Consumer trend lists are the wrong input for a development decision. They describe what is being bought now, and now is not when your product arrives. Development, testing, registration and production all sit between the two, and none of them runs faster because the trend behind it is urgent — so what a list calls current is, by the time you get there, what was being bought a year ago.
The more useful signal for a brand owner is what other brands are asking to build, because a brief is a decision already taken but not yet shipped: it is already a year ahead of shelf, and it tells you what the comparison set will look like when you arrive. This is written from that angle — patterns in the briefs that reach us — with no market-size figures, because we do not have data we could stand behind and a made-up number is worse than none.
The Structural Shifts
These are slower than trends and matter more, because they change what a product has to be rather than what it contains. A trend tells you what to put on the front of the pack; a shift tells you what the brief has to answer before the ingredient is chosen at all.
Barrier is the default frame, not a category
A few years ago barrier care was a segment. Now it is the framing most briefs arrive in, whatever the product is — the brief says what the product must not do to the skin before it says what it is for. Even actives-led concepts are positioned as barrier-respecting rather than barrier-challenging.
Practically, this means the supporting system matters as much as the hero active. What used to be treated as a vehicle for the interesting ingredient is now part of what the product is claiming, and it is a reason ceramide and lipid systems appear in briefs that are not about ceramides at all.
Fewer steps, more work per step
The ten-step routine has receded, in Korea before anywhere else. Briefs increasingly ask for one product to do what two used to, and consumers who tried maximalism and came back are the reason. Coming back is not the same as losing interest — the shorter routine is expected to deliver what the longer one did.
This is harder to formulate than it sounds. The two products being collapsed into one were built to different textures, so a hybrid usually means competing viscosity and sensory targets in one formula. Early samples land close to one target and away from the other, and each correction moves both — which is why it is a common source of extra development rounds.
Ingredient transparency is a differentiator now
Buyers ask what percentage, of what — the raw material or the active content. Those are two different questions about the same formula, and both can be answered truthfully. Enough consumers have learned that a headline number can mean either that answering it precisely has become a positioning choice rather than an evasion.
For a brand this cuts both ways. Naming a percentage invites the follow-up question, and having no answer to it is worse than never having named one. If you are going to name a percentage, be ready to say which one it is. See how the question plays out for peptides, where the two figures can differ by orders of magnitude.
Sun care stopped being seasonal
Daily-use SPF, cosmetically elegant, worn under or instead of makeup. This is one of the strongest areas of Korean formulation and one of the hardest to export, because the US treats sunscreen as a drug with a narrower filter list. That is not a labelling difference you settle at the end; it decides which formula can exist. Plan the market before the formula on this category, not after.
Clinic adjacency
Products positioned as companions to in-clinic treatment. It drives the biotech active categories and it is where claim discipline matters most, because what makes the positioning attractive is carried almost entirely by vocabulary — and the language available in a clinic context does not survive translation into consumer marketing in most export markets. The formula can be exactly what was intended and the concept still fail.
The Ingredient Cycle
Ingredients move through a predictable arc, and knowing where one sits tells you more than knowing it is popular. Popularity is a single reading taken today; the arc tells you which way cost, supply and awareness are moving.
Emerging. In clinics and specialist products. High cost, thin supply, uncertain regulatory position in export markets — thin supply meaning the price and the availability a project was costed on can both move before you order. Real differentiation, real risk.
Ascending. Consumer awareness rising, supply improving, cost falling. This is the window where building is most rewarded — awareness exists so you do not have to create it, which is spending somebody else has already done, and the category is not yet saturated.
Mainstream. Everyone has one, which turns the ingredient from a reason to be chosen into a condition of being considered. The ingredient no longer differentiates; formulation quality, concentration transparency and the supporting system do.
Commodity. Present in almost everything, rarely the hero. Nothing is wrong with it; it simply cannot carry a story on its own. Still valuable as part of a system.
Two mistakes follow from ignoring the arc. The first is building on an emerging ingredient without pricing the regulatory risk — exosome sourcing is the clearest current example, where the source material decides whether you can sell in Europe at all, which makes it a question about the formula rather than about paperwork. The second is building on a mainstream ingredient expecting it to differentiate, which produces a good product with no reason to be chosen.
The commercially safest position is usually an ascending active in a well-built system, launched with a specific claim you can substantiate. The three parts do separate work: the active earns attention, the system decides whether the product is bought twice, and the claim is what you are allowed to say about either.
What Ages Badly
Patterns we see in briefs that tend not to survive contact with a market.
A trend as the whole concept. If the product is the trend, the product ends when the trend does, and there is nothing left to extend from. Trends work as an entry point into a positioning that outlasts them, not as the positioning.
A trend you cannot legally express in your market. Regularly the clinic-adjacent ones. The formula is usually fine; what is missing is permission to say the thing that made it worth building. Confirm the claim set is available to you before development, not after artwork.
Stacking three hero actives. Cost rises steeply, stability work compounds, and substantiating what each contributes gets harder rather than easier — a result produced by three actives together cannot be attributed to any one of them. In the briefs we see, one lead active with a supporting complex usually outperforms.
A format chosen for the photograph. Two-part systems, unusual dispensers, dramatic textures. Occasionally right. Usually they add component cost, lead time and failure modes, because every extra part is another thing to source and another way a batch can go wrong — for a benefit that is real for one social post and absent thereafter.
Chasing a trend with an ODM timeline. If you are eighteen months from shelf, you are not launching into today's trend. Either build on a structural shift, which moves slowly enough to catch, or go private label and accept a non-exclusive base to hit the window — the trade-off is set out in OEM, ODM and private label compared.
Reading a Trend Before Committing
Five questions, and they take an afternoon.
- Where is it in the cycle? Emerging, ascending, mainstream or commodity.
- Can you say what you want to say about it in every market you sell in? Check before formulating.
- Does it survive your timeline? Count backwards from shelf, including testing and registration, and ask whether the trend is still there.
- What happens if it fades? A product that only makes sense inside the trend is a dead SKU when it passes. One that makes sense as a good product with a timely story is not.
- Is the ingredient the differentiator, or is your execution? If the ingredient is mainstream, your differentiation has to come from the formula, the sensory profile or the brand — and you should be able to name which.
What We Would Build
Not advice for every brand, but the pattern with the best odds across the briefs we see:
One hero product. An ascending active, not an emerging one. A barrier-respecting supporting system. A conventional, well-executed format rather than a novel one, because the format is where novelty costs the most and returns the least. A specific claim you can substantiate in every market you sell in. Transparent about concentration, including which figure the number refers to.
Then extend from real sell-through data rather than from the next trend list, because the second product answers questions your own customers have raised. What that costs and in what order is set out in the development cost breakdown.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should we build our first product around a trending ingredient?
Around an ascending one, ideally — awareness already exists and the category is not yet saturated. Emerging ingredients carry regulatory and supply risk that a first product is badly placed to absorb; mainstream ones no longer differentiate. Whichever you choose, the ingredient should be the entry point to a positioning that outlasts it.
How do we know if a trend will last long enough?
Count backwards from your intended shelf date through registration, testing and development, and ask whether the trend is still plausible at the far end. If the honest answer is no, either build on a structural shift instead — those move slowly enough to catch — or go private label to hit the window and accept a non-exclusive base.
Why not use the strongest trending actives together?
Because cost, stability work and substantiation difficulty all compound, while the marketing benefit does not. Three hero actives in one formula is usually a more expensive product that is harder to explain and harder to defend. One lead active with a supporting complex is, in our experience, usually the better structure.
Do you publish market size data?
No. We do not hold data we could stand behind, and a figure repeated from a secondary source is worse than no figure because it is treated as verified. What we can describe is the pattern in the development briefs that reach us, which is a year ahead of shelf and directly relevant to what your comparison set will look like on arrival.
What is the safest first product for a new brand?
An ascending active in a conventional format with a claim you can substantiate everywhere you sell. Novel formats and emerging actives are where the differentiation is, and also where the cost, the lead time and the regulatory risk are. A first product is usually the wrong place to spend all three at once.