vivaness this year.

BDIH, Cosmebio, Ecocert, ICEA and the Soil Association - the five founding organisations - have officially announced the launch of the COSMOS-standard certification.

In parallel, NATRUE announced its partnership with NSF International to develop the first U.S. official national standard for natural cosmetics. NATRUE also staged a demonstration of its QR tag, an electronic system allowing fast display of information on products on mobile phones.

Markets still growing

As far as growth is concerned, there are good perspectives for natural and organic cosmetics. Experienced players are publishing good forecasts and new-entrants continue to blossom on the market. According to a recent study by Kline & Company [1], the natural cosmetics market will continue to grow steadily in Asia, Europe and the USA until 2014. The Asian markets will achieve two-figure growth rates and will reach a volume of 14.8 billion US dollars. Sales of over 6.3 billion US dollars are forecasted for Europe in the next five years and 5.8 billion US dollars for the USA.

Regarding Germany in 2010, more customers switched to natural cosmetics and sales grew by 11 % to 795 million euros. According to Naturkosmetik Konzepte the market share of natural cosmetics reached 6.2 % in 2010.

Within this positive context, today’s main challenge for certified brands is to be able to communicate on their added value and their benefits compared to conventional cosmetics.

The next Vivaness (and BioFach) will be hold on 15-18 February 2012 at Nuremberg fairground.