Innovation Insight: Dairyface Beauty Mooscow Hand & Body Moisturiser

In a further example of category crossover in the food and health & beauty industries, this week Gama focuses on Dairyface Beauty Mooscow Hand & Body Moisturiser, a new skincare product based on real dairy cream.

The latest in a line of milk-based toiletries from US producer Dairyface, Beauty Mooscow Hand & Body Moisturiser is a topical skin cream described as both “luscious” and “nourishing”. Inspired by the dairy market, it is made up of 41% cultured “whipping cream” blended with a number of “healing and aromatic” plant oils, and forms part of a wider range of offerings from Dairyface that are based primarily on milk – an ingredient to which the company ascribes a range of functional properties, from “nourishing” fats through to peptides, prebiotics and probiotics. To further underline their dairy origins, many products in the Dairyface line come in sleeved plastic pots, referencing yoghurts and other chilled dairy foods.

Despite (or maybe because of) the literal link between dairy cream and skin creams, few companies have directly explored the idea of dairy products as skincare ingredients. Yet if prevailing consumer trends are any guide, the idea may have some mileage: in particular, the ‘fresh and natural’ benefits of products such as milk and cream could chime well with claims of skin ‘nourishment’. In the case of Beauty Mooscow, Dairyface not only references “pasture-raised cows” – evoking the connection between the product’s dairy and herbal ingredients – but also goes as far as to recommend that, like dairy cream, the product should be refrigerated to ensure that it remains “fresh and effective”. In this way, the functional value of the product is reinforced, potentially boosting the credibility of its nutritive benefits, at least in the eyes of the consumer.

Away from ‘fresh and natural’ claims, dairy ingredients such as cream could also score highly in another key area of consumer appeal – that of pleasure and indulgence. Indeed this is a major plank of Dairyface’s marketing, with the cream used in the formulation variously promoted as “ultra thick” and “high quality”, and the product itself described as “luscious”. As Gama explored earlier in the year in relation to the Dial Greek Yogurt range, borrowing from ideas of food-based indulgence can potentially heighten the appeal of some health & beauty products, turning everyday regimes such as showering or moisturising into an eagerly-anticipated ‘treat’.

Beauty Mooscow Hand & Body Moisturiser provides an interesting counterpoint to the more ‘scientific’ formulations that prevail in many skincare categories. While dairy ingredients may not be destined for widespread take-up across mainstream skincare ranges, the natural and indulgent qualities they embody are likely to remain key features in the health & beauty landscape for some time to come.