Health and beauty communications agency Pegasus PR has teamed up with the founder of BeautyMART, Anna-Marie Solowij, to publish a report on the key health and beauty trends for 2017 and beyond.
Helen Yeardsley, Director of Healthy and Beauty at Pegasus, told Pure Beauty: "Health and beauty are becoming increasingly aligned and this major theme is set to continue for years to come."
The Future Of Healthy Beauty Trends Report identifies three key themes: medi-beauty, nature lab and me-cosystem.
Yeardsley explained: "In this report, we explore new ideas around the convergence of health and beauty: the concept of a me-cosystem, which is a holistic view of wellness that focuses as much on internal as external health and beauty. Nature lab is another trend, which sees natural ingredients scaling potent new heights powered by science. Finally, medi-beauty, brings clinically-proven near-medical products, ingredients and devices to consumers in a way previously only possible through a medical professional."
The medi-beauty trend is centred around expert-led beauty. It reflects the shift from beauty to health and the demand for healthy skin care options that claim to give near-medical results without a prescription.
The report explains this trend provides an opportunity for retailers to offer expert advice to customers at the point of sale. Boots has already identified the medi-beauty category as a key focus for 2016, with plans to roll out a specific skin care offering under the 'Skin Experts' banner in 120 stores.
The me-coystem trend is driven by the growth of the ingestible skin care market with consumers looking for nutrition both on the inside with supplements and outside with superfoods in skin care products.
In the retail space this means products that would have been previously placed in the health section can now be merchandised in the beauty aisles.
In health food stores such as Holland & Barrett, organic food, nutriceuticals and organic cosmetics are already being merchandised to sit within the wider 'wellness' section.
At Fenwick Bond Street, the growing link between health and beauty has been demonstrated by the store replacing a blow dry bar with Bodyism's Clean and Lean To Go café with herbal teas, supplements and superfood snacks to keep shoppers going while browsing the beauty counters.