You can learn a lot about a person, and his desires, by studying his Google search, observed Yarden Horwitz, co-founder of Spate, a machine intelligence platform that uses data science to help companies predict the next big consumer trend in food and beauty. In an installment of the At Home Live Webinar Series by the New York Chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists (NYSCC), she detailed how COVID-19 is impacting top trending cosmetic ingredients.
 
Horwitz knows from which she speaks. She and Spate co-founder Olivier Zimmer are ex-Googlers who started Google’s Trendspotting division and are credited with recognizing trends such as face masks, turmeric and cold brew. During their Google careers, data enabled Horwitz and Zimmer to understand what trends are picking up steam and what trends are slowing down.
 
“We worked with top global advertisers to help them what was happening from an analytical standpoint and how to strategize around that,” she recalled. “We realized that a lot of brands were only tapping into a bit of data to help with their brand strategy, but they weren’t using data to help with other sides of their business, especially product development, ideation and even some marketing strategies beyond Google ad words.”
 
Horwitz and Zimmer are determined to fill in the data gaps. While still at Google, they analyzed all the search data within a given category and ran machine intelligence to identify patterns in the data. With that knowledge they developed products such as Google Fashion Report in 2015; after it was picked up by The New York Times, Google was flooded with requests for more data. The duo started the Google Trendspotting division and launched the methodology across other categories and discovered trends before they took off, according to Horwitz.
 
Now, Spate takes that initiative to the next level, tapping into into publicly available consumer data (anonymous and aggregated) to identify shifts in consumer behavior in real time. Clients can leverage these dashboards to get data at any time of the year to see what’s going on in the beauty industry and every category. It enables users to look at specific products and brands, and Spate leverages the latest available technology in machine learning to solve problems in ways that have never been explored, according to Horwitz.

 
Machine Intelligence Spots Ingredient Trends
 

According to Horwitz, there are more than 10 billion beauty-related search signals in the US alone. With so many data points, Spate relies on unsupervised machine learning to identify search patterns. 
 
“Then we classify them into insights and implications. When we look at insights we look at why people are searching for these trends and decide if they are brand-driven trends or consumer-driven trends,” explained Horwitz.
 
Spate reviews the data and helps clients decide whether or not to launch a product or brand based on these data. 
 
For example, when CBD began trending, the most widely-searched words were: “what is CBD?”
 
“That’s when you know something is in the very early stages,” explained Horwitz. “It’s just a couple of searches, a couple of questions, and it is all around awareness.”
 
As consumers become sophisticated and educated on a trend, the searches become nuanced. She called search, “a window into what consumers are thinking. Search really tells us what is on their minds—it is even subconscious. We don’t even remember searching; it has become second nature.”
 
Horwitz noted that the more honest and nuanced the searches, the more results consumers get that meet their needs. She added that Google search is completely anonymous. For example, consumers are searching for niacinamide for skin, acne and even their dogs—something that they might not share on social media.
 
Spate takes these search trends and classifies them as sustained risers/sustained decliners, seasonal risers/seasonal decliners and rising stars/falling stars. Sustained risers are trends that take a bit longer but grow for a longer period of time. Rising stars are trends that take off in a short amount of time and have strong, accelerated growth. Based on that criteria, many ingredients enjoy a COVID-19-induced bounce.
 
Rising stars of today took off due to the pandemic, but Horwitz warned that the stars of today may not have the staying power to build a brand. Rising stars often take off due to media coverage and pick up due to a mention or buzz, but they are merely a fad and are risky, and are better suited for short-term initiatives. COVID-19 is changing life dramatically and what is here today, may not last until tomorrow, explained Horwitz.
 
Rising Star search terms include:
Ethyl alcohol
Carbomer
Chloroxylenol
Thymol
Propolis
Aloe Vera
Peroxide
Elderberry
Zinc citrate
Oregano
Black Seed
Ginger Root
Burdock Root
BHB
 
“Within the ingredient section, there are quite a lot of rising stars,” observed Horwitz. “Consumers have become concerned about ingredients and how to use them.”
 
In contrast, sustained riser terms were growing before Covid-19 and will continue to grow. 
 
Sustained Risers include:
Witch Hazel
Probiotic
Adaptogen
Cetearyl alcohol
Tocopheryl acetate
 
“The list isn’t as big as rising stars,” noted Horwitz. “A lot of them are high-level terms, rather than specific types.”
 
Even propolis got a lift from coronavirus. The term grew 5.8% YoY, but more than doubled month-over-month from February to March. The term averaged 59,200 searches per month with terms like “aloe propolis soothing gel” and “propolis throat spray.”
 

Similarly, searches for zinc citrate increased 16.7% YoY, but soared 264.2% from February to March. Key search terms included “zinc citrate powder” and “best zinc citrate supplements.”
 
“Consumers are educated on this, learning about zinc and all the variations of zinc and that is an interesting starting point when measuring the staying power of a category,” said Horwitz.
 
Each search, then, has a story; for example, the term “peroxide” had a 9.8% year-over-year growth and 100% month-over-month gain as shelter-in-place orders took hold. That, according to Spate, uncovers a real DIY trend. From February to March, the term had 133,400 searches per month in the US, with queries such as “how to bleach hair with peroxide?” “Is it safe to rinse mouth with peroxide?” and “How to clean ears with peroxide?”
 
Other categories benefitted from the DIY craze, too; chief among them was hand sanitizer which became widely searched when there were shortages in the early weeks of the lockdown.
 
“Consumers wanted to create DIY hand sanitizers,” explained Horwitz. “And now they’re searching aloe vera for do-it-yourself face mask applications.”
 
Stay-at-home creates opportunities for consumers to educate themselves about ingredients as well as experiment with ingredients or even just become more sophisticated about ingredients and understand how to use them and their benefits, she said.
 
Another way to break out the data is to look at top-trending claims. Claims such as disinfectant and antiseptic are really top-of-mind for consumers, according to Horwitz. 
 
When it comes to claims, the top trending terms included:

Glowing (+69.1% Year over Year/breakout February to March)
Purifying (+69.1% YoY/breakout MoM)
Disinfectant (+272.5% YoY/breakout MoM)
Antiseptic (+34.6% YoY/514.0 MoM)
Chewable (+18.4% YoY/288.8% MoM)
Peeling (+199.1% YoY/202.6% MoM)
Clearing (+24.9% YoY/148.5% MoM)
Antioxidant (+28.2% YoY/113.1% MoM)
 
She observed growing interest in peeling and exfoliating dry skin. With the stay at home trend, consumers are searching for terms like peels, with an interest on masks for hands and feet.
 
“Understanding consumer needs and consumer concerns and what they are looking to get out of products is a really great way to figure out which ingredients will continue to take off based on those needs if the education is in place,” she concluded.