Weekly Roundup: SpongeBob collabs with Lush, Revolution Beauty and Gillette team up with Epic Games’ Fortnite

02 Jun 2023 --- This week, beauty and personal care brands announced new tie-ups in moves to boost engagement with young audiences. Lush, Nickelodeon and Paramount Consumer Products collaborated on a new range of SpongeBob-inspired shower products. Epic Games made its foray into the beauty space with a limited-edition Revolution Beauty launch. Meanwhile, Croda linked up with UK universities to develop novel biobased and biodegradable polymers for liquid polymer formulations.

Brand launches and campaigns
Lush, Nickelodeon and Paramount Consumer Products collaborated on SpongeBob SquarePants: Operation Sea Change, a global ocean conservation and sustainability initiative. The partnership includes an exclusive SpongeBob-themed box of “unpackaged” plastic-free soap goodies based on Bikini Bottom characters Patrick Star and Gary the Snail. The Lush Kitchen subscription box will hit doorsteps July 2023, in time for Plastic Free July. Additional elements of the partnership will be announced in the coming weeks.

Revolution Beauty teamed up with Epic Games to launch a makeup collection inspired by Fortnite characters (Image credit: Revolution Beauty).Revolution Beauty and Epic Games teamed up for Revolution Beauty x Fortnite, the game’s first beauty collaboration. Launchin, the limited-edition collection, was made available exclusively in the US at Walmart and on Revolution Beauty’s website. The Revolution Beauty x Fortnite collaboration marks the latter’s first-ever activation within the health and beauty space, delivering an expansive offering of 27 products across cosmetics, skin care and other products. The collection is inspired by the game and its characters including Peely, Supply Llama and Cuddle Team Leader. Of the collection’s 27 products, the Revolution Beauty x Fortnite collaboration is launching with key SKUs including the Peely Banana Mousse Mask, Supply Llama 9 Pan Shadow Palette and the Cuddle Team Leader Nail Polish.

Gillette announced the return of the Gillette Cup Featuring Fortnite, a two-day international gaming competition featuring a custom-built island in Fortnite. First played in February 2022, the inaugural Gillette Cup garnered over 300,000 viewing hours throughout the tournament. Back for its second year, the event kicked off yesterday, and is uniting members of the Gillette Gaming Alliance as they compete against members of the global Fortnite community for US$50,000 – doubling the prize pool from last year. The Gillette Cup Featuring Fortnite is marketed as one of the largest branded tournaments to date for the gaming community.

Cosrx announced the release of its new The AHA 2 BHA 2 Blemish Treatment Serum that boasts 2% AHA and 2% BHA within 100% pure cotton compressed balls to provide a quick and effective solution for spot care and blemish needs. The balls are designed to be hygienic, quick and easy to use, while the serum is formulated for effective spot care. The new serum brings together an optimal blend of ingredients such as PHA (gluconolactone), allantoin, zinc PCA and sodium hyaluronate, which help prevent spots from getting bigger or worse. Beyond just treating spots, the serum also addresses whiteheads, blackheads, excess sebum and clogged pores for a solution that is suitable for those of all skin types.

Cosrx released AHA and BHA treated cotton balls for convenient spot and blemish treatment.Business highlights and product development
British specialty chemicals supplier Croda and the Universities of Nottingham and York are co-developing novel biobased and biodegradable polymers for liquid polymer formulations. This new collaboration brings together experts from industry and academia to undertake new research, leveraging Croda’s understanding of product performance and market requirements. Used in a number of day-to-day items including crop protection and personal care products, these special polymers for liquids provide the key function of emulsification and stabilization, without which, widely used items would be unable to meet consumer requirements. Despite their critical role in formulations, to date there has been no coordinated effort to develop more sustainable versions, and it is estimated that more than 36 million metric tons – “enough to fill Wembley Stadium 32 times over” – of these polymers are not recovered after use, entering the environment as plastic waste, Croda outlines.

Clean beauty ingredients supplier Lignopure announced a new distribution partnership with Comercial Química MASSÓ, a Spanish company founded in 1885 with strong roots in the distribution of chemical ingredients full of tradition and expertise in the distribution of materials for the consumer goods and industrial goods sectors, which includes ingredients for the cosmetic industry. The partnership will service cosmetic formulators, brands and manufacturers looking for multifunctional natural alternatives for their formulations in Spain and Portugal via SAEQUIM (part of MASSÓ), plus Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia and Poland via MASSÓ.

Participating GGA Members at the Gillette Cup (Image credit: Gillette).Social initiatives
In honor of Menstrual Hygiene Day, on May 28, menstrual care brand Always and fiber packaging supplier International Paper, Feeding America, and Brooke and Breanna Bennett, co-founders of Women in Training, rallied together in Washington DC, US, in support of Congresswoman Grace Meng’s Menstrual Equity for All Act. The Act would ensure people have access to free period products in federal buildings and schools so that no one would have to miss out because of their period. Period poverty is defined as a lack of access to period protection and affects millions of people around the world, even in the most economically developed countries. In the US, one in five girls have missed school due to the lack of access to period products – more than 3.5 million girls.

By Benjamin Ferrer