Large beauty brands, retailers seeking growth through private label, entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas and fast-moving incubators alike rely on contract manufacturers. Simply put: these experts will get products off the drawing board, into production and out to the marketplace.

But the first step is finding the right manufacturing partner.

Take, for example, fast-growing men’s grooming brand Black Wolf Nation. Founder Sam and Alex Lewkowict had a great idea for a men’s grooming product, but no real plan on how to get it produced. So, they started where newbies often do.

“We Googled ‘how to make a product.’ It turns out, to make a skin care product, you need to find a chemist and a formulator and find a contract manufacturer to help you make the product,” Sam Lewkowict said during this month’s Indie Inc interview.

After securing a chemist and formulator, they still needed a contract manufacturing (CM) partner.

“We flew down to the manufacturer and we pitched them a business plan of what we were envisioning and they bought into the idea… They helped us order the packaging; they helped us order the first run of bottles. We love these guys. We’re still with them to this day,” he shared.

They’re happy—and successful—six years later, but Lewkowict admits it wasn’t a cakewalk.

“The truth is—what no one ever talks about—is that process took us a year,” he said. “We kept making mistakes along the way, and it took us so long to get the first product. We had no idea what we were doing. We were not industry experts at all.”

But contract manufacturers are experts. And in today’s personal care space, this means navigating myriad definitions and guidelines about “clean.”

Answering Market Demands

“There is demand for cleaner ingredients overall,” said Paras Shah of Tri-Pac, Inc., a turn-key manufacturing house based in South Bend, IN that services brands across personal care, hair care, household, institutional and specialty chemical applications.

In addition to an uptick in R&D work, Shah told Happi that customers are looking for cleaner formulations beyond the beauty aisle.

“In OTC, there is a push for cleaner ingredients on the non-active side,” said Shah.

In addition to personal care products like skin care and hair care, TriPac provides a range of products in OTC (topical pain relief, topical acne treatments and sunscreen) as well sexual health and wellness products including personal lubricants, which require Class II Medical Device 510(k) clearance, per FDA.

“While it’s a point of entry for brands, the definition of clean continues to evolve. Clean beauty is more than just clean ingredients—it’s a holistically “clean” approach to ethical beauty care,” noted Devin Garcia, director of R&D/innovation, Cobalt Labs + Accupac.

“Consumers want to know how natural our ingredients are, or how naturally they were extracted. They want to know their formulations contain only what’s needed, and only need what’s a contributor to one’s regiment. Over the next few years, we will likely see transparency and sustainability incorporated into the clean beauty movement,” he added.

Contract manufacturers like Accupac can help shore up manufacturing when major issues arise. Last year, an Accupac client discovered that continued production of its flagship SKU was at risk due to supply of some raw materials. The client, a mid-size incubator, was left with about three months of inventory and no formula.

“Since this was their top-selling SKU, it was critical we alleviated the risk as fast as possible, while still replacing it with a tested formula. From emergency brief to batching, we were able to get finished goods out the door in nine months, completely reformulating the entire ingredient structure,” said Jordy Pickel, Accupac’s senior director of sales and marketing.

“Clean beauty is still a big driver for brands and will continue to be since consumers are demanding transparency around the ingredients being used and claims associated with the overall product, such as what is it formulated without that makes it clean,” noted Debbie Ramos, VP-product development at WWP Beauty.

Sustainability, Claims and ‘Lists’

For many beauty and personal care brands, sustainability is everything, everywhere and all at once—and CMs play a role in achieving their goals.

“We’ve continued to see themes around sustainability for all aspects of our brands products. This includes everything from ESG to sustainable primary and secondary packaging, transparency in materials and in the manufacturing process. Natural, organic, and paraben- and cruelty-free are the most requested marketing claims in the last three to six months,” said Melissa Niebes, president, chief commercial officer, Federal Package Network, Inc.

Companies like Federal Packaging help brands meet goals around sustainable packaging.

For example, Federal Package produced its 580 lip balm container with two different sustainability options for a boutique brand with standalone stores with extensive sustainability platform initiative.

“One was an order that utilized PCR using recycled material from their own consumer returns and also sourced PIR when that material was being utilized elsewhere. We are currently assessing an ocean bound plastic option for their containers as well,” Niebes asserted.

Contract manufacturers help their customers with claims, too, which are growing increasingly more important as consumers have rising expectations about the brands they support and retailers have their own guidelines in place.

Federal Package, for instance, helped a filling customer that went into distribution in the mass market with more than 12 different marketing claims—by either substantiating the claim or helping the client achieve certification from a third party. 

“We’re starting to see a shift to specific language like natural and organic versus clean beauty, which can be confusing for consumers. Brands are always paying attention to what’s going on in the market and are being more risk-averse due to the recent litigation around clean beauty. I expect the claims to continue to be more specific, which also helps with their consumer targeting, many of our brands are not trying to be everything to everyone,” said Neibes.

Dan Wolfe, SVP-business development at Cosmopak, also pointed to a steady rise in clean beauty and use of “environmentally aware” packaging.

“The industry has become laser focused and is rapidly working to bring options like recycled PCR, mono materials, recyclable components and consciously-sourced ingredients to market,” he said.

The challenge, he said, comes from the array of definitions driven by retailers, brands and consumers.

“Cosmopak watches the industry closely and continues to support clean beauty development whether it entails the use of natural ingredients, a limited number of ingredients or ‘blacklists,’” he asserted.

The impact of “never lists” was echoed by other contract manufacturing executives.

“We have seen a shift, brands are developing their own unique approach to how they define ‘clean’ that is outside of the retailer’s clean black lists,” noted Ramos of WWP Beauty. “The approach is simply looking at their brand ethos and what is important to convey to the consumer and more importantly how to customize their formulas.”

Ramos said brands and consumers want eco-conscious and inclusive products that offer value creation through time and money savings, such as multitasking, hybrid and on-the-go products.

“The demand for clean beauty continues to grow, and you can see its increasing impact both on supply and demand,” noted Kim Price, VP-product development and turnkey, Seacliff Beauty. “As more and more retailers adopt their own clean beauty standards, brands are continuing to evaluate the way they formulate and ‘clean-up’ their products that are already in market. MoCRA is intensifying this shift in formulation approach.”

Brian Saputo, CTO and president, Seacliff Beauty, added, “Transparency rules the day…Gone are the days of fluffy marketing language. Today’s consumer wants real, quantifiable data and assurances that the brand that they are purchasing is doing its part for the environment. Consumers also want to know that brands are conscious of how they are sourcing and manufacturing products.”

Expansion Efforts

Leading contract manufacturers are investing in their operations, adding new equipment, capabilities and staff. This includes:

• Tri-Pac has added a new high-speed liquid filling line and new aerosol capabilities. Plus, efforts are underway for further expansion, including more aerosol filling coming online in the next 12 months.
• Cosmopak says it launched its first over-the-counter turnkey product with a start-up indie brand.
• CoValence Laboratories installed a new spray dryer for its patented IconicA raw ingredient, which affords a stable, non-irritating alternative to traditional vitamin A product.
• Federal Package is a adding a new filling line. For existing lines, the company is adding automation for pack outs and retail ready packaging as well as installing vision systems to aid in quality checks. Further, new software is optimizing labor across filling lines and assembly machines and systematizing operations and quality paperwork. Lastly, in addition to new staff across every department, Federal Package has a new micro lab and equipment to test more active ingredients in house. “This will increase our quality and enable faster turnaround times for shipping finished goods,” said Niebes.
• At Accupac, CEO Chad Holzer, who took leadership of Accupac in 2021, has expanded staff across all divisions, including two key appointments in Rick Terrill (chief commercial officer) and Marty Miller (chief operating officer).
• Seacliff Beauty says it continues to grow its turnkey division, bolstered by the hiring of Price, who has 20 years of CPG experience in product development and marketing for brands including John Paul Mitchell, DryBar and PetHead.
• WWP Beauty offers Beauty with Purpose, a sustainable service program, which it calls a “customized, solution-driven” service for customers who want to transform their brands to include more mindful formulations, packaging and beauty accessories that are clean, sustainable, ethical, inclusive and diverse. The service provides brands with validated data for each packaging, such as material and GHG emissions reduction rates, using its proprietary Eco-Analyzer tool.

Find Your Partner

These investments signal commitment to the category, and ultimately, their customers’ business. When a finished product rolls off the production or filling line, it must meet the brand owner’s standards for efficacy, aesthetics and safety.

“Customers are looking for a good home, with good GMP, for their products,” asserted Shah of Tri-Pac.

Looking for a contract manufacturer to help your brand expand or get off the ground? Check out our Contract Manufacturing directory online now, on Happi.com. 

The Beet Goes On: Krave Beauty Finds New Contract Manufacturer for Sunscreen Reboot Krave Beauty, a New York City-based beauty brand, recently relaunched its Beet the Sun sunscreen after it was pulled from the market in 2021. At that time, production and testing issues had erupted in Korea and several Korean-based skin care companies pulled their sunscreens from shelves when reported SPF ratings were not accurate. Testing showed that Krave’s formulation numbers didn’t match up to the SPF claims it had on the label. Rather than re-rate the sunscreen, officials decided to go back to the drawing board and rebuild the product—and that meant finding a new contract manufacturer. “It was super important for us and for the sake of the consumer, and to rebuild community, to find a reputable contract manufacturer,” said Andy Chiu, Krave Beauty’s general manager. He spoke with Happi in March about its process that led to the successful relaunch of its popular sunscreen. When the issue arose in 2021, company officials were transparent with customers, sharing updates about the sunscreen on social media, including why it decided to remove the product from the market. Transparency would be a big part of the relaunch effort, too. According to Chiu, the Krave Beauty team was up front with potential contract manufacturers about the level of testing it would require to relaunch its sunscreen and how much of the data it wanted to share openly with consumers. “We told them that there would be a lot of eyeballs on us,” Chiu said. Krave conducted a wide search, which Chiu described as a “pretty intensive process” that lasted between three and six months before finding a new provider that had expertise with US FDA-approved UV filters. For the new iteration, Krave Beauty conducted three SPF determination tests—two were based on the FDA method and another was based on ISO 24444:2019. The reformulated Krave Beauty Beet the Sun sunscreen features a fully-verified FDA-approved SPF rating of 40, according to the brand.  It also features hydrating, skin barrier-supporting ingredients such as hyaluronic acid, vitamin E and propanediol. The product’s star ingredient—beet root extract—helps fight against free radicals and protect against UV rays, while the formula is lightweight and white cast-free to accommodate a variety of skin tones. “After two years of development, we’re proud to say that Beet The Sun SPF 40 is probably one of the best sunscreens in the US in terms of texture and finish,” said Founder Liah Yoo when the reformulated sunscreen debuted in March. “Everyone knows the importance of sunscreens, but because a lot of sunscreens tend to be thick and greasy, it discourages people from applying the proper amount. That’s why our primary focus for developing this product was to create a formula that’s so pleasant that you want to apply more. The texture is light as a feather, the cast is barely noticeable, and the finish is ‘un-beet-able’ making anyone look like a millionaire.” Out of this experience, Chiu offered some advice for beauty brand owners: “do your own due diligence,” he said. “Don’t be led by the manufacturer, take the lead on it,” he added. “Make sure you are the PM (project manager) for the entire process—from start from finish.”

Private Label Sales Soared in 2022 Consumers are buying into store brands. According to the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA), store brand sales climbed steadily throughout 2022, rising 11.3% to a record $228.6 billion. The double-digit growth was nearly twice the growth of national brands, according to full year data provided exclusively to PLMA by IRI Unify. According to PLMA/IRI Unify, for the 52 weeks ending January 1, 2023, store brand beauty rose 2.7% to $3.7 billion (volume), home care rose 2.1% to $2.7 billion (volume) and health gained 3.1% to $17.6 billion (volume). Some areas posted large gains, including women’s fragrances (+23.8%), skin care (+21.2%), and laundry detergent (+ 20.7%). According to PLMA, store brands were embraced by shoppers as a dependable ally against persistent inflation and other personal financial hardships. It mirrors other periods of economic difficulties, such as the 2008 recession and the years following, when store brand sales increased sharply. Brands and retailers have been responsive to shoppers’ rising concerns about how products are made, the ingredients used, holistic health attributes and sustainability, asserted PLMA.