Focus on Skin Gels & Jellies in Europe

Interview with Anna Momméja,
European Zone Marketing Manager, Seppic

You are launching a new formula kit “Skin gels & jellies” dedicated to the European market. Can you tell us more about the thematic and why you decided to focus on this category of products?

Our goal was to observe the evolution of products based on water-soluble rheological modifiers for skin care application and get inspired to develop new illustrative formulas. The perimeter includes face care & eye care products as well as face cleansers, but not body hygiene products. Our interest and curiosity on this topic came from three factors. 

The first is a long-term trend highlighting the gain of influence of Asian beauty. Watery textures and especially serums have developed a lot in Europe in the past decade, influenced by Asian players like South Korean or Japanese brands. Most of these products rely, even if not exclusively, on water-soluble rheological modifiers. 

The second factor is linked to the evolution of our environment in the past 3 to 5 years with a growing awareness about the exposome and how our environment can influence our skin, especially urban environments. This led to new products with detox and purifying claims where water plays a symbolic role of purification and refreshing power. It contributed to the development of a new wave of “waters”, “watery serums”, “gelées”, “jellies” etc. for all consumer groups, based, here again, in majority, on water-soluble rheological modifiers. Furthermore, the lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemy has pushed the trend of self-care at home, which created a new boom of home spa products. Here again, jellies (and especially scrubs) have a privileged place in the market, even if not exclusive (especially with the solid cosmetic trend). 

Finally, the third factor, and this is really more specific to Europe, is the upcoming European regulation towards microplastics. This has created a moving environment. It is still unclear which impact it will have on the market in the long-term, but we can already observe some fundamental changes in some of our customers' behavior and habits of formulation. 

And what did you observe about this category of products? Did you observe it in Europe only or also worldwide?

We did an analysis focusing on Europe only. We really wanted to target more precisely trends and market expectations of European countries, especially in France, UK, Germany, Italy and Poland. It was very interesting to observe the dynamics of skin gels and jellies in these territories. The category is growing in the whole zone with the UK being the leader in terms of number of new launches but also in terms of growth (“CAGR”, current annual growth rate), followed by France and Germany. 

Do you observe an evolution of formulation in Europe? 

We really wanted to focus on the rheological modifier used in the formulations. And based on this criterion, yes, we can observe evolution. We see a steady growth of natural gums while the growth of other rheological polymers is more diverse and heterogeneous, depending on the country. “Xanthan gum” is the most significantly growing rheological modifier, way ahead of any others. Finally, we also observe more and more combinations of polymers, either natural and/or synthetic and this becomes the tricky point of formulating polymers. A real know-how of combinations is the true added value for formulators nowadays. These combinations should target the best compromise in terms of performance and compliance with each customer’s brief. 

So what do you offer in your kit? Do you also display combinations? 

Yes. Actually, we offer an overview of what our rheological modifiers can do. We have 8 illustrative formulas featuring our key polymers. Five of them highlight different textures to be done with our natural gums, SOLAGUM™ AX and SOLAGUM™ TARA, used alone or in combination between them or with another polymer. We have a purifying face wash, a “blend your shower gel” powder, an illuminating eye contour jelly, a moisturizing & soothing cushion gel with bouncy properties and a light protection spray. On the other hand, we have two formulations highlighting our hybrid range of high naturality liquid ready-to-use rheological modifiers, SEPILIFE™ NUDE and SEPILIFE™ G305: a daily restorative serum and a “clean for all” cream-gel. Finally, to complete this “skin gels and jellies kit”, we also added a special cleanser called “cocooning shower gel”, thickened without any rheological modifier or sulfate-based system. I invite readers to contact Seppic to know more about it!        

And what is your favorite formulation? 

I like bouncy textures. It gives me a feeling of playing with the product. And following this, my favorite formulation is the moisturizing & soothing cushion gel. It is meant to apply a very small amount of product for spot applications like redness and or blemishes. However, all of my colleagues have a different favorite formulation. So the best is just to test them all to decide oneself.