What are the prospects for microbiome skin care in Asia?

At the recent Cosmetics Design Summit we caught up with Asian industry expert Nicole Fall to find out about the types of opportunities for microbiome skin care brands in the region.

Fall is the founder of market intelligence company Asian Consumer Intelligence / Five by Fifty, which closely monitors all the trends in the beauty and personal care space throughout the region. 

As Fall points out in this interview, which was filmed at the recent Cosmetics Design Summit on Microbiome Skin Care Innovation, the market for microbiome skin care is still very small, but she believes that the culture for this type of product already exists and that it has the potential to grow. 

Asian consumers are focused on skin sensitivity

In Asia one of the prime skin care requirements is products that are good for skin sensitivity and related issues, which gives Fall reason to believe that microbiome focused products could have potential in the region. 

"It's definitely nascent, people are not searching for microbiome products, although there is already the culture for fermented products that contain probiotics have microbiome properties," said Fall.

And the markets where this type of product will take off is likely to be the 'usual' suspect, which includes the more advanced markets in the region, like Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. 

Looking to the western markets for inspiration

Potential growth in the Asia Pacific region is likely to come if the trends rubs off from markets where this kind of product has already taken off. 

Fall refers in particular to the UK and US markets, where the trend is more advanced. Specially she refers to the brand landscape as being more advanced in the UK, while a lot of the science about the subject is continuing to come out the USA.