Every brand has its heroes, the workhorse product range that is essential to their core applications. Typically, brands continue working to perfect these ranges to deliver on the performance and benefits consumers expect. These essentials are at the core of their lines for a reason: they play a key role in consumer daily beauty and personal care routines and often have a cult following. Whether it’s the rich lathering, deeply moisturizing shampoo or the silky smooth primer, or that sunscreen that melts into the skin with no residue, every essential product has one thing in common—no compromise when it comes to consumer expectations.

One of the best aspects of beauty is the opportunity it presents to consumers to create and build their own unique lineup and routines. However, this poses a challenge for brands who also want to drive loyalty and build a strong customer base in an increasingly experimental marketplace.

In June 2020, the Mintel Blog reported that 1/3 of female color cosmetics buyers in the UK had purchased a product in the past year without trying it first. With a constant barrage of gorgeous new products, competing influencer reviews, and innovative ingredients, it can be challenging to hold on to your customer base. Essential products help us create brand loyalty, cutting through all the noise with the simplicity of unfailing, reliable performance and value.

Over the course of 2020, the word “Essentials” took on a new meaning. Around the globe, we now know essentials to be the products that we cannot do without. These products must remain accessible because people rely on them. When it comes to beauty essentials, there is no exception. When a product rises up to essential status for a consumer, it becomes something their beauty routine cannot do without. Mintel reports that in Brazil, 64% of consumers state that their new essential beauty routines help them reduce stress, and in Mexico, 35% of consumers are also interested in beauty solutions to help reduce stress.

The tough part can be in defining that perfect recipe to help design essential products. You want to ensure it not only meets but exceeds the needs of your customers, whether that’s through exceptional performance, innovative formats and textures or even something less tangible. We’d like to propose a pretty simple formula to create your essential products:

If you really want to build a show-stopping sensory profile, look no further than silicone solutions. Silicones play an essential role in both the aesthetics and performance of beauty products. Not only are they trusted and safe, but they are also ideal for helping to achieve key textures and skin application results in formulations across all segments, from the skin to hair care, color cosmetics, and sun protection.

The diversity of sensory benefits provided by silicones is wide: silicone fluids will improve the spreadability and lubricity of a formula, making it glide nicely on the skin. However, silicone elastomers are appreciated for their softness and powdery feel. Whether you’re looking to deliver baby soft skin or silky smooth hair, silicone technology can help you achieve the necessary sensory benefits, and critical aesthetic effects that consumers have come to expect. Many silicone solutions also come in natural carriers and function well with a wide range of complementary emollients and actives, allowing you to create a truly standout formulation.

It likely goes without saying that the performance is what will ultimately provide the staying power for our essential products and product line. Performance drives customer loyalty, and when they can literally see or feel the product performance—it earns a place in their daily/weekly regimen and a spot in their Essential Routine. Regardless of the product, performance should be driven by science-backed, tested, and proven ingredients that allow formulators to optimize the formulation to deliver the highest and most impactful result for the customer.

A wonderful aspect of performance is the opportunity to build a brand or product story around key ingredients. Have you designed an essential conditioner? You can talk directly with your consumers about your key ingredients, and how those ingredients work to deliver the performance they love. Ingredient literacy is growing globally, presenting unprecedented opportunities to spotlight safe, scientific high performance biobased, and synthetic ingredients and speak to consumers about why you’ve selected these materials for your formula.

When consumers identify their essentials, they expect consistency but often enjoy the surprise of improved performance and application. Is my primer silkier? Did my conditioner make my hair even softer and shinier? Does my mascara or lipstick last longer now?

If you can continue to improve upon the performance over time, you only develop deeper stronger loyalties from your consumer base.