Tag Archives: organic retail

Vivaness 2023: [Show Report]

In 2023, the world’s most important organic beauty trade show Vivaness (together with its sister show Biofach) finally took place again at its traditional time of year: in February! 14th to 17th February, to be precise. Nuremberg is usually rainy and cold (and on occasion snowy) in February but this week the weather was pretty great throughout – blue sky and sunshine, with moderate temperatures.

Anyway, it was wonderful to be back at Vivaness in the show’s usual Hall 3C. At last year’s trade show (Vivaness 2022 had been postponed to July so it was a summer edition), the beauty exhibitors had been dribbled around the Biofach halls rather than grouped in a single exhibition hall, which wasn’t great. But in 2023, everything was back to normal. More or less.

Intro (1)

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Vivaness 2020: [Show Report]

I began writing this trade show review just after Vivaness 2020, the world’s biggest organic beauty trade show, had ended. That was in late February and just a few weeks before Corona arrived in Europe.

Then came the lockdown and cancelled travel plans and all the rest of it, and other things in my life took priority – like tidying up my collection of cooking spices, cleaning out various cupboards and watching a lot of 1980s and 1990s TV series on DVD.

However, now that things in Germany have started to inch towards a precarious kind of (new) normality I decided that it was high time to finish this article. Which I did. Yay me. So if you detect a certain patchiness to this text that’s why: parts of it were written pre-Corona, the rest post-Corona. Or PreC and PostC. February and Vivaness seem like a very long time ago. Anyway.

This year’s Vivaness took place from 12th to 15th February in Nuremberg, a pretty medium-sized historic city in the Frankonia region of Germany. Vivaness and its sister trade fair Biofach (the biggest organic food products expo in the world) are an annual fixture on the European organic industry trade fair circuit.

The first Biofach show took place back in 1990 so this expo’s been around for 30 years. In 1999 the trade fair moved to Nuremberg and in 2007 Biofach’s organic beauty section was spun off into a separate trade show, Vivaness. The two trade fairs always take place in February and, incidentally, pretty much always in rain and snow. February in Nuremberg can be cold!

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Beautyjagd: Organic beauty news in English (Chapter 55)

Here is the latest translation for Best of Beautyjagd: News and Reviews from the World of Organic Beauty (Chapter 55) includes a special makeup edition of Julia’s Beauty Notes, an article about Reformhaus stores (a fascinating and unique retail channel; Reformhäuser are a a type of health food store that originated in Germany), a product review of the new Sunny Day SPF 15 cream from German brand cobicos and a beauty shopping guide to Liège. Enjoy.

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Retail notes from Hong Kong: [Show Report] Cosmoprof Asia 2017

I’ve just returned from Hong Kong where I attended Asia’s biggest C&T trade show, Cosmoprof Asia 2017.  As always, it was an exhausting and exciting three days. This year’s trade show took place from 14th to 16th November (the dates for Cosmopack were 13th to 15th November).

As a quick reminder: last year, organisers Bologna Fiere/UBM Asia decided to split the trade show into two separate entities – Cosmoprof (finished cosmetics) continues to take place in the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) while sister show Cosmopack (packaging, ingredients, OEM, manufacturing) was relocated to Asia World Expo (AWE) near Hong Kong International Airport.

Since Cosmopack was moved to AWE the exhibition centre feels much less crowded although, don’t get me wrong, it was still very busy indeed. I also liked it that this year the press office was located on the ground floor next to registration, rather than tucked away in an obscure corner in one of the halls.

And here are the key facts and figures about this year’s trade show! 2,877 exhibitors from 54 countries presented their products, brands and services at Cosmoprof and Cosmopack which equals an increase of 7% compared to 2016 exhibitor figures. Total exhibition space across both locations grew 11% to 108,600 sqm and there were 25 country pavillions. The 2017 Country of Honour was Korea and around 74% of Cosmoprof/Cosmopack exhibitors were from Asia, followed by Europe with 18%, the US with 4% and Africa, the Middle East and Oceania with 1-2% respectively. According to the official post-show press release stats, a total of 83,793 visitors from 135 countries visited Cosmoprof/Cosmopack, an increase of 9% compared to 2016.

There was also an exciting new trade show section in 2017 – the Natural & Organic showcase in Hall 3. The Wellness & Spa and Discover Trends sections returned in 2017 as did the popular Boutique charity shopping area – at the Boutique booth visitors can purchase sample sized cosmetics from trade show exhibitors, with all proceeds going to a Hong Kong charity. Another new feature this year were the Cosmoprof Beauty Circle Awards. For details about the award winners, scroll down to the end of the article.

Like every year, Cosmoprof Asia was divided into four key product sectors: Perfumery & Cosmetics (Hall 1 + Concourse and Hall 5C), Beauty Salon (Hall 3E + Concourse), Hair Salon (Hall 5G + Concourse) and Nail & Accessories (Hall 5E). And, like every year, the three days of the trade show were much too short to see everything, so I concentrated on Halls 1 and 3 with a brief visit to Hall 5.

The 2017 show was my fourth visit to Cosmoprof Asia – if you’re interested you can check out my show reports for Cosmoprof Asia 2014, Cosmoprof Asia 2015 and Cosmoprof Asia 2016. And now, click on the link below to read more about my brand discoveries at Cosmoprof Asia 2017!

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Filed under Asia, cosmeticsbusiness.com, Industry News, Retail, Show Reports, Trade Shows, Travel, Trends

Retail notes from Tokyo: [Brand Profile] Tokotowa Organics

Today I visited organic perfumery chain Cosmekitchen’s Naturopathy outlet in Shinjuku’s luxury Newoman department store to check out the aromatherapy fragrances of Japanese organic perfume brand Tokotowa Organics. I had met the founder of Tokotowa’s parent company Organic Styles at the Natural Cosmetics Conference 2017 in Berlin just last month – and of course I was immediately interested. A Japanese aromatherapy brand? Cool!

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Retail notes from Bucharest: [Store Profile] MioBio

I just returned from a few days in Bucharest. It was my second visit to the Romanian capital and we were so lucky with the weather this time: very warm, blue sky and sunshine. Beautiful! And perfect weather for sight-seeing.

Most of my time was spent sauntering around the area between Calea Victorei, Piata Romana, Bulevardul General Gheorghe Magheru and Piata Universitatii. I also visited the Museum of Art Collections and sampled the new cocktail menus of my two favourite Bucharest bars (Fixmad and Origo by Night – Origo is a café which turns into an experimental cocktail bar after 8pm!).

I also discovered the recently opened craft beer pub Fabrica de Bere Buna (and became a firm fan of Romanian craft brewery Hop Hooligans in the process!) and in between I actually got some work done (mostly in Ted’s Coffee Co in University Square which has excellent espresso and strong wifi).

Also on my must-do list of things for this visit to Bucharest: check out organic beauty store MioBio!

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