SPA + BEAUTY + SKINCARE TRENDS 2020

Hello 2020! This is the year of wellness and healing from within. There is a movement happening where people want to take care of their bodies past a healthy diet and balanced exercise and where modern medicine is synchronizing with traditional medicine.

L Y M P H A T I C H E A L T H + S C U L P T I N G F A C I A L S

Treatments focused on stimulating this lesser-known body system are about to hit the mainstream. In the past few years, we’ve seen a rising awareness of just how important this system is for reducing inflammation, staving off disease, and promoting good digestion, and accordingly, there’s been an uptick in services and treatments meant to promote lymphatic health.

Excess fluid in your face can cause puffiness and a dull complexion, so it’s not surprising that the beauty industry is also embracing treatments that promote lymphatic drainage. “I’m seeing the facial industry go from traditional facials using extraction to those that are based fully on massage,” says celebrity facialist Thuyen Nguyen. The further proof of the rise of facial massage. WELL+GOOD states that these spa offerings and workout classes will hit the mainstream, and “lymphatic health” will become the wellness buzzword on everyone’s lips.

Facial Sculpting techniques are the hottest trend in Skincare and many Spas are including these modern holistic facials into their menus.

Interestingly enough, amidst all the marketing around banishing fine lines, we’ve been largely neglecting the muscle tone of our faces—until recently, that is. The market has been flooded with tools and devices that promise to de-puff, sculpt, tone, and ease tension, and the beauty enthusiasts among us have gone wild. Why? Because giving your facial muscles a workout just feels so good—and it may be the boost your face needs to look less fatigued, regardless of your age. A regular facial sculpting practice can help promote collagen and elastin, enhance circulation, and assist lymphatic drainage.

These facial massage techniques - Buccal, Intra-Oral and Face Gua Sha - have revolutionised the traditional approach to beauty in the industry which was once dominated by invasive techniques, plastic surgeries, fillers and use of various toxic substances to delay aging process.

GUA SHA FOR FACE SKIN REJUVENATION. It's a facial treatment that involves scraping a flat jade or rose quartz stone over the skin in upward strokes to relax stiff muscles and promote tissue drainage. Facial Gua Sha is a massage technique designed to relieve tension in the muscles of the face, boost blood circulation, and encourage lymphatic drainage to banish bloat. It helps break up fascia, the connective tissue that hugs muscles but can sometimes interfere with optimal circulation.

SCULPTING FACE LIFT MASSAGE. Sculptural Face Lifting. Is the ultimate anti-aging facial massage and a powerful medical-aesthetic technique with osteopathic effect. This treatment is right for you if you are against beauty injection. It is literally a passive fitness for your face.

Also booming in popularity are nano-current and micro-current skin-care devices which use an electrical current to facilitate lymphatic drainage.

Self-care and at-home solutions have also been rising in popularity for the past few years. People who are interested in stimulating their facial lymph at home can now choose from thousands of tools such as Gua Sha stones, rollers and sculpting bars.

Gua Sha and facial rolling tools were certainly the first wave of the lymphatic massage craze, but the second wave of 2020 is set to be a biggie, and we’re willing to bet there’s a lymphatic massage and a lymph-focused fitness class coming to a salon or studio near you.

A N C I EN T R I T U A L S & S P I R I T U A L I T Y

Globalization has increased in just about every industry because of our connectivity. International treatments, ingredients, and methods have made it to our shores and we’ve incorporated them into our repertoire of services. From homegrown Native American treatments and rituals to Asian techniques, it is customary to find a European facial, Finnish cryotherapy, Indian Ayurvedic Shirodhara treatment, or Northern Thailand Tok Sen massage among today’s spas. New formulations are old ingredients known for their use in local areas for generations, and are clean, organic, and free of man-made compounds. Along the same lines, body, mind, and spirit journeys focused on transformative powers of spiritual wellness will continue to be added to menus through techniques that feature mindfulness, healing, or energy meditation. Clients will continue to seek otherworldly meaning and inner peace. Spas have incorporated services that focus on well-being, such as Ayurveda, energy work, naturopathic and holistic services, and yoga.

C O S M E T I C A C U P U N C T U R E

Can acupuncture give you spa-like facial results? The New Botox? While facial acupuncture can refer to the treatment of acupuncture points on the face for varying health and wellness concerns, cosmetic acupuncture specifically relates to acupuncture for aesthetic purposes. Unlike Botox, cosmetic acupuncture can influence the health of the skin, working on more than the superficial signs of premature aging. Acupuncture needles are a well-accepted treatment in the West for migraines or stress but facial acupuncture for aesthetic purposes is a more recent phenomenon.

It focuses on traditional facial acupuncture points which when needed help the facial muscles to relax and improves the elasticity of the skin. Fine disposable facial acupuncture needles are inserted into the facial acupuncture points and intra-dermal needles into fine lines and wrinkles. This natural treatment leaves the skin looking radiant and youthful.

L U X U R Y G E T S P E R S O N A L

Jeremy McCarthy, Group Director of Spa & Wellness at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group states that in the last several decades, luxury has evolved. First, it was standardised, emphasizing a certain level of quality and attention to detail that luxury brands could control, train and audit to deliver a sublime experience. But over the last few decades luxury has evolved from being standardized to being personalized. Not everyone wants the same experience, and we have had to get better at knowing our guests and their preferences in order to deliver bespoke experiences that are tailored to their needs.

A decade ago, the Spas at Mandarin Oriental were at the forefront of this trend with the creation of the Time Rituals signature treatment. Today, luxury is going from being personalized to being personal. Personal experiences are even more challenging to deliver because they are unique experiences that the customer might not even know they are looking for. In the case of the spa, personalized means we modify the treatment based on the preferences of the guest, but personal means we also recognize the uniqueness of the therapist in the spa. Not only is every guest different, every therapist, too, is different. The best spa experience is the result of matching the best of a particular therapist with the needs and preferences of a particular guest, creating an experience that only these two individuals can share.

B E A U T Y M E E T S W E L L N E S S

As the Global Wellness Institute states, we live at a unique time where beauty, health and wellness are rapidly converging in meaningful ways. The understanding that beauty is more than “skin deep” is gradually seeping into the global consciousness – a realization that we can only be our most beautiful selves when we are in our most healthy state, be it physically, emotionally, socially, intellectually, professionally or spiritually.

The beauty wellness connection is alive and well, with beauty products and experiences increasingly being associated with various sectors within the wellness economy.

M E N T A L H E A L T H + M I N D F U L N E S S

With a growing awareness of maintaining our mental health, spa and beauty treatments will go further than just being skin deep in 2020. People are searching for opportunities to take care of their body and mind, and spa treatments are perfect for helping people to mentally unwind too. As a result, there will be more specialist treatments that incorporate mindfulness, plus special techniques to help people manage stress, anxiety and conditions that may make life more difficult to cope with.

S K I N C A R E T R E N D S

Skincare dethroned makeup as the top seller at the world’s biggest beauty company, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Call it the Marie Kondo Effect, but the magic of tidying up has reached its way from our kitchens and closets to our skincare routines. "Fewer key steps, fewer ingredients, and more transparency are all part of skincare in 2020. Think you can edit your top shelf down to just a few favorites?

We'll adopt a ‘skinimalist’ approach. This time last year ‘skip-care’ entered our lexicon, a Korean trend surpassing the laborious 10-step routine and encouraging a more minimalist approach, often utilising multi-use products. It took off here: in August statistics from Mintel showed that 28 per cent of UK women have reduced the number of products in their skincare routine, with millennials aged 20 to 29 being most likely to have simplified their routines, with 54 per cent confirming so. Before long we were ‘skin-fasting’ (popularised by Japanese skincare brand Mirai Clinical), which played into many a modern movement. For some it was about the aforementioned 'slow beauty' - the counter trend to excessive consumption of products born out of respect for our sustainability crisis and fully embraced by us at Philosophia Botanica Skincare.

For others it was more wellness-related – like an intermittent fasting diet, it’s thought to help the skin ‘detox’. Of course, skincare companies are identifying new topical ways to encourage a ‘reset’ with autophagy in skincare being a new trend predicted by Elizabeth Arden's Dr Engelman. She explains: "Autophagy simply means self-eating, a process that every cell in your body goes through. Processed foods and environmental toxins can slow autophagy down so, to combat that, you can activate the process through certain foods (think antioxidant-rich teas) and different eating habits, like intermittent fasting." And, she adds, there will new ingredients formulated in products which will act as autophagy activators.

Whether you strip back your skincare, or look for clever innovations to make the skin behave more efficiently, it's clear that with a ‘skinimalist’ approach, simple needn’t mean ineffective.

INGREDIENT TRANSPARENCY - Consumers are increasingly demanding greater insight into what their products are made of — especially as the link between specific cosmetic ingredients and health issues becomes more apparent.Ingredient transparency has become a top priority not only for beauty and personal care brands, but also for CPG and retail companies more broadly. Corporates are tapping into this trend through acquisitions, accelerators, internal brand incubation, and more. And one of the biggest ways ingredient transparency has manifested is through the clean beauty movement.

Farm-to-face, seed-to-skin...the clean beauty economy is booming! The global natural and organic beauty market is estimated to be a $22B global market, per CB Insights’ Industry Analyst Consensus.

SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING - “Clean” beauty today is not just about what’s in consumers’ products, but also how products are produced and packaged. Sustainability is a hot topic across virtually every sector, but it’s become a particularly important conversation within CPG, an industry with replenishable products historically featuring single-use packaging.

Consumers — especially millennials and Gen-Z — are leading the shift away from single-use plastic. This shift is accelerating as government regulation in the EU and select US states pushes CPG companies towards adopting more sustainable alternatives. To tap into the trend, beauty corporates are increasingly investing in sustainable development initiatives and technologies. On both the big beauty and indie side, sustainable packaging is becoming just as integral to consumers’ preferences as the actual product efficacy. Keep an eye out for more incubation initiatives, indie brand launches, and sustainable development and recycling technologies to further eco-friendly packaging in the beauty industry.

As ELLE Magazine has beautifully predicted....2020 will be all about raw and fresh skin, natural lashes and defining features in a subtle way. There is such a huge focus on skincare at the moment and my feelings are if you are treating your skin so well why would you go and cover all your hard work up with heavy foundations! Real skin textures should shine through!

Happy New Year!

Francesca x