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Trends & Insights • February 17, 2026
Honesty in the Beauty Industry
Before Nicola Kilner was the CEO of a billion-dollar beauty industry empire, she was a young girl in Nottingham, a silent witness to the domestic liturgy of the vanity table. There was a specific, sensory cadence to her mother’s routine: the rhythmic click of a gold L’Oréal Elnett can, the tactile heat of rollers, and the meditative application of Clinique’s three-step. It was the quiet precision of a woman assembling herself for the world. It was beautiful. It was also, as Kilner would eventually realize, a performance staged on a foundation of incomplete information. The Great Asymmetry For decades, the continue reading ->
Diego Lapetina • 5 minutes

Cosmetics • February 11, 2026
Skin Barrier Repair: Why Doing Less Often Works Better
The concept of “skin barrier repair” has become one of the most discussed topics in modern skincare. From a biological perspective, however, the barrier is not something that typically “breaks” on its own. In most healthy individuals, the skin is designed to maintain and restore its own protective function. More often than not, barrier disruption is not inherited or inevitable. It is induced. Understanding how the skin barrier works helps clarify why this happens and why recovery often requires restraint rather than intervention. The outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum, is frequently described using the “brick and mortar” continue reading ->
Annie Graham • 4 minutes

Cosmetics • February 18, 2026
Formulation Lab vs Contract Manufacturer. Who Should You Choose?
Formulation Lab vs Contract Manufacturer: Who Actually Owns Your Skincare Formula? Most beauty founders believe the choice between a formulation lab and a contract manufacturer is a production decision. It feels practical, logistical, and safely technical. A question of who can make the product and how quickly it can get to market. It isn’t. It is a decision about ownership, control, and what happens to your brand when growth introduces friction. It is about whether your product remains something you command, or something you are allowed to access as long as a relationship remains convenient. This distinction rarely appears in continue reading ->
Annie Graham • 6 minutes

Cosmetics • February 17, 2026
Global Cosmetic Formulation and Design
Inside the Atomic Pom Labs Development Studio In today’s beauty industry, borders are rarely the challenge. Misalignment is. Many brands struggle not because their ideas lack originality, but because formulation, design, regulatory compliance, and production are treated as separate conversations. Too often, those conversations happen late, in isolation, and at significant cost. The result is a product that works in theory, but struggles to scale, adapt, or endure once it leaves its initial market. Atomic Pom Labs was built to prevent that outcome. We are a global cosmetic formulation and design studio that develops skincare and beauty products with international continue reading ->
Annie Graham • 3 minutes

Trends & Insights • January 9, 2026
Where the magic lives.
I was somewhere in the 15th arrondissement when I realized I had no idea where I was going. This wasn’t my first time in Paris. The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower—I’d done all that. This afternoon, I wanted something different. So I got on the train with my camera and just… rode. No destination. No plan. Just the decision to get lost and see what happened. I ended up at a local park I’d never heard of, watching the sunset bleed behind a clock tower. The light was perfect. The composition wrote itself. It became one of my favorite photographs from continue reading ->
Diego Lapetina • 2 minutes

Cosmetics • January 9, 2026
Who Should You Hire to Start a Skincare Brand?
Most people don’t fail in skincare because they lack passion or taste. They fail because they hire the wrong type of help at the wrong stage. And the industry doesn’t make this easy. Titles are vague. Capabilities overlap. Some businesses intentionally blur lines. Others simply don’t know what they don’t know. This guide exists so you can make an informed decision before money, time, and momentum are lost. The Independent Formulator What this usually means: What they’re good at: This is often a cost-effective starting point and they enjoy researching ingredients. They are great and creating 500 g batches and continue reading ->
Annie Graham • 4 minutes

