The trend “Medical Beauty” pushes the limit

Being in control of our well-being and appearance doesn’t have to stop with a healthy lifestyle. Good nutrition and exercise are important of course, but high efficacy skin topical products, as well as medical beauty procedures also offer an opportunity to explore new boundaries to achieve the looks we desire. At DSM, we looked into the trends on entire range of solutions, in order to learn and then propose the right skin care ingredient for non-invasive skin care products.

The changing face of the “medical beauty” market  

In the age of Instagram and the selfie, interest in cosmetic procedures is booming¹: in China for instance, the plastic surgery market is expected to double by 2019, becoming the 3rd biggest market in the world. And in the US, a survey has found that 31% of males polled in 2018 say they are ‘extremely likely’ to consider a cosmetic procedure’.² Solutions for the eyelids and neck are increasingly in demand.³

The trend for “Medical Beauty” doesn’t have to mean surgery though, and consumers can choose from a wide range of minimally-invasive options, fillers and peels. Of the types of filler currently available, the most widely used is hyaluronic acid (HA). The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that 78% of dermal filler procedures in the USA use HA2. Moreover, because of their natural-looking and reversible results, HA fillers are now the fastest growing non-invasive cosmetic treatment in the US.3 HA is a very much in-vogue cosmetic ingredient too, with Google trend analytics from May 2018 reporting over 500,000 search results related to the term.⁴

The rise and rise of cosmeceuticals

Many consumers are looking for effective ways to firm facial skin and address wrinkles but find even ‘minimally invasive’ approaches too much. It’s not surprising therefore that the global market for cosmeceuticals is expected to almost double between 2017 and 2023.4  Topical formulations with Hyaluronic Acid or Retinol, high-concentration, pure form vitamins, and sheet masks are just some of the do-it-yourself, ‘non-invasive’ alternatives that are growing in popularity. 

As the trend for Medical Beauty gains even more momentum and the demand for cosmeceuticals booms, there is a great opportunity for the Personal Care industry to offer applications that lift and volumize facial skin- from within. And DSM is at the ready: our long-established peptide SYN®-HYCAN significantly improves skin firmness across multiple facial areas by boosting the skin’s own natural hyaluronic acid levels. The benefits it can bring to all key facial zones make it aneffective alternative to dermal fillers.

_{1 https://www.aafprs.org/media/stats_polls/m_stats.html 
2 AAFPRS survey 2018; American Society of Plastic Surgeons 2018
3 ISAPS 2016; http://ofscenter.com/procedures/cosmetic-procedures 
4 http://www.mintel.com/press-centre/beauty-and-personal-care/cosmeceuticals-see-emergence-in-china; https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-cosmeceuticals-market-industry}