How To Choose The Right Personal Care Manufacturer
Choosing a personal care manufacturer is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make as a brand owner - and it’s so easy to get wrong.
Pick the wrong lab and you’ll waste thousands of dollars and months of your time on products that don’t meet your standards.
So, how do you choose the right manufacturer for your brand’s specific needs?
Innacos Labs is here to help!
Our in-depth guide below outlines everything you need to know to find the right personal care manufacturer for you.
We explore the pros and cons of this market, the three key manufacturing processes you need to choose from, and the five essential criteria you need to use to choose the right lab.
What Is A Personal Care Manufacturer?
While beauty manufacturers cover everything from makeup to skincare, personal care manufacturers focus on products designed for hygiene and grooming.
Some also supply skincare and makeup (including Innacos Labs), while others will focus solely on essentials like soap, deodorant, and shampoo.
The Pros & Cons Of The Personal Care Market
The personal care market is particularly attractive because it’s a necessity, and therefore more recession-resistant.
While consumers may cut back on makeup during uncertain times (the lipstick effect aside), they will continue to buy staples like shampoo, deodorants, toothpastes, and hand soaps, the kind of items that are always included in their monthly shopping cart.
That’s why it’s a smart category for existing beauty brands to expand into, and a great entry point for new brands.
But there’s a catch: consumers tend to be creatures of habit in this space. Once someone finds a deodorant or toothpaste they like, they tend to stick to it.
To win them over, your product has to compete on quality and offer something truly unique that feels too good to ignore.
For example, Bite’s zero-waste toothpaste bits shook up the oral hygiene market with an eco-friendly, travel-friendly toothpaste format that also looked great on a bathroom shelf.
To get loyal Colgate or Crest customers to switch, Bite had to offer something new beyond a simple formula tweak: they introduced a new delivery mechanism and a meaningful environmental promise.
If you want to compete at a high level in the personal care space, that’s the level of innovation you should aim for.
Reaching those heights starts with partnering with a high-quality lab that can not only formulate to meet strict quality standards, but can also custom formulate new concepts to put your brand on the map.
Finding The Right Manufacturing Process For Your Brand
A product like Bite’s might be your long term goal, but if you’re just getting started, it’s not always feasible to jump right into industry-disrupting innovation.
That’s why it’s important to know your limits, get clear on your goals, and choose a manufacturer that offers the right process for your current stage of business.
There are three main methods to consider:
Private Label / Bulk
This process involves adding your own customized branding to a lab’s existing formula.
Private label is the most cost effective and quickest method to bring your personal care products to market, but it’s also the most generic.
None of your products will be unique to your brand, and other personal care businesses can sell the exact same formula under a different name.
Plus, you won’t own the formula, which can make switching labs difficult, as you’ll need to start over with a brand new product.
At Innacos Labs, we offer over 60 beauty and personal care products on a private label or bulk basis. Check out our full private label catalog here for more information.
Custom Product Creation
Custom product creation is a step above private labeling. This semi-customized process involves adding a limited number of ingredients to a lab’s base formula.
For example, if a manufacturer has a shampoo or conditioner base that you love, but your brand is built around hydration, you might add a signature humectant to the formula and use that same ingredient across all your brand’s haircare line.
It’s not quite as fast or inexpensive compared to private label, but it offers a middle ground, giving you some customisation and potential for brand story without the cost of full custom formulation.
At Innacos, our nominal Custom Product Creation (CPC) fee is $2,000, and we offer up to 150% of that back in manufacturing credit against your first two production runs. Learn more about our full Custom Product Creation process on our website here.
Custom Formulating
If you’re ready to disrupt the personal care world just like Bite did, custom formulating is the only manufacturing path for you.
This process involves working with a team of highly trained chemists to create brand-new personal care products from scratch.
It’s expensive and a longer process, but if you have a strong concept with clear market potential, the creative control and exclusivity can pay off.
At Innacos, we’re experts at novel chemical research, new-to-market product formats and concepts, hybrid products, and clean personal care products.
We offer up to 200% of your fees back in the form of manufacturing credits. Learn more about our entire custom formulating capabilities on our website here.
Finding The Right Personal Care Manufacturer
Choosing the right personal care manufacturer for your business is the most important part of the process.
Get it wrong, and your products won’t turn out as you’ve hoped.
You’ll end up eating the cost of switching to another manufacturer, and potentially losing time, momentum, and even your early customer base.
Take your time. Don’t rush into a contract.
Inquire with every lab on your shortlist and ask the right questions before you make your final decision.
To make the process easier, here are five key criteria to help you make the right pick:
1. Knowing your vision
The first step is to get clear on exactly what you want, and then search for the lab that can bring it to life.
Start with market research to find a gap in the market that your brand can fill, and then look for manufacturers that can produce the types of personal care products that match that need, at a price point that makes sense for your audience.
A great fit for one brand can be a total mismatch for another, even if the lab is high quality. That’s why you need to be 100% clear on your vision and goals before you begin the search process.
2. Product & Ingredient Quality
Once your vision is clear, product quality should become your top filter. The effectiveness of your formulas is ultimately what builds brand loyalty, drives repurchases, and gets you recommended through word of mouth.
Carefully comb through the ingredient lists on every lab’s website. Order plenty of samples and test them over time, not just once.
If you can’t decide between the finalists on your shortlist, always use product quality as your deciding factor.
At Innacos, we pride ourselves on the quality of our products. We list our ingredients on each product page, and each one is formulated with a focus on both effectiveness and cleaner ingredients. Learn more by checking out our formula sample pages here.
3. MOQs & Cost
You could find the lab of your dreams, but if it’s outside your budget, it’s not the right fit.
Look for manufacturers that offer fair pricing, low MOQs, and realistic cost structures for emerging brands.
Check their website for starting prices and always inquire about costs specific to your formulation goals, as prices can vary greatly from project to project.
At Innacos, as the go-to lab for home-to-lab entrepreneurs, we offer a range of formulating methods and multiple tiers of preformulated products to suit any budget.
Plus, we offer low MOQs starting at just 1k pcs. Learn more about our pricing in our catalog here.
4. Location
Choosing a lab closer to home isn’t just about saving on shipping, it also improves communication and speeds up the entire manufacturing process.
For US-based brands, domestic manufacturers share a common language, working culture, time zone, and direct experience with FDA regulations and US consumer preferences.
The same applies to UK or EU-based brands when working with European manufacturers.
At Innacos, we are based in Indiana and manufacture all of our products right here in the United States. Learn more about Innacos on our website here.
5. Aligned Values
Modern consumers expect more than just performance; they want personal care products that align with their values.
If your brand promises clean, vegan, cruelty-free, or sustainable products, you need to find a lab that matches that ethos.
Misaligned ethics can lead to product inconsistencies, confusing claims, and a breach in consumer trust.
At Innacos, we are proud to specialize in clean, cruelty-free, and sustainable personal care products, and we can manufacture to virtually any certification standard. Learn more about our commitment to clean beauty on our website here.
In sum, finding the right personal care product manufacturer for your brand involves the following steps:
Understanding the market: know the benefits of personal care (like its recession resistance) and its drawbacks (including barriers to entry due to brand loyalty)
Choosing the right process: private label, custom product creation, or custom formulating
Clarifying your vision: conduct market research to identify gaps in the market and to get clear on your product vision before you begin your search
Vetting labs carefully; look for potential suppliers based on compatibility with your vision, product and ingredient quality, MOQs and cost, location, and aligned values
Searching for the right personal care product manufacturer for your brand? Innacos would love to work with your brand! Get in touch to learn more by calling: (812) 329-1105 or emailing: customerservice@innacos.com
