You’ve decided who is going to formulate your dream product. The next step is to ensure that you can properly articulate how it’s going to look, feel, smell, and perform, so that your formulator has the best chance of getting it right.

If you aren’t at the stage of appointing a formulator, completing a product development brief is a fantastic way to gather your thoughts and ideas about the finished product and work through what is important to you in terms of outcomes. 

If you would like to, it’s perfectly acceptable to ensure an NDA is in place before sharing your product development brief with anyone.

Key components of a product development brief

Your formulator may have their own briefing template however, the framework remains the same. The earlier you can prepare the brief, and then allow yourself time to revisit and update the better. Major changes to the brief once development has begun can cause additional time and expense and frustrate your formulator.

Here are the key areas of a great product development brief:

Benchmark product/s

A detailed product description

Target market

Appearance

Odour

Blacklisted ingredients

Proposed claims

Proposed actives

Packaging

Target purchase price and RRP

First order and annual volume

Benchmark product/s

Benchmarks refer to existing products in the market that illustrate various attributes that are to exist in your final formulated product. Not unlike a ‘picture paints a thousand words’ a tangible product clearly details what can easily be lost in words and minimises the reliance of interpretation. For example, one person’s ‘creamy’ might be another person’s ‘sticky’.

Benchmarks can be applied against the following attributes and more:
● Appearance
● Fragrance
● Performance
● Viscosity/texture
● Skin feel
● Colour (especially in colour cosmetics)

Often the benchmark/s selected is based on the market leader in a particular product category or a new ‘on trend’ product that is quickly gaining market share.
Ideally a benchmark should be comparable to the intended formulated product in as many ways as possible. For example, targeting the performance and feel of a synthetic product, and then requesting an “all natural” or “organic” product will not lead to the best outcome.
Physical samples of the benchmark/s should be provided to the formulator so they can evaluate during the development.

A detailed product description

Providing a thorough product description complements the valuable information in a tangible benchmark and provides an opportunity to expand on the benchmark where it doesn’t hit the mark.

For example:

Target market

Understanding your target market is great practice in any industry, and it’s important to know what the segment wants, needs and expectations are. As an example, a moisturiser may be for 18–25-year-old males, with a benchmark of Brand X moisturiser which is positioned toward 40+ year old females. Whilst there is no issue here, had the target market not been identified, the request for a different fragrance more targeted to males may have been missed.

Appearance

Detailing the specifics isn’t always necessary, and if terminology used to describe the product isn’t quite right it can be confusing which is why we let the benchmarks paint a thousand words. However, where there is a deviation from the benchmark, it may be necessary to detail what is required and the below can help:

Opacity

• Clear – light passes through unhindered, writing can be read through the material, water is an example
• Translucent – some light passes through unhindered, writing can be made out through the material, but not able to be read
• Opaque – no light passes through the material, typical of creams and lotion
• Pearlescent – a pearl effect common in shampoo and bodywash

Viscosity

• Liquid – free-flowing and easily pourable ‘non-viscous’
• Serum – ‘semi-viscous’ consistency, relatively free-flowing and pourable, but not yet viscous
• Gel – thickened jelly like, non-pourable ‘viscous’ consistency
• Lotion – between free flowing and ‘semi-viscous’ more often used to describe emulsion type product (moisturisers)
• Cream – thickened, non-pourable ‘viscous’ consistency, similar to lotion it is used to describe emulsion products
• Pastes and sticks – semi-solid, non-pourable, has varying level of ‘hardness’

Other aspects

• Colour, will it be blue, pink or yellow?
• Dispersed particles, will there be visible beads or exfoliants, if so what size and colour should these be?

Odour

Smell is another aspect that can be extremely difficult to describe, and where possible providing a tangible fragrance benchmark is best.

• Fragranced or unfragranced – fragrances offers a great user experience and add to the consumer perception, however all fragrances, natural or synthetic are skin allergens
• Intensity – the amount of fragrance most often determines the intensity, it should be low in leave-on products, but can be increased in wash-off products
• Description – where a benchmark doesn’t exist to illustrate the target, the description must be as detailed as possible for the perfumer to achieve what is expected e.g., floral, lavender or rose
• Natural or synthetic – natural fragrances are often less complex and premium, less stable, with less longevity and more expensive. However, natural fragrances are not necessarily safer

Blacklisted ingredients

Blacklisted ingredients refer to those that are undesirable to the brand and shouldn’t be used in the formulation. Commonly considered blacklisted ingredients include:

• Those with negative public perception – parabens, alcohol etc
• Those that are allergens or irritants – methylisothiazolinone, fragrances etc
• Comedogenic ingredients – for example, lanolin in facial products
• They don’t fit the product story – synthetics, palm derived, animal derived for example

Overuse of ‘blacklisting’ can become a major impediment to effective formulation development and should be considerate of the benchmarks. As an example, excluding ‘silicones’ when the benchmark contains Dimethicone, and other silicones is likely to cause issues in replicating the target outcome.

Proposed claims

Proposed claims will be those that identify how the product will benefit the consumer or comprise the product/brand story and the perception of benefit. Claims can reference a performance attribute or specific featured ingredients, the later the consumer will associate with performance.

The product claim is intrinsically linked to the product description and performance, and often linked with blacklisted ingredients in terms of positioning also.

Performance attributes

• Moisturising
• Antioxidant
• Whitening
• Anti-wrinkle

 Featured Ingredients

• Niacinamide
• Vitamin C
• Kakadu Plum

The wording of claims is extremely important. There are differences between what is considered a ‘cosmetic’ claim and that which is a ‘therapeutic’ claim. That which takes a product from being a cosmetic, to being a drug, for example:

• Cosmetic claim – “Helps reduce the appearance of redness and erythema”
• Therapeutic claim – “Anti-inflammatory, helps treat eczema and psoriasis”

Regardless of the above, claims must not be in any way misleading, else will be in breach of the Competition and Consumer regulations (Australia) or equivalent legislation

Proposed actives

Often these overlap with proposed claims and benchmarks. For example, the Brand Z Moisturiser which had been selected as a performance benchmark makes the claim “reduces wrinkles” and refers to “peptides” in marketing and in this case, the addition of peptides contributes to the perception of performance, but also likely physically contributing to the reduction of wrinkles.

Where suitable actives aren’t determined, your formulator can provide advice on what is suitable. Ensure consideration is given to proposed claims and blacklisted ingredients, your product/brand story and what’s currently trending in the market.

Packaging

Your desired packaging is important to understand before starting the development process, the critical aspects can be broken down into four parts:

• Closure – cap, pump, mistette etc
• Packaging format – tube, jar, bottle etc
• Packaging material – glass, aluminium, HDPE etc
• Pack size – 50ml, 250ml etc

Knowing the packaging closure ensures the product is formulated with an understanding of how the consumer will use the product, and ensures it is compatible. For example, a moisturiser that is to be dispensed from a mist pump needs to be a free-flowing, sprayable liquid, however this won’t be suitable for a tube, where the same product would run out the moment the cap is opened.

The packaging format is interlinked with the closure. Like the previous example, a moisturiser in a jar would need to be sufficiently thick so as not to run out of the jar, whereas a moisturiser in a bottle would likely be runnier.

The packaging material is important for compatibility reasons, some formulation ingredients don’t interact well with certain packaging materials, acrylic plastic, as an example will crack when in contact with many oils and solvents, whilst HDPE plastic is incredibly robust, LDPE tubes in contrast are far less stable.

The pack size is important as it enables the formulator to determine the batch size.  As an example, if the first order was to be 5,000 units of a 50mL (0.05kg) moisturiser, the batch size will be 5,000 x 0.05kg = 250kg, whereas if the pack size was to be 250mL, the batch size will be 1,250kg. The following section goes into further detail on why batch size is important.

If uncertain, benchmark samples can be evaluated with your formulator to select the most appropriate packaging option.

Target purchase price and RRP

It is critical to understand the target Recommended Retail Price (RRP) before attempting to create any new products, after all, money talks. Knowing the RRP will ensure the created formulation is suitably ‘premium’ or ‘cost effective’. The formulator can develop the formulation to achieve the target RRP without impacting the brand owner’s margins down the line and there are no surprises when it comes to manufacturing.

The target purchase price (TPP) is an extension of the RRP and more important in terms of ensuring costs remain on target. The TPP refers to what the price should be from the manufacturer, what do you need to buy each unit for, to then be able to sell at the proposed RRP and still have enough money for the brand itself.

Other factors to account for when communicating the TPP and RRP to your formulator:

● Is packaging to be supplied to the manufacturer or sourced?
● Are any key materials to be sourced by the brand owner?

First order and annual volume

Understanding the expected units of product to be ordered, along with the proposed pack size provides the ‘batch size’ requirements. This is valuable in ensuring raw materials are sourced accordingly, as different suppliers have different minimum order quantities (MOQ’s).

As an example, if the first order was 5,000 units of a 50mL (0.05kg) moisturiser, the batch size will be 5,000 x 0.05kg = 250kg. A typical fragrance dosage may be 0.1%, requiring 0.25kg of fragrance to fulfil the order (250kg x 0.1%).

The below represents typical Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) for three fragrance suppliers:

*Material cost reduces at higher volumes

The example for fragrance above can be compounded when accounting for multiple formulation ingredients and costs can quickly get out of hand if not being properly accounted for.

What’s next?

The above can absolutely be accounted for by your preferred formulator and very rarely (if ever) have we come across an ‘impossible’ brief. However, a formulator’s ability to provide solutions is limited to the quality of information in the brief. Like most great relationships, the key is in communication, so ensure you have a robust and thorough product development brief ready before engaging a formulator.