With the concepts of "internal nourishment outside", "skin is a barometer reflecting physical health", "beautiful skin, from the 'intestine' to the discussion" and other concepts deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, beauty products focusing on "inner beauty" have become potential stocks in the beauty market.
In the past year, the beauty market has seen a large number of products aimed at improving intestinal health, and probiotics as a big hit in dietary supplements have gradually increased in the hearts of beauty seekers. Consumer recognition and capital enthusiasm for intestinal supplements have allowed probiotics to take the "Amway" trend across social media. When searching for "probiotics" as a keyword on the social platform Xiaohongshu, the results showed more than 530,000 notes, including many recommendations for oral probiotics such as "the more you eat the more translucent", "improve your skin", "treat acne" and other effects.
In the capital market, the probiotic diet brand "Daily Bacteria" completed tens of millions of Pre-A round of financing in September this year; the sales of probiotic-related products of The new consumer brand WonderLab, which received strategic investment from Temasek in August this year, have reached 104 million yuan; overseas, the Los Angeles women's vitamin brand Ritual announced that it will launch its first product specifically for digestive health early next year, after the brand has raised $25 million in Series B financing. The marketing direction of "transparency" pokes at the pain points of consumers for dietary supplements.
Daily probiotic companion tablets
According to data released by the Global Wellness Institute (GWI), the global health economy covers 11 industries, of which the market size of personal care, beauty and anti-aging is expected to be $1.1 billion, which is expected to increase as the connection between inner health and external beauty becomes closer. Sarah Barnes, Content Marketing Manager at Trendalytics, said: "The inner healthy beauty concept will continue to influence a range of product categories, while the line between beauty products and dietary supplements is increasingly blurred. ”
According to PwC's report, consumer demand for a variety of dietary supplements and vitamins has soared during the pandemic, and the global market for dietary supplements is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 4.4% by 2023, especially in terms of gut health. Crunchbase's data as of the end of 2020 shows that the U.S. venture capital funding in the gut microbiome reached $1 billion over five years. Euromonitor International's 2017 statistics show that the market size of probiotic products in China (including probiotic supplements, probiotic beverages, probiotic yogurt, etc.) is about 45.5 billion yuan, and it is expected to grow to 89.6 billion yuan by 2022.
WonderLab probiotic products
However, unlike the vitamins that have been deeply popularized, the effectiveness of probiotics is still questionable, and some consumers are worried that after taking probiotic supplements, they will destroy the balance of their own intestinal microbiota. Jorge Cosano, head of Great Bowery Investments, an incubator of fashion and beauty brands, agrees: "For many years, traditional beauty companies didn't want to touch the probiotic category because it was at different levels of risk than their own businesses. ”
Indeed, as early as 2018, Cell, the top journal in the field of life sciences, published two blockbuster papers on probiotics, studying the colonization of 11 mixed probiotics in the host intestine, and the results found that colonization varies from person to person, and these bacteria can colonize in some people's intestines and not in others' intestines. This result confirms that if probiotics want to be "beneficial," they may need to be "personalized" according to the constitution and characteristics of the intrinsic flora of the intestines of different people.
But as competition in the beauty space accelerates, various ingredients that can improve skin health for consumers have entered the brand's sights. Studies have shown that the gut microbiome can influence the occurrence of skin diseases, and the skin condition can also be used as a reference for the assessment of mental state and gut microbial status.
Ritual
The Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences wrote in a published article: "Diet is an important factor that affects the skin through the intestinal-brain-skin axis. Improper diet can directly cause acne, while taking Lactobacillus can inhibit skin inflammation caused by stress. Probiotics have the effect of improving intestinal barrier function, restoring the health of intestinal microecology, stimulating the host immune system and fighting inflammation, and have a certain role in the prevention and treatment of skin diseases. ”
To put it simply, when there are many "beneficial bacteria" in the body, the skin can get GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid), which can be soothed; when there are many "harmful bacteria", the skin will form more pigmentation due to the presence of "serotonin".
With the gradual deepening of reliable scientific research, more and more brands regard intestinal health as the next industry frontier, and breakthrough probiotic supplements have opened up a new path for beauty lovers.
Seed presents its human gut microbial environment simulation tool for assessing the survival of probiotics on its website
Seed, a microbial science company focused on the production of probiotics and other supplements, made a more "people-friendly" choice, in addition to clinical trials, GI stimulation mode, cell testing, genome sequencing and other tests and the efforts of the top medical doctor team, to create a daily oral probiotic supplement, the company also on the main page of its official website to show the scientific principles of probiotics and the scientific method of producing probiotic products with rich graphics, on the one hand, to make consumers more trust in their products, on the other hand, to educate consumers Without having to read complex medical works, you can understand the mechanism of action of "beneficial bacteria".
Seed Probiotic Supplement
For the Chinese market, the relevant regulations of our probiotic industry are not yet perfect, and there is no systematic research and development of probiotics and probiotic fermented dairy product standards, so it leads to a variety of products in the name of probiotics on the market, consumers can not establish a comprehensive trust, coupled with China's probiotic upstream industry is still monopolized by international research and development giants, resulting in consumers relying more on cross-border e-commerce, buying well-known overseas brands with high popularity.
Overall, probiotics are still high-growth areas in functional foods, and for domestic brands, there is still a lot of work to be done to integrate probiotics into the macro trend of skin care and natural beauty. WWD
Written by Lucy Geng
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