1 Event, 2 Venues! The first venue for Cosmoprof Asia this year was held at near the Hong Kong Airport at the Asia World Expo convention center. The venue featured Pack & OEM as well as Spotlight on Ingredients. Vendors were spread out across 10 Halls and it took over 2 days to walk to the entire area. Booths were divided by country of origin with the Korea Pavilion being the largest with 460 business. With K-Beauty as the hot topic in the industry, it is no wonder that so much innovation comes out of Seoul.

Here are some of the coolest products I found at the Asia World Expo side of CosmoprofAsia 2016.

1. Pouch Designs – Mylar foil bags (With or without a spout) seems to be common and prefered in the Asian beauty industry. It is common to see this in the food industry stateside but here in Asia, this lightweight environmental option is gaining popularity in home goods and cosmetics as well.  With incredible capabilities to fill millions per day with state of the art machinery, we will be seeing mylar packaging in more products than ever in 2017. Currently used in liquid products like soaps and sheet masks, mylar is ideal for deluxe samples, multi product packaging with significantly lower cost per unit with vibrant packaging designs. We are seeing this type of mylar packaging for multi-step sheet mask products and also unique shapes that tell the ingredient story and increase sales from shelf appeal alone. The sky’s the limit with this technology because of the speed of production, ease for flat shipment and versatility in design.

2. Think Outside the Tube – OEM or Original Equipment Manufacturing involves creating a mold for a custom design. This is more expensive compared to using a stock or existing tube (where you are limited to printed designs, color and the tube texture). OEM allows a complete new shape in design and can spark imagination and creativity. Brands and product designers are often inspired by lifestyle sectors like food and drink, architecture, pop culture trends and travel. These unique sample packaging in a miniature wine bottle opens up a world of possibilities. I bet someone saw a lipstick stain on a champagne glass at a party and created this one! The doe-foot wand could be replaced by mascara wand, eye shadow sponge tip or fine eyeliner etc. Just think about what champagne and wine companies can do using these packaging designs for promotional giveaways, line extensions, collaboration and even the beginning of an entire new brand. Cheers to that!

3. Think Inside the Tube – The journey of the industrial production line and steps to create the lipstick was showcased during the Lipstick Factory live demonstration. The top of the line Italian technology creates laser precision designs to transform the traditional bullet shape into a work of art in a tube.

Korean OEM designs are using similar sentiment in the creation of character shapes (first seen in 2010 Paul & Joe’s cat lipstick) as well as multi-tonal lipsticks that paints the lips ombre with just one swipe. The rectangular shape lipstick bullets eliminate the need for a lip liner, perfectly suitable with the no-fuss Millennial consumers in mind.

4. Get Technical – Not to stereotype at all but we can all remember at least one nerdy Asian kid in school who loved Physics, Chemistry, Biology and was super passionate about math right? Well at Cosmoprof I realized that the Asian beauty scene is run by these left brain professionals.  The beauty tools and devices of the Asian Beauty Market is straight out from the Jetsons. Futuristic, beautiful, seamless and backed up by science. Down to the nano detail, these tools can supercharge your beauty regime and propel you into hyperspeed glam status. One of the stand out products is the Nion Beauty range with unique super charged negative ion silicone technology infused in multifunctional facial cleaning products. I can’t wait to try this out.

Stay tuned for more from the 2nd venue Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre tomorrow!