Sandie Jaidane and Michel Gutsatz, co-creators of The Natural Beauty Summit

Premium Beauty News - The market of natural and organic products is rapidly differentiating itself and getting more complex? Yet does it still remain a niche market?

Michel Gutsatz and Sandie Jaidane - No: it is becoming a mainstream market. The market is featuring annual growth rates of about 6-8% - which is twice as much and even more compared to the rates for "classic" cosmetics. Consumers are becoming increasingly more demanding and require from brands that they demonstrate not only the efficacy but also the safety of their products: they claim it’s for the sake of their health that they use more and more bio and natural beauty products.

Premium Beauty News - The Natural Beauty Summit is going to emphasize on the role played by distribution channels?

Michel Gutsatz and Sandie Jaidane - We are going to focus on three "non standard" distribution channels: drugstores / organic food stores / internet. We will in particular address the necessary complementarity between online stores and the "brick and mortar" ones. This will give us a chance to see that distribution channels of natural and organic beauty products go well beyond traditional selective channels and that brands must have diversified strategies: there is no point in trying to obtain, at all costs, a referencing in specialized distribution channels... who not always know how to sell properly these products.

Premium Beauty News - The proliferation of definitions and labels on natural and organic products are often seen as a source of confusion for consumers. What can be expected from the announcement of an ISO standard publication on this subject?

Michel Gutsatz and Sandie Jaidane - Harmonization of the five European labels has just given birth to the European specifications Cosmos Standard, which have two levels of certification, natural and organic. Similarly, Natrue, the European specifications -soon to become international, which present a genuine definition of a natural cosmetic which should simplify the understanding of consumers looking for more clarity!

ISO international standards which are currently in preparation relying, as a work base, on these two specifications will offer international guidelines within four years; in the end, these standards will bring forward a specific definition but most of all will help maintain the international market open and will encourage our industry to innovate in the field of natural cosmetics!

Premium Beauty News - Presently, packaging seems to be the core issue in terms of sustainable development for cosmetics?

Michel Gutsatz and Sandie Jaidane - Sustainable development in cosmetics is very often a matter of packaging choices, because in fact, it is easier to choose a more eco-friendly or environmentally friendly packaging than to entirely rework the formula it contains, like for example, incorporating more naturalness.

Premium Beauty News - However what is meant exactly by eco-packaging?

Michel Gutsatz and Sandie Jaidane - That’s the whole issue actually. Bio-materials, bio-based polymers, regenerated plastics, recycled or recyclable packaging, durable packaging, certifiable packaging, material reduction, control of energy, carbon offsetting, local manufacturing... Eco-packaging cannot come down to only one of these approaches addressed solely but must be thought up in a transverse and global way.

In a true environmental approach, brands should consider packaging differently. New consumer expectations, as well as legislation on environmental information, may be an opportunity to reconsider the manufacturing process as a whole, in order to then adapt a specific communication, legible and understandable to brands and end users, in search of environmentally friendly products and of brands commitments in terms of environmental responsibility.

Of course, limits and constraints of such an approach need to be discovered (high cost, aesthetics, resistance, contents/container interaction...). Can we reconcile brands and consumers expectations with these new constraints and new environmental functions, he must enriched himself with?

Specialists from ILEOS, Alcan and Leoplast companies will be there to expose us their views.