This Beauty Trend Is Making It Easier for You to Get Your Dream Products – Glamour (blog)

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by all the lotions and creams crammed on shelves, there’s a brand-new means to cut through the noise: crowdsourced beauty products. Sites like Kickstarter job for a reason—because people love having a say in the points they buy. And, if you’re going to drop your money on something new, wouldn’t it be awesome if it gave you exactly just what you asked for? In dreaming up brand-new creations, companies like Glossier and Korean skin care brand Peach & Lily are inviting followers to chime in. It’s paying off for the people that matter most: those buying it.

The brands using crowdsourcing:
In January 2015, readers of the popular beauty site Into the Gloss found an open-thread information from founder and CEO Emily Weiss. She posed a single question directly to them: “What’s Your Dream Face Wash?” To date, the information has actually racked up more compared to 380 comments, along with help ranging everywhere from the skin-savvy (“seaweed extract!”) to the straightforward (“balm balm balm”). Much less compared to a year later, the cleanser has actually come to life in the form of the Glossier Milky Jelly Cleanser. “The ITG community has actually been a section of our product development process since we very first had the pointer for [our product line] Glossier,” explains Weiss. “To produce our very first products, which we launched in October 2014, we sifted through four years of interviews and comments on Into the Gloss.” By going straight to the readers for the cleanser, she streamlined the process to hone in on just what they really, truly wanted from it.

Glossier isn’t the only one going directly to shoppers for suggestions. Alicia Yoon, founder of Korean e-tailer Peach & Lily, is in the process of producing her own sheet mask (far and away most popular import from Korea). To do it, she’s made #PLMaskLab. Customers can easily take a questionnaire, comment on blog posts, and even tag the dedicated PLMaskLab Instagram page. Volition Beauty, a brand fresh to the scene, is additionally based entirely on this concept. It invites consumers to submit their own ideas and vote to have actually those that make the cut actually manufactured and sold on the site. A recent winner: creamy bronzer that additionally blurs skin.

Why it’s happening:
We now have actually the power to request buckets of super-hydrator hyaluronic acid in a brand-new formula—or decide whether we believe a physique cream is worth making. It puts the ball in the buyer’s (read: our!) court, so to speak, and it feels nice to be asked for our opinion. Yet it pays off for the companies, too. We’re more most likely to buy products we already know about and have actually personally supported. Imagine you suggested that a brand-new face wash hydrates and easily removes eye makeup. Aren’t you going to look forward to the moment you finally get hold of your hands on that hydrating, eye makeup-removing cleanser? We’re thinking, umm, hell yes.

A big section of the boom in crowdsourced beauty is that companies themselves are changing. Sure, the OGs have actually always engaged along with their customers (believe the fully stocked and loaded counters at literally every department store). Yet the Internet has actually led to a different kind of interaction. “For almost four years, we’ve received so several requests and inquiries about personal ingredients and products to target personal skin care needs,” says Yoon. The accessibility of the sites—having comment threads, blog posts, and even Instagram—closes the gap between us and the people running the show. And sites encourage this intimate, interactive experience. There are entire pages devoted to explaining cool ingredients and where you can easily locate them. Some have actually video tutorials. If you spend a half hour every day catching up on Into The Gloss, chances are you’re more most likely to pipe up in the comment section (or, at the pretty least, up-vote somebody else’s comment). It builds a devoted community of repeat customers and of first-timers that locate themselves totally hooked.

This partnership is symbiotic. Those calling the shots on brand-new products want to know just what their followers want and what’s currently missing from their beauty routines. “These products need to represent just what real people are looking for versus a top-down marketing strategy of products prescribed as ‘useful’ or ‘desirable,'” says Yoon. Plus, once you’re formulating a brand-new beauty product (that has, presumably, been recreated a million times over), there are so several directions it could take that the process can easily become overwhelming. For the Glossier cleanser, that’s exactly why Weiss took it to ITG’s readers. “We always wanted a cleanser, Yet we couldn’t get hold of it right,” she says. “We knew we wanted something game-changing that was multitasking, powerful, and gentle. Yet it was hard to nail down.” The huge (and enthusiastic) response from readers helped shape the end result—and it’s been the line’s biggest hit so far. (Plus, not to mention, one of our fave brand-new cleaners of 2016.)

Why you need to take advantage of it:
Here’s the question you’ve probably been waiting for: Do crowdsourced beauty products actually job better? It depends. There’s a lot of power in having 50-plus people ask for sulfate-free face wash. Yet along with so several opinions and requests—and let’s be real, everyone has actually her own priorities—brands can easily take only so several details In to consideration. On top of this, “Consumers might want something that’s just not feasible,” says Yoon. “Like a cellulose sheet mask that adheres super closely to every nook and cranny of the face along with higher quality ingredients for $1.50, or a sheet mask along with only organic ingredients and a shelf life of three years.” That doesn’t mean your dream cream won’t ever become reality. It’s more that there’ll be some sort of compromise, and chances are, the final product will certainly be a really good product for everyone rather than the most effective product for you. That’s still a very big feat. Also, speaking up about just what you don’t want may carry much more weight, since people’s dislikes tend to be broader. Yoon knows that her customers don’t want a sheet mask that’s sloppy, hard to unfold, or confusing to use—so she can easily eliminate anything like that off the bat.

But if you’re attempting to locate a means to execute an amazing pointer you have, Volition Beauty is one of your ideal bets (in fact, somebody submitted an pointer to the company after Googling “how to make a beauty product”). Cofounders Brandy Hoffman and Patricia Santos aren’t looking to reinvent the moisturizer so much as produce entirely brand-new categories. “We got tired of the status quo,” explains Santos. “several beauty products sound the same, cost too much, and don’t incorporate the customer enough.” If somebody submits an pointer for a do-it-all salve, for example, Santos and Hoffman point her to the existing do-it-all salves. So their products are total wildcards in the beauty world. Think: Detoxifying Silt Gelee (the magic of a mud mask in a light, comfortable gel—unlike traditional clay masks that dry out and secure on skin) and Moringa Silk physique Spray (a spray-on oil derived from flowering Moringa trees, a treatment used by ancient Egyptians).

Getting involved is as easy as having an idea, whether it’s for a tweak or an entirely brand-new formula. The wild triumph of Glossier’s Milky Jelly Cleanser has actually convinced Weiss that this experiment is one worth repeating. Keep an eye out for Peach and Lily’s upcoming sheet mask, too, set to launch this spring (and after that, says Yoon, the sky’s the limit). If patience isn’t exactly your virtue, Volition Beauty has actually eight potential products you can easily vote for at any given time—and if none of them does it for you, you can easily submit your very own whenever the light bulb goes off. Most importantly, engage along with your favorite brands, sites, and blogs, because you never know once somebody might ask you just what you’re looking for in an eye cream—it might merely show up on shelves in the pretty near future.

Watch Glamour Editors Define Confusing brand-new Beauty Terms:

Photos: Courtesy of Brands