This article pinpoints two important facts : American want stronger regulation of cosmetics in the US in order to protect beauty customers in their personal care but this also highlights a willingness for more protectionism of american skincare business in the US.

WASHINGTON – A survey released today by the Mellman Group and American Viewpoint shows that voters overwhelmingly support stricter regulation of the chemical ingredients used in their personal care products.

More specifically:  

94 percent believe that companies should be required to notify the government when their products injure consumers.
87 percent believe federal officials should have the authority to recall personal care products found to contain toxic chemicals.
87 percent want stricter regulation of personal care products.
74 percent are less likely to purchase products from companies that fight regulation.
 
Almost two-thirds of likely voters want their cosmetics to be safe.
 
A third are under the mistaken impression that the government has cleared most of the chemicals used in personal care products. 
 
“These poll results show that Americans want to ensure that the personal care products they use each and every day are safe,” said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at EWG. “Few consumers have any idea how minimal the current regulation of chemicals is. No other class of products is so widely used, and in such large quantities, with so few safeguards.”

There is very little regulation of the $60 billion-a-year personal care products industry. The federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, which was supposed to guarantee the safety of cosmetics, is nearly 80 years old and falls far short of ensuring that cosmetics are safe.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have introduced a bipartisan bill to close this regulatory gap. It would require companies to ensure that their products are safe before putting them on the market and give the Food and Drug Administration the tools it needs to protect the public. The legislation, titled the Personal Care Products Safety Act, would strengthen federal regulations that have remained largely unchanged since 1938, requiring the FDA to review five potentially risky cosmetics ingredients each year and giving it the agency authority to ban or restrict ingredients based on these assessments.

This is the first time that federal legislation on this issue has earned the support of both consumer and industry groups including the Personal Care Products Council, leading cosmetic companies and major public health organizations.

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With Chinese consumers massively shopping for luxury abroad and online, traditional marketing formulas have limited impact. It is time for luxury brands to rethink their go-to-market approach, putting digital at the core.

Wei proudly shows her latest catch: a colorful textured leather mini handbag she bought during her last business trip to Paris. Wei epitomizes the shopper the whole luxury industry seems to be after at the moment: a start up entrepreneur from Hangzhou and representative of China’s ‘Cultured Youth’, she is both very success driven and hungry for culture.

In fact, she is part of the upcoming generation of Chinese shoppers who are redefining luxury marketing through a triple change: structural change in the market dynamic, change in consumers attitude towards luxury and change in how they navigate the world through digital.

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Blog Entry by Vikas Vij in Corporate Social Responsibility

(3BL Media/Justmeans) – Luxury product consumers have increasingly become vocal about social and environmental causes, and more importantly, are willing to make a difference through their buying choices. Luxury companies also face increased attention from investors who want to know about a company’s sustainability practices before they invest.

Positive Luxury has a released a new report titled “2016 Predictions for the Luxury Industry: Sustainability and Innovation,” which examines impactful events from 2015 to forecast how the increasing recognition of climate change concerns will impact luxury in 2016.

Diana Verde Nieto, co-founder of Positive Luxury, London, said that sustainability will help luxury brands to de-risk their business and remain competitive. Together with the Luxury Institute, Positive Luxury conducted interviews with opinion leaders in the luxury lifestyle space, which included LVMH, Kering, Forevermark, IWC and the British Fashion Council, among others.

During the Paris climate summit, French luxury conglomerate LVMH took the opportunity to showcase its sustainability practices. LVMH, which owns brands such as Louis Vuitton and Bulgari, shared insights about its sustainability programs and strategies on its corporate Facebook account.

Kering, which owns brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Puma, is helping the world visualize its environmental impact with an interactive environmental profit and loss statement. To ensure transparency, Kering has presented this interactive statement on its website, depicting the various steps in production and environmental categories where it is making an impact.

Brands such as Saint Laurent and Christian Dior have implemented tactics that are environmentally sound. For instance, three Saint Laurent storefronts have been given the highest LEED certification, while Dior has incorporated responsible lighting in a number of its international boutiques.

Additionally, brands are becoming more conscious about protecting the resource supply chain. Prada has purchased the French tannery Tannerie Mégisserie Hervy to ensure the skills held by its workers are preserved. In a similar move, Chanel purchased French lamb hide tannery Bodin-Joyeux in 2013.

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By Donny Kwok and Farah Master, Euronews.com, 18/02/2016

HONG KONG (Reuters) – GPS sport watches, compression leggings and hydration packs are the new must-haves for wealthy Chinese, pumping up the multi-billion dollar sportswear industry at a time when China’s elite are reining in spending on more traditional luxury brands.

Extreme sports apparel and expensive active wear is in vogue thanks in part to government promotion of sport ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, and the purchase of the Ironman brand by China’s richest tycoon last year.

The market is also forecast to grow with the government’s decision to relax its one-child policy after 36 years, and companies like U.S.-listed Under Armour <UA.N> and Canada’s Lululemon Athletica Inc <LULU.O> are lining up to cash in.

“It is huge – that wellness and healthy lifestyle opportunity in the whole of China,” said Colin Grant, chief executive of the Hong Kong-headquartered Pure Group, an operator of gyms, yoga, retail and nutrition businesses across Asia. “Luxury has its challenges but active wear is a bright spot in the industry. Some people wear it to weddings in China.”

China will host its first ever Ironman events this year after billionaire property developer Wang Jianlin bought World Triathlon Corp for $650 million. The deal is set to capitalise on a growing fitness craze which saw 134 marathon and road-running races held across the country last year, up 160 percent from 2014, according to the Chinese Athletic Association.

As part of its promotion of sport and healthier living generally, the government says that by 2025, more than 900,000 stadiums and gyms will have been built across the country.

For Under Armour and Lululemon Athletica, two of the Western brands already active in China, the country offers an opportunity to grow outside the mature markets of the United States and Europe.

No. 2 U.S. sportswear maker Under Armour expects China sales to leap 25 percent a year until 2018, while Vancouver-based yogawear giant Lululemon says its first Hong Kong store is on track to make $8 million in sales this year. But they face a strong field of Chinese rivals such as ANTA <2020.HK>, Xtep <1368.HK> and 361 Degrees <1361.HK> whose share prices soared between 34 percent and 56 percent last year.

That compares with traditional luxury titans like Italy’s Prada <1913.HK> – a maker of fancy handbags – which sank 45 percent on the Hong Kong exchange last year as Beijing’s clampdown on corruption and China’s slowest economic growth in 25 years forced China’s elite to change their spending habits.

Some of the money once spent on French wine and Italian leather now appears to be flowing into high-end heart-rate monitors and running shoes.

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The domestic Chinese market for luxury goods may be struggling, but investors shouldn’t discount the huge amount of high-end products Chinese tourists buy, as the forecast-beating results from Kering – owner of Gucci – testify.

Luxury goods maker Kering gave the markets a pleasant surprise on Friday as earnings at its flagship Gucci luxury brand thrashed expectations and raised hopes of more good things to come as more new designs are set to be introduced this year.

Gucci revenue advanced 4.8%, compared with the 1.5% growth analysts anticipated – the brand’s strongest result in three years. However, while the company reported that conditions in Hong Kong and Macau (China’s luxury market bellwethers) were still lacklustre, there is hope for the sector more broadly.

The domestic Chinese market for luxury goods may be struggling, but investors shouldn’t discount the huge amount of high-end products Chinese tourists buy.

Indeed, they spent $116.8 billion (£87 billion)) on luxury when abroad in 2015, according to China Daily.

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CNBC, 17/02/2016.

It isn't every day you see a sign boasting 40 percent off in the window of a luxury shop. But as real estate executive Andy Graiser walked past one of Prada's New York City boutiques a week before Christmas, that's exactly what he encountered.

Though the design house is working through some internal issues (namely, products that have fallen flat with their target demographic), Graiser, founder of A&G Realty, said such deep discounting at a luxury shop is indicative of broader woes across the luxury space — troubles that could result in the segment being next in line to trim its store fleet.

The problems that luxury firms are battling are twofold. For one, they're facing macroeconomic pressures including a sinking stock market, stalled global growth and a stronger dollar, all of which discourage the high-end consumer from spending. For another, they're trying to sell their wares to a group of shoppers who have become less focused on material goods, and are instead more interested in dining out or travel — a trend that could have long-term implications for the industry.

Due to these factors and an overall glut of retail space in the U.S., Graiser predicts luxury retailers will be next in line to close some stores, as they try to compete in a country that has more than two times the retail space per capita than the United Kingdom, France, Brazil and Germany combined.

"There are real issues with some of these luxury players," Graiser said. "There's going to be a lot more closures that are going to be occurring."

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