COSi gears up for significant presence at Beyond Beauty

UK-based cosmetics contract manufacturer COSi is planning to make a big impact at next month's Beyond Beauty expo in Paris, where it will be highlighting a themed stand that will draw on cinema as its inspiration, as well as unveiling a new concept at the Beyond Beauty Lab.

As part of the expo's Creative event, COSi's stand will be themed 'The Big Screen', taking inspiration from world cinema as a means of showcasing its latest innovations in colour cosmetics, spa, skincare, haircare, and bath & body care.

In recent years COSi has been making moves to promote itself as a leading contract manufacturer of cosmetic and toiletry products on a worldwide basis. This move has seen the company increase its capabilities significantly, enabling it to provide a complete range of turnkey services to the industry.

Drawing attention to this focus, the stand will be grouped into three trend stories, which the company says will be 'fresh in their approach'.

This will see a number of new technologies for packaging and raw ingredients unveiled on the stand that have been tailored to economic manufacturing at COSi's UK production facilities.

As well as its main stand, the company is also getting involved in the Beyond Beauty Lab concept. This was introduced for the first time at last year's show and was applauded for the insight it gave into the latest industry research and development.

COSi's involvement in the Beyond Beauty Lab plays on the theme of cosmetics and cuisine - a theme that is influenced by the fact that the host city, Paris, is one of the gourmet capitals of the world.

Although the company does not want to give too much away at this stage, it says it has been working in collaboration with French designer Caroline Gomez to develop a range of cosmetics products incorporating elements of food that visitors will be able to interact with.

"The Beyond Beauty Lab project has given us the opportunity to work with the young designer Caroline Gomez, and it has been really fun. The transformation of food to colour cosmetics, this way of turning things on their head, is exactly how we like to work at COSi," said Belinda Crawford, COSi's design manager.

With a £100m (€145m) yearly turnover the company's 1,200 staff have been increasingly turning their attentions to reducing the product time to market, as a means of both reducing development costs and meeting demands for rapid-to-market product launches.

The company's manufacturing covers the complete spectrum of personal care products, with the only products it does not currently manufacture being eye pencils, aerosols and nail varnish.

The company currently works with over 60 different personal care businesses, but says that its main business is concentrated around serving some of the world's leading players in the business, including names such as P&G, Unilever, Mary Kay, the Body Shop and L'Oreal.