Natural personal care market is big but fragmented

Natural makeup and skincare are beauty market toppers but they are also one of the most difficult to define.

Natural cosmetics and skincare are now worth about $33 billion, after growing in double digits annually for the past six years, according to consulting firm Kline. The segment, which currently accounts for 13 percent of the global beauty market, is expected to reach $50 billion by 2019.

The natural personal care market is also highly fragmented. The top five companies comprise just 26 percent of total sales, and only four of these industry leaders have a market share exceeding 3%.

Moreover, what constitutes natural is quite tricky. BusinessofFashion said Euromonitor does not track the natural personal care market because it is difficult to define. A Euromonitor analyst said that for some consumers, natural means that majority of the ingredients are certified organic, while some consider products with minimal plant-derived ingredients as already natural.

Usually when companies use the term "natural," it means the ingredient was derived from nature and not synthetically manufactured in a laboratory.

Natural does not always translate to safe, however.

BusinessofFashion quoted dermatologist Dr. Lamees Hamdan as saying "natural chemicals can cause just as severe problems as synthetic ones" if very high percentages are used.

Such concerns have given rise to websites and apps that let consumers look up a particular ingredient with a click of a button. Certain apps scan products and rate them from 1 to 10 with 1 being healthy and 10 harmful.

See a comparison table of bath & beauty soap suppliers on GlobalSources.com