Guide to Customizing Your Cosmetic Product

Step 1: Start With A Question About Your Cosmetic Product

If you have totally no idea on customizing your cosmetic product, try starting off with a marketing survey. The most helpful feedback is targeted feedback. Compile more feedback from the market on the problems they are facing that may require different solutions. Choose your focus on why you create the product and the problem that you aim to solve.

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Another way round: If you already have a product in mind but not sure how the market will respond to it. Let’s take for example a particular skincare range. You may create your own survey such as, “Hey, what do you think about this facial cleansing soap bar?”. With that approach, you might get some new ideas from the reviews and thoughts with differing viewpoints from the market. This may help you in a way to get a more creative and attractive product.  

Step 2: Understand Your Target Market

In marketing, a target market represents a group that shares similar attributes such as demographics, income, geography, and buying power. 

The utmost important step in any successful marketing initiative is to understand exactly who you are marketing too. This is because not all products especially skin care products are meant for every consumer. It is even more important to understand your target market in Malaysia when you are selling your product in a multi–ethnic, multicultural, and multilingual society where many of the ethnic groups maintain separate cultural identities.

Below are some criteris to indentify when customizing your product :

• Age Group  – With the age group you may able to target their preference, their lifestyle, their common skin problem. Decision maker for purchasing the skin care products is also an important key to note. 
• Skin Types  – You will need to identify your customer common skin type to produce a suitable product to address their skin problems. For example, acne problem in different skin types will have different treatment methods. Acne in oily skin will need to have oil control function. Acne in dry & sensitive skin will need to contain hydrating and soothing functions.
• Gender – Female and Male preference might differ in terms of scent and color of the product. Some specific ingredients might be suitable only for a particular gender. For example, when creating body wash, men prefer musky and minty scent but female prefer floral and sweet scent. 
• Race – Understanding different race and culture may appeal to different formulation in packaging style. For example, Malays prefer active ingredient such as black seed oil. Indians on the other hand would be more attracted to products with gold packaging. Chinese might prefer products with Chinese herbs extract or products that are not too strong on its scent.
• Income Range – Income range of the customer represent their status, spending power and what price they are acceptable for their product. 
• Preferred selling method? – Selling on different selling platform will affect the way of formulating your product. For e.g.: if you are selling it online, people would prefer something milder and easy to use. 2-in-1 or 3-in-1 functionality in a product may settle their skin care routine fast and easy. Selling in beauty salon however, products with specific usage tend to sell better as there would be sales personel presence to explain.

Step 3: R&D when Customizing Your Cosmetic Product

With the above info collected, our product consultant can help you design a suitable formulation sample. Convey your message clearly. For example, if your target market is mostly vegan and preferes non fragrance product, you may let them know in advance. They can then work out a formulation that is according to your requirements. 

There are millions of active ingredients in the world that shares the same function. If you already have a specific ingredient you wish to make as the main formulation, do let us know. This is a very good move as you know your business and customer better than anyone else. If you wish to choose your own active ingredient, you may have a look in our website https://tct.asia/tct-ingredients/.   

As R&D requires input from both sides, what you need to do is to test the cosmetic product sample on the right people with similar skin type/skin problems. This will give you the correct feedback to relay to your consultant. With this, they will then be able to modify and adjust the formula to best suit your target market. 

Step 4: Create Your Brand & Customizing Your Product Story

Stories are basically how human’s way of communicating with each other. Creating the right story that will create curiousity and then capture the attention of your target market. With the awareness of your cosmetic product’s benefits and advantages, you can then relay it clearly to your potential customers. However do keep in mind that a good story takes time to be impaired in your customer’s minds.

A new product requires extensive consumer education in order to be successful. You will need to help your customers to understand not just what your cosmetic product is, but why they need it.  Data collected in step 1 & 2 will take place to help create your storyboard based on the customers’ desires.

Step 5: Choose Your Packaging Style to Attract Your Customer 

The right packaging not only attracts consumers when customizing your cosmetic product, it must also be safe and keep your products fresh during transportation. To attract your customer, you may need to understand their preferred color, style and study those products that they support. For example, if your customer group likes dreamy pastel color with cute style, do not choose to design in black and white with luxurious style. Once you get their preferred style, you may search for packaging pictures that is similar and show it to your designer.  

As for the box and bottle packaging, you should obtain a sample before making a decision on bulk purchase. Test the following before you make your purchasing decision:

1. Is it air tight? Will it cause your product to oxidize/leak/evaporate in a short period of time? 
2. Is the box able to secure the bottle? Especially for those using glass bottle. Make sure there is an inner holder to secure the product in place and use thicker paper to ensure the box is solid enough. Ensure that it doesn’t shake inside the box. In that way you can minimize the risk of broken product during delivery. 
3. Test on user experience. Is the bottle easy to use and suitable to your target market lifestyle?
4. Level of the solution. When a bottle is indicated for 30ml, it is just an average indication. If you wish to know whether the bottle is suitable, you may test it using your actual solution. 

We have experts to help you to choose the right bottle. We can also advice you on the bottle compatibility after running a test on the sample bottle.

Step 6: Post-Launch Tracking of Your Cosmetic Product

Just because a cosmetic product is officially marketed, it doesn’t mean the product design is over. In fact, product design is an ongoing process for as long as the product is selling in the market. You will need to gather your customer feedback, study and modify the product from time to time to improve your product sales.

Upon reaching stability of your brand, you may consider expanding your brand to a different range. Ranges such as hair care and body care might compliment your current brand to be a complete personal care brand.