How Does a Beauty Product Actually Get Made? A Practical Guide to the NPD Process

How does a beauty product actually get made?

You may have heard terms such as New Product Development (NPD) or New Product Launch (NPL). These are commonly used by Marketing, Product Development, R&D, Process Engineering, Supply Chain, Operations, and many other departments involved in managing products from initial concept through commercialization and eventually the rest of their life cycle.

If I tried to explain everything involved in the NPD process in detail, I would probably have to write a book, if not a series of books. So today, we are only going to scratch the surface.

If you are seriously thinking about developing your own product for the first time, consider this a starting point. There is plenty more to learn, but understanding the overall process first makes everything else much easier.

It All Starts With an Idea

Every product starts somewhere.

Conceptualization is often the first step in the NPD process, unless you are part of a larger organization where upstream strategy, portfolio planning, consumer research, and other activities may happen first.

Having an idea is great. Turning that idea into an actionable vision is the important part.

This is also where you should start asking whether the project is actually feasible and commercially viable. And if the answer is no, that is completely okay.

Nobody enjoys seeing an idea get shut down, especially when it is something you are excited about. But trust me, you would much rather pull the plug now than spend significant time and money, and involve twenty other people, before discovering that the project never had a realistic path forward.

Build Your Product Brief

The goal of the conceptualization stage is usually to create a product brief, sometimes called a Product Development Request (PDR).

Think of it as the blueprint for your product and one of the easiest ways to communicate your vision to formulators, manufacturers, packaging suppliers, regulatory professionals, and other stakeholders.

A typical product brief may include:

• Working product name and description

• Key benefits and positioning

• Hero or key ingredients

• Benchmark or reference products

• Product form, texture, fragrance, and appearance

• Packaging type and fill size

• Required claims and restrictions

• Target consumer and market

• Target launch date

• Target cost of goods, or COGS

• Forecast or initial order quantity

Generally, the more useful information you can provide, the easier it becomes for everyone involved to evaluate the project.

But there is an important reality here: you probably cannot have everything.

One of the hardest parts of product development is finding the balance between aspiration and available resources. You may want premium packaging, expensive actives, complicated claims, a tiny minimum order, an aggressive cost target, and a launch in three months.

Unfortunately, those things may not all coexist peacefully.

I recommend separating your requirements into two groups: absolute must-haves and nice-to-haves. It makes decision-making much easier later.

Now the Project Really Begins

Once the brief is complete and the project receives approval, it is time for kickoff.

At a large company, this may involve a formal stage-gate meeting where the initiating team presents the project to R&D, Regulatory, Packaging, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, and other stakeholders.

If you are an entrepreneur or small brand working with an outside laboratory or contract manufacturer, the process may be much simpler. You send them your product brief, discuss feasibility, receive feedback and pricing, and hopefully get the green light to proceed.

This is typically when the formulator and project manager become much more involved.

And then the samples begin.

Formulation: When “Perfect” Can Become the Enemy

It is completely normal to go through multiple formulation submissions and rounds of feedback between the brand or Product Development team and R&D.

“Make it slightly richer.”

“Can we reduce the tackiness?”

“Can we make it absorb five seconds faster?”

“Almost there. Can we try one more?”

If you have ever worked in product development, you know exactly what I mean.

This is also one of the stages where projects can lose a surprising amount of time.

There is an old saying that perfect can become the enemy of good enough, and product development is a great example.

After more than 15 years working in R&D, I can tell you that even if we create what feels like the perfect texture in the laboratory, there is a good chance something will need to be adjusted when the formula moves into a much larger manufacturing vessel.

Scale changes things.

Mixing, heating, cooling, homogenization, batch size, equipment geometry, and processing time can all affect the finished product.

So once you have something that meets the brief and everyone genuinely likes, sometimes the best decision is to approve it and keep moving.

You may need that extra time later.

Formula Approved. Now Comes the Testing.

Getting formula approval feels like a major milestone (and it is), but the product is far from finished.

Now comes testing, evaluation, and commercialization.

Depending on the product, claims, market, company requirements, and level of risk, testing may include:

• Formula and in-package stability testing

• Microbiological preservative efficacy or challenge testing

• Safety testing, such as HRIPT/RIPT and eye irritation testing where appropriate

• Clinical or consumer testing to substantiate claims

• Packaging compatibility testing

• Pilot and pre-production batches

• Filling or packaging line trials

Other evaluations may include regulatory review, toxicological assessment, ingredient and claim review, artwork review, and intellectual-property or patent considerations.

Exactly what is required depends on the product and where it will be sold. There is no single commercialization program that applies to every beauty product.

The more testing and evaluation you can reasonably conduct before launch, the more potential problems you can identify before they become expensive problems.

Of course, there is another reality: testing costs money and takes time.

Even large companies cannot run every possible test on every experimental formula. That is why organizations establish their own commercialization protocols based on risk, product category, regulatory requirements, and experience.

For a typical cosmetic project, you should at least expect stability and microbiological evaluation, appropriate safety substantiation, and regulatory review of both the formula and artwork. Some products require considerably more.

OTC products are another conversation entirely, so we will save that one for another day.

Sequential Testing vs. Moving Everything at Once

If you have plenty of time, the safest approach is usually to begin with the faster and less expensive evaluations before committing to the more expensive and resource-intensive ones.

Reality, however, does not always give us that luxury.

Most projects stagger activities. You may wait for several weeks of encouraging stability results before moving into the next phase, for example.

For very aggressive timelines, especially with smaller brands, several activities may happen simultaneously.

That can shorten the development schedule, but it increases financial risk.

It is the job of experienced product developers and project managers to make sure the project owner understands that tradeoff.

If you begin packaging production, clinical testing, manufacturing preparation, and other expensive activities before your earlier testing is complete, you are essentially accepting the possibility that one failure could affect everything happening downstream.

Sometimes that risk is necessary.

It just needs to be an informed risk, not a surprise.

Time to Scale Up

Let's say everything looks good. Your ingredients have arrived, testing is progressing well, and everyone is comfortable moving forward.

Now comes one of the most exciting (and sometimes stressful) parts of development: scale-up.

A formula that was originally made in a one-kilogram laboratory batch may eventually need to become hundreds or thousands of kilograms.

Before jumping directly into commercial production, manufacturers commonly make smaller pilot or pre-production batches.

There are two major reasons for this.

First, smaller batches require less material, which means the scale-up process can often begin sooner.

Second, they reduce financial risk.

No matter how confident the formulator may be, anyone who has worked in manufacturing long enough has seen a scale-up that did not behave exactly as expected.

Once a successful larger batch is produced, the bulk product can be placed on additional stability, microbiological, compatibility, and other testing, depending on the project's risk assessment and commercialization protocol.

The exact process can vary tremendously from company to company.

When I worked for a large corporation, we might make a pilot batch, practice batch, line trial, pre-production batch, and first production batch, with extensive testing conducted throughout the process.

When I worked in contract manufacturing, the timeline could look very different: perhaps a pilot batch, possibly a line trial, and then commercial production—with much shorter intervals between each step.

Welcome to the world of contract manufacturing.

Congratulations. You Made a Product.

Let's assume everything went well.

Your formula worked.

Your testing passed.

The packaging arrived.

Production ran successfully.

And now you have pallets of finished goods sitting in a warehouse.

Congratulations! You actually made a beauty product.

At a larger organization, another department will probably take over from here.

If you are running a smaller brand, there may be one final detail: you need somewhere to put all of it.

If you operate your own warehouse and fulfillment operation, great.

If you do not, there is absolutely nothing unusual about that. Many successful brands, including fairly large ones, use third-party logistics providers, commonly known as 3PLs, to store inventory, fulfill customer orders, and manage distribution.

Arrange the pickup, get your inventory into the right place, and now comes the part you have been waiting for:

Happy selling!

And We Only Scratched the Surface

If that sounded like a lot, it is.

And believe it or not, we barely touched the surface.

There are entire careers dedicated to formulation, packaging engineering, regulatory affairs, safety, microbiology, manufacturing, quality, procurement, supply chain, project management, and commercialization.

So if you read this and thought, How am I supposed to know all of this?—you are asking the right question.

You are not supposed to be an expert in everything.

That is why product development normally requires people from many different disciplines working together.

And if you are an entrepreneur, emerging brand, or small team without all of those people sitting in the office next door, that is where Peachtree Beauty Development can help.

Our team brings experience from different sides of the beauty industry, allowing us to help navigate the NPD process from early concept through development, manufacturing, and commercialization.

Have an idea you are ready to turn into a real product, or simply have questions about where to begin?

Reach out to us! We would love to hear what you are working on and help you figure out the next step.