Most cosmetic companies don’t help us with the work we do at Beautypedia, especially not in comparison to what they do for fashion magazine writers. Even asking for something as simple as a press release is often like pulling teeth. That isn’t the case with Procter & Gamble, the company behind Olay, Pantene, Aussie, Cover Girl, SK-II among other beauty product lines. More often than not, P&G has provided us with the information we ask for. They have been more transparent than any other cosmetic company we reviewed, and considering we haven’t always reviewed their products favorably, that is really saying something!
So when P&G’s well organized and professional external relations department cordially invited us to tour their innovation labs in Cincinnati, I was sent to represent Paula’s Cosmetics Cop Team. Lucky me!
I wish I could tell you everything about my trip, but to properly document the whirlwind, three-day experience would take several blog entries (however, if there’s something specific you’re curious about, let me know in the comments and I’ll let you know what happened). I will say that P&G kept me busier than I thought possible: virtually from the time I landed until it was time to board the plane back home, I was immersed in a veritable Willy Wonka’s Factory for beauty.
As I toured the facilities, each room was a new laboratory or product in development (all with code names!) to discover. Some rooms were tiny and full of microscopes and slides, while others were auditorium-sized spaces with giant mixers and drums full of products. To my delight, the chemists who oversaw my tour told me that they have well-worn copies of Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me in their offices! How cool is that?
One of the most impressive and memorable parts of the tour were P&G’s hair labs, which seemed an endless maze of zigzagged hallways filled with people busily researching, developing, and testing Procter & Gamble hair products (they own Pantene, Herbal Essences, Nice `n Easy, Frederic Fekkai, etc…). In addition to housing a full service color salon for product testing on real people, P&G also owns thousands of pounds of human hair. This hair is made into small sample sets called “switches,” used to test the efficacy of hair products.
And when I say test, I mean they literally wash, condition, dry, flat iron or curl and then style the hair switch to see how it behaves with each product. Any room I entered revealed dozens of employees, decked out in lab coats and safety glasses, working with the hair: washing, drying, styling, etc. Once they’ve styled the hair switch, they run the tests with machines to measure shine, strength, volume—just about every aspect of hair care you can imagine.
I had absolutely no idea the extent of testing P&G does before a product goes on the market. Most fascinating to me was that a lot of the product testing isn’t done for efficacy, but also for cultural and regional preference. It was explained that consumer research shows that Latin Americans, for example, prefer their shampoo not to lather for fear that it’s too drying, while North Americans prefer silkier textures and lots of lather (but not too much), so that these consumers can tell it’s “working.” None of these aesthetic aspects really affect the efficacy of a hair product; they’re all tweaked based on what consumer feedback and trends tells the company they’d prefer.
As a result of P&G’s ongoing regional market research, there are seeming endless permutations of product formulas for Procter & Gamble customers across the globe. And now that I understand how contrived the texture and consistency of products can be, it’s also made me much more aware of some hair care products with aesthetic-based claims regarding silkiness, lather and so on. Good to know!
All of this hair hub-bub leads up to P&G unveiling their massive re-launch of their Pantene hair care line. Even though I’m forbidden (until June) from sharing any of the salient details of the new Pantene products, I can say that we’ve already received all 66 products here in the offices (I know, 66 can you believe that?) and we’ll have each and every product reviewed this summer on Beautypedia!
What about the current crop of Pantene? Expect to see those gone from store shelves by the end of May. And expect to see me back in Cincinnati should P&G extend another invitation to view their remarkable facilities!
