Taking out the guesswork: Unilever-owned Paula’s Choice launches Beautypedia SEA for ingredient-conscious consumers

It was created as an extension of founder Paula Begoun's work in providing consumers with honest and scientifically backed reviews of beauty products.

The brand-neutral database aims to help users make informed decisions by offering detailed and easy-to-understand evaluations of ingredients and their efficacy.

On June 1, the Unilever-owned brand launched Beautypedia on three of its official websites in SEA: Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The launch coincides with the brand’s 29^th​ anniversary.

Previously, consumers could only access Beautypedia through other websites, such as its official US website.

“We have embedded Beautypedia into our SEA websites to make it seamless for people to access our resources or skin care articles,” said Sofinana Seow, head of brand, Paula’s Choice SEA.

“It’s a proprietary product to Paula’s Choice and has been part of the brand since day one, helping you select the products you know will work best. It’s purely been tech limitations that we couldn't bring Beautypedia here, but the team worked really hard to make sure that the community here in SEA could access it.”

The platform aligns with the current consumer behaviour of researching their cosmetic products as thoroughly as possible.

“There's an overall trend of people wanting to know what exactly their products are made of and to go deeper and understand it right down to the ingredients. Today, ingredient lists are long and complicated… without something like [Beautypedia], you won’t have a platform to understand better,” said Seow.

Platform features

Beautypedia is best known for its ingredient dictionary, which provides information on each ingredient’s function, benefits, and potential harms.

According to the brand, the information is based on peer-reviewed studies and “contextualised by scientists” to ensure all data is reliable and relevant.

In addition, Beautypedia also has a Skincare Ingredient Checker, which helps consumers evaluate any skin care product based on its ingredients.

The tool analyses the ingredient lists independently, without considering the brand or product, and then an overview of how the ingredients perform and their key benefits.

A more updated version of the tool allows consumers to upload a picture of the ingredient list straight from the product’s packaging.

This feature is not yet available in SEA but the brand hopes it will be able introduce it to its SEA consumers soon.