Raouf Farhat spent eight years at Byredo — through its €1 billion acquisition by Puig — before co-founding Melyon, a luxury brand built on radical inclusivity. His trajectory offers one of the clearest current illustrations of how conviction-led brand architecture operates in practice, and what procurement and formulation teams building for this market need to understand.

Haut.AI's Virtual Companion technology, built with OLAY, uses generative AI and clinical data modelling to simulate how a skincare routine will perform before purchase. For manufacturers and R&D teams, this signals a new bar for claims visualisation that clinical data quality will increasingly determine.

Peptide-powered formulations are moving far beyond anti-ageing serums — into colour cosmetics, scalp treatments, and neurocosmetic applications. This formulator-focused analysis decodes eight notable recent launches, the active peptides they deploy, and what India-based R&D teams need to know about usage rates, delivery, regulatory positioning, and sourcing.

L’Oréal is in talks to acquire a majority stake in Indian personal care startup Innovist, valuing the company at up to $450 million.

The Indonesian Ministry of Industry has launched the Bali Flavour and Fragrance Centre (PFF Bali) to add domestic value to raw botanicals, giving Indian cosmetic chemists direct access to high-efficacy, traceable natural ingredients.