Sustainability And the Wellness Culture Drive Natural Personal Care

Although it seems like only yesterday, it was, in fact, a decade ago The Hartman Group predicted natural personal care and beauty products would explode into the mass market, much like organics and dietary supplements were doing at the time. Hartman research also suggested the same would happen in the natural cleaning category. At the time, these two categories were either infrequently purchased, unavailable outside of health food stores or, if found, were tucked away in some segregated natural grocery or drug store department--dust covered and languishing like shelf trophies.

Today, all that’s changed. Heralded by the purchase of Burt’s Bees for more than $900 million by Clorox in 2007, the natural personal care landscape has dramatically shifted from one of niche to one of mainstream availability and acceptance. While broader distribution plays a role in the market growth of formerly niche product categories, in the case of natural personal care and beauty products (as with other wellness-oriented products like organic products and dietary supplements), consumers themselves are driving the rapid expansion of such products based on a consistent cultural desire for higher quality life experiences and products.

Cultural Desire as a Driver

As with organics, a common misconception about why consumers seek out alternatives to traditional shampoos, soaps, skin care, cosmetics, and other personal care and beauty-related products often lies in the pragmatic observation that such products offer an absence of synthetic preservatives and chemicals, are often cruelty-free and, in general have an orientation toward holistic wellness when compared to traditional personal care products. While most of this is true, there are additional reasons why demand has increased, starting with the idea that we live in an era defined by consumption and consumer culture (as opposed to production). Consumers want companies to focus on making products that provide higher quality experiences and aren’t “just another SKU” on the shelf of their local drug store, supermarket or mass merchandiser. In step with these desires, consumer wellness motivations have evolved from pragmatic health concerns to a desire for better life experiences over a longer period of time and the pursuit of “the good life.” In the realm of personal care products, naturally oriented products with non-industrial profiles have become markers of higher quality, while their industrial equivalents are a short hand for “cheap” and “chemicals” to an increasing number of consumers.

Sustainability & Cultural Desires to “Do Good”

Along with consumer desires for higher quality, we also live in an era that’s experiencing scarcity of resources and pronounced media attention and resultant consumer awareness on the ill-effects of rampant consumption. As evidence, sustainability messages are relayed by politicians, celebrities and even consumer culture itself (e.g., eco-chic) and not just hard-core environmentalists. In step with their own rising consciousness about issues relating to sustainability, consumers now feel a moral obligation to “do their part” by “doing the right thing” and “voting with their wallet”—a part of which includes purchasing natural personal care products. While 10 years ago a green lifestyle was more about making trade-offs in terms of the efficacy, comfort or cost of natural products, today such lifestyle elements are becoming envious and desirable. The result of such cultural evolution is that natural or green personal care products are viewed as both “good for me” as well as “good for the environment.”

As consciousness about the ill-effects of rampant consumerism grows, consumers also have an increased awareness regarding the social life of products as they gather knowledge about product lifecycles, ranging from manufacturing to use and disposal. In this sense, there is growing consumer focus on three areas of a product’s lifecycle—areas to which many leading natural personal care brands often pay close attention:

• Pre-consumption and consumer interests in renewable materials and ethical production;
• Consumption and consumer interests in clean ingredient lists and product safety;
• Post-consumption and consumer interests in biodegradability and reusability.

 When compared to traditional personal care and beauty products, the implications of the growing consumer awareness toward the social life of goods is that natural, green personal care products resonate with what consumers view to be a holistic connection to self, community and earth.

Wellness Trends

The trend toward greater consumer involvement with natural personal care products has not occurred in a vacuum. If we step back and observe how our culture has evolved in its perception and practice of wellness lifestyles in the past decade, we can describe the consumer evolution through wellness from one perspective as a function of product adoption, a part in which natural personal care products have always played a role. Thinking about consumers in terms of personal wellness regimens (and the products they might buy to promote wellness), prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medications are the first categories adopted in a wellness lifestyle, followed by foods and beverages that have fewer undesirable ingredients (trans fat, sugar, high fructose corn syrup). As consumers evolve further toward a more involved wellness lifestyle, they will include alternative health care practices, natural personal care and household cleaners among their wellness purchases.

Natural personal care products have begun to be broadly adopted beyond the most active wellness consumers by large numbers of individuals who dwell at the mid-point of wellness lifestyles. Some of the drivers behind the cultural spread of formerly fringe wellness beliefs, practices and products reside in a culture’s escalating perception of risks. Consumers are personally feeling affected by the immediate and long-term consequences of “business as usual” (both in terms of their lifestyles and the overall cultural effects of consumption). Thus, personal experience, anecdotal stories and urban legends feed anxieties about the perceived negative effects of “industrial products” and drive purchase behavior. The result has been a focused upswing of interest in products that cue toward natural, organic, local or green (Table 1).

Source:  “What Consumers Want:  Trends in Personal Care,” The Hartman Group, Inc., 2008.

The intersection between sustainability consciousness and wellness implies that in personal care, having a natural, green profile has rapidly become the cost-of-entry for companies seeking to enter the market. Consumers today view natural personal care products as better-for-you, authentic and soulful, which is all part of the long-term cultural journey toward what many consumers view as “the good life.”

Laurie Demeritt is president and COO of The Hartman Group, a leading consulting and consumer insights firm. The Hartman Group specializes in the analysis and interpretation of consumer lifestyles and how these lifestyles affect the purchase and use of health and wellness products and services.