Brighter, bigger and more diverse than ever before, the Indie Beauty Expo (IBE) held January 23-24 at the California Market Center in downtown Los Angeles delivered excitement and innovation featuring 180 independently owned beauty brands. While giant conglomerates may dominate the $375 billion global beauty market, the fastest growth belongs to independent brands—and IBE did not disappoint.
Skin care was the largest category represented, dominating 40 percent of the floor. New areas of growth included color cosmetics, which occupied 7 percent of the showroom floor, according to show organizers. Aether Beauty and RealHer were among the featured color cosmetics brands. Beauty ingestibles/nutrition also continued to grow at IBE, holding 6 percent of the LA show floor, featuring brands such as Zilch Acne, Kalumi and Hum Nutrition, to name a few.
Beauty Store Business observed several growing categories represented as well: women’s feminine care, natural and organic hair care, CBD-infused everything, skin care for teens and crystal-infused beauty products.
BeautyX , the educational component of IBE, presented its “Media and Influencer Summit,” January 21-22 in Los Angeles just blocks away from the IBE LA site. The summit offered up panels featuring industry experts dispensing advice to budding indie beauty brands and entrepreneurs.
Chief among them, Jun Harada, head of digital beauty strategy at Conde Nast noted that 70 percent of prestige skincare brands are now indie. “Indie is brought up as a threat to every legacy company,” said Harada. Chief creative officer of Revlon and Flesh Beauty founder Linda Wells and indie success Vintner’s Daughter founder April Gargiulo were among the other speakers who shared insights on the their press and influencer strategies.
Next U.S. stop for IBE and Beauty X will be Dallas. IBE will be held May 15-16 and Beauty X will be held May 12-13, prior to the show.
For more information, visit indiebeautyexpo.com.