Wellness is big in the beauty marketplace. Think everything from nutritious drinks to healing bath salts to Zen-inducing room sprays.

Across the natural body care category, core consumers are seeking care without synthetics.  It’s an extension of one’s synthetic free journey that often starts with food.  These consumers are increasingly shopping across channels and price points.  Accordingly, staple oils such as lavender and sweet almond are becoming ubiquitous across channels and consumers are seeking more diverse, benefit-driven options for body care.

Items like our new organic Hemp Seed Oil which contains high levels of fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants is just one example of how we’re continuing to respond to trends and allow our consumers to personalize their personal care with our trusted quality standards. Let's look at what else is going on in the marketplace.

Transparency in Ingredients
Product certifications such as USDA Organic and Non-GMO Project Verified require traceability to the source, providing consumers assurance of product quality. Aura Cacia is one of the first brands to verify single ingredient carrier oils through Non-GMO Project.

Easy-to-Use Aromatherapy
Our research indicates that one of the biggest barriers to entry for our consumers is lack of education, so we created a product set within the aromatherapy category targeted at new users seeking education. Our new Discover Linedelivers consumers an assortment of our top-selling essential oils, along with a Learning Guide and coupon for a future purchase.
We’re also launching additions to our comprehensive line of skin care oils with such as Shea Nut and Fractionated Coconut to facilitate ease of use and deliver benefit-rich body care options. Liquid-state oils provide faster, simpler, neater application of benefit-rich oils.
 
Function & Food
Functional ingredients that appear in food are also influencing beauty/wellness trends.  The popularity of Turmeric and Manuka in the food space helped drive consumer demand for new Aura Cacia essential oil that are distilled directly from these botanicals.  Hemp Seed is another product that continues to trend in the wellness space, but also offers truly benefit rich results in skin care applications.

Organic
Consumers convert to organic in personal care for the same fundamental reason as food.  It’s an extension of a journey to become free of synthetics in all aspects of their life. And just as in food, organic remains a symbol of quality; a halo of being made with more care and in greater alignment with consumers’ values. 
According to 52 Week SPINS data [Dec. 3], growth of organic essential oils exceeds overall subcategory growth in both channels, indicating increasing consumer demand for organics.  
We are seeing consumers, particularly Millennials, are more likely to be organic buyers and driving demand for organic products across all categories. These consumers are looking for options for personal care without synthetics and underscoring ongoing relevance and growth of organic in the years ahead.

And, Education…
Consumers are seeking trusted, safe usage information   usage behavior and experimentation with new categories. 
Retailers can take a proactive role in delivering that education to their shoppers. Aura Cacia’s national training team of Aromatherapists provides face-to-face training for store associates Additionally, the Aura Cacia Learning Portal provides a gamified online platform where a ssociates can win points and prizes as they move through the system and expand their knowledge of essential oils.We are introducing extended content labels for all of our essential oils.  These peelable labels explain to consumers what makes each oil unique, dilution guidelines, recipes and tips for usage.  (see attached example).  These labels will start to appear on shelves this summer.

Overall, continuation of the demand for benefit rich and synthetic-free body care will mean that essential and skin care oils will truly become essential components of one’s everyday personal care routine.  

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