Beware of the Marketing Trap of "Natural" Cosmetics
- Chaileedo Press
- Jun 13, 2022
- 2 min read
In the post-epidemic era, consumers are paying more and more attention to "natural" cosmetics, and "natural" has also become a powerful propaganda point for many cosmetics merchants. So, what exactly is "natural" makeup? Are "natural" cosmetics really safe?
Recently, CNPHARM published a popular science article "Beware of the Trap of "Natural and Organic" Cosmetics". The article mentioned that there is no concept of "clean natural cosmetics" in China's cosmetics classification, and according to the "Cosmetics Label Management Measures", Cosmetics can not claim the absolute concept of "clean natural".
In the post-epidemic era, enjoying a healthy and environmentally friendly low-carbon life has become the consensus of more and more consumers in China. Following this trend, the pursuit of natural and safe skin care products in production and use has become the development trend of China's cosmetics industry. Natural cosmetics are very popular on Chinese social platforms. For consumers, oversized labels with "green", "safe" and "natural" have always been highly sought after.
Based on the report data released by Future Market Insights, a global market research agency, the market size of natural cosmetics will reach 54.432 billion US dollars in 2027. And according to the forecast from Mintel, in the future, cosmetics based on natural raw materials and without excess chemical ingredients are likely to become the fastest-growing category in the industry.
So what exactly are "natural" cosmetics? Popular science articles pointed out that natural cosmetics generally refer to cosmetics with natural plant ingredients. For example, orchid extract has anti-aging effect, rose flower extract has brightening effect, and tea tree extract has anti-acne effect, and these plant-derived raw materials are called natural ingredients.
Natural cosmetics are sought after by consumers because of their safe ingredients. So are those cosmetics containing natural plant ingredients really safe? In fact, in cosmetics, even if there are some natural plant ingredients, there are restrictions on the content and ratio, and they are not absolutely non-toxic and harmless. For example, many plants contain "furanocoumarin" substances, because the amount of the content is different, which will lead to people coming into contact with plants containing more "furanocoumarin" substances, and dermatitis will occur after exposure to light.
Therefore, natural does not mean absolute safety. Consumers should choose skin care products that suit their skin type, rather than blindly pursuing being natural. Especially for people who are prone to allergies, some plant extracts have more complex components and are more likely to cause skin sensitivity.
In the opinion of Chinese industry insiders, the so-called pure plant and pure natural cosmetics often only add some so-called clean natural plant extracts to conventional products. Regardless of the amount of added botanical extracts, the matrix that makes up the product is still the chemical itself. So, natural cosmetics is just a marketing concept.
The popular science article also mentioned that there is no accurate definition of clean natural cosmetics in the Chinese market, that is to say, there is no uniform standard to judge which products are clean natural and which are not. In addition, absolute words such as "pure plant" and "clean natural" are prohibited words expressly ordered by the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China. Cosmetics propaganda cannot contain similar words, and related words such as "absolutely safe" and "guaranteed to be non-toxic and non-irritating" are even prohibited.
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