The two-day event comprised of a rigorous and varied programme of presentations and panel discussions, with figures from industry-leading brands like L’Oréal, Coty and Henkel offering their expert insights.
Delegates were also treated to a novel installation provided by air quality monitoring specialists AirMonitors: a machine recorded the pollution levels in the room throughout the first day of the summit.
The Body Shop’s Jason Matthews was one of the speakers, and presented on the company’s CSR profile and what it means to the company and its consumers: find our interview with him here.
The event took a broad approach to interpreting its theme of protection, with the programme touching on the anti-pollution trend, the crisis facing the industry surrounding preservatives, how to protect your product via patents, and how to protect your brand.
Mounting popularity
The Formulation Summit event was launched last year and attracted double the number of delegates this time around, suggesting industry appetite for its in-depth learning offering is great.
According to event organisers, 81% of the attendees described themselves as either very or completely satisfied. We caught up with Cathy Laporte, exhibition director, to delve behind the scenes of the show.
How do you pick the topic?
“Before the summit, we do extensive research so we use our global database, we look at what’s popular from our in-cosmetics events elsewhere, and we also talked to the delegates from last year.
“We really want to get the topics from them, and we also want to know about any potential speakers they want to learn from. From this, we work with an independent consultant to choose the topic and build the programme."
Who is the event for?
“Most of the delegates are scientists, so you will have mainly people working in R&D but we do have more novice people too,” Cathy explains.
“Some presenters cover very hard science, and some on the trends and a bit more accessible.”
What are the main takeaways from the Summit?
“Knowledge-sharing and networking,” Laporte says. “The learning element is really key, and that’s actually something you can see at in-cosmetics exhibitions across the board. It’s a different offer here at the Formulation Summit, though.
“We take two days so we can cover everything in more depth - at an exhibition, attention is also given to the stands, but here, it is a very focussed learning opportunity. Networking is an important feature of this event too of course, because as it’s not 9000 people, it’s 150 people, it’s a lot more cosy.”