While products formulated with a high proportion of synthetic ingredients dominate the global natural personal care market, accounting for nearly 75% of the total market share in 2014, truly natural positioning is gaining importance with consumers, manufacturers, and retailers. Following this trend, marketers have increasingly been reformulating with a higher proportion of truly natural ingredients in their products.
According to research firm Kline & Company in their Natural Personal Care Global Series report, the popularity of natural-inspired products is higher in less mature markets, such as Brazil and some Asia Pacific countries, where disposable income and consumer awareness regarding product ingredients are low and where distinguishing between natural-inspired and truly natural cosmetics is not as important when making a purchase.
In mature markets like the United States and Europe, a growing number of consumers are purchasing products containing predominantly natural ingredients. While products that are only natural-inspired continued to prevail in the United States and Europe in 2014, Kline’s ratings system, which analyses brands’ naturalness on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being completely natural, uncovered shifts in the natural positioning in several US and European brands, including Avalon Organics, JĀSÖN, Annemarie Borlind, and Melvita, all receiving higher ratings in 2014 when compared to prior years.
