Home Care Products Research Articles

Unlocking competitiveness through scent names: A data-driven approach

Naming a product’s scent is a key decision. The same scent can be interpreted differently when different names are assigned to it. Thus, choosing the right scent name can increase competitiveness by successfully appealing to desired consumer segments. We propose that such decisions should be data driven (i.e., on the basis of competitors’ offerings and consumers’ preferences) and provide guidelines on how to assign scent names to products in home care and personal care product categories, focusing on capturing market segments. Based on a large web-based dataset of scented products across multiple brands and categories, this article is the first to construct a typology of scent names empirically: unscented, concrete, abstract, and proprietary. After examining firms’ assortments of scented products with different names across 12 categories and comparing them with consumers’ preferences concerning such assortments, we identify major gaps. Overall, consumers demand far more unscented products and products with abstract names than currently offered; however, preferences for products with proprietary names are mostly aligned. Strategic recommendations center on naming scented products to better align supply and demand in the scented product market and capture new market opportunities.

ОЦІНКА АСОРТИМЕНТНОГО ПОРТФЕЛЯ (В РИТЕЙЛІ ТОВ «ПРОСТОР»)

The article actualizes the issue of developing a perfect assortment policy of the enterprise as an important competitive advantage. Emphasis is placed on the need to form an optimal assortment portfolio of the company to maintain competitiveness. The study was conducted on the example of stores "Prostor" - a national network with a wide range of products for women. The article identifies the main competitors of Prostor LLC and provides an assessment of competitive advantages. In particular, the prices for individual products in Prostor, Watsons and EVA stores were compared and their loyalty programs were analyzed. To study the external environment of the company "Space" used PEST-analysis, according to which the influential groups of factors were economic and political. The overall expert assessment showed the following results: strengths - 5.4 points, weaknesses - 0.7 points, opportunities are 1.6 points, and threats are 2.4 points. The assessment of the attractiveness of the enterprise was carried out by the method of formalized qualitative analysis. ABC analysis of the range of LLC "Space" and three groups of goods: group A - very important goods (decorative cosmetics, perfumes for women, niche perfumes, home care products), group B - goods of medium importance (manicure tools and pedicure, sun protection, lip care products, etc.) and group C - the least important products (cosmetic brushes, fragrances for the home, hygiene and care, etc.). According to the results of the construction of the BCG matrix, the following groups of goods were identified: "stars" - home care products, "milking cows" - jewelry, "dogs" - perfumes, " "heavy children" - hair care products. As a result, it is proposed to improve the product portfolio of Prostor LLC. The following methods were used in the study: PEST-analysis - to study the external environment of the enterprise, ABC-analysis - to identify the most profitable group of goods, BCG matrix - to conduct portfolio analysis.

The Antecedents of Category Management towards Customer Enhanced Services and Effects on Customer Satisfaction in Pharmaceutical Retailing: A Study with Special Reference to Medical Shops (Drug Stores) at Kanchipuram Town

Category planning and management is the vital strategic part of retailing. It is the instrument for differentiated customer service and customer satisfaction. The cause of category planning and management induce the effect on retention of customers in competitive retailing environment. The present study focuses to understand the antecedents of category planning and management among the pharmaceutical retailing by considering the product mix dealing of healthcare, oral care, skin care, personal care and homecare products and its line dealt by the drug stores for the enhanced service to customers on customer satisfaction as well retention at Kanchipuram town. The Category Management process undertaken by the medical shop retailers in the study area comprises product assortment, availability, pricing, promotion and reachability as important constructs with identified sub items through previous studies. The empirical data required for the study were collected from the customers during the time of purchase in different retail formats of pharmaceutical shops belong to brand and unbranded retailers in the study area. The conceptual theoretical background on retail Category Management model influence on enhanced customer service and customer satisfaction was tested through structural equation model (SEM-covariance) with the help of AMOS 17.0. The major observations of the study proclaims that the Category Management aspects have direct influence on enhanced customer service and no direct influence on customer satisfaction but at the same time the effect of enhanced customer service is high on customer satisfaction.

Capillary Structured Suspensions from In Situ Hydrophobized Calcium Carbonate Particles Suspended in a Polar Liquid Media.

We demonstrate that capillary suspensions can be formed from hydrophilic calcium carbonate particles suspended in a polar continuous media and connected by capillary bridges formed of minute amounts of an immiscible secondary liquid phase. This was achieved in two different polar continuous phases, water and glycerol, and three different oils, oleic acid, isopropyl myristate, and peppermint oil as a secondary liquid phase. The capillary structuring of the suspension was made possible through local in situ hydrophobization of the calcium carbonate particles dispersed in the polar media by adding very small amounts of oleic acid to the secondary liquid phase. We observed a strong increase in the viscosity of the calcium carbonate suspension by several orders of magnitude upon addition of the secondary oil phase compared with the same suspension without secondary liquid phase or without oleic acid. The stability and the rheological properties of the obtained capillary structured materials were studied in relation to the physical properties of the system such as the particle size, interfacial tension between the primary and secondary liquid phases, as well as the particle contact angle at this liquid-liquid interface. We also determined the minimal concentrations of the secondary liquid phase at fixed particle concentration as well as the minimal particle concentration at fixed secondary phase concentration needed to form a capillary suspension. Capillary suspensions formed by this method can find application in structuring pharmaceutical and food formulations as well as a variety of home and personal care products.

Thermally Responsive Capillary Suspensions.

We demonstrate that stimulus-responsive capillary-structured materials can be formed from hydrophobized calcium carbonate particles suspended in a non-polar phase (silicone oil) and bridged by very small amounts of a hydrogel as the secondary aqueous phase. Inclusion of thermally responsive polymers into the aqueous phase yielded a capillary-structured suspension whose rheology is controlled by a change in temperature and can increase its complex modulus by several orders of magnitude because of the gelation of the capillary bridges between the solid particles. We demonstrate that the rheology of the capillary suspension and its response upon temperature changes can be controlled by the gelling properties as little as 0.1 w/w % of the secondary aqueous phase containing 2 wt % of the gelling carbohydrate. Doping the secondary (aqueous) phase with methyl cellulose, which gels at elevated temperatures, gave capillary-structured materials whose viscosity and structural strength can increase by several orders of magnitude as the temperature is increased past the gelling temperature of the methyl cellulose solution. Increasing the methyl cellulose concentration from 0 to 2 w/w % in the secondary (aqueous) phase increases the complex modulus and the yield stress of the capillary suspension of 10 w/w % hydrophobized calcium carbonate in silicone oil by 2 orders of magnitude at a fixed temperature. By using an aqueous solution of a low melting point agarose as a secondary liquid phase, which melts as the temperature is raised, we produced capillary-structured materials whose viscosity and structural strength can decrease by several orders of magnitude as the temperature is increased past the melting temperature of the agarose solution. The development of thermally responsive capillary suspensions can find potential applications in structuring of smart home and personal care products as well as in temperature-triggered change in rheology and release of flavors in foods and actives in pharmaceutical formulations.

Personal & home care products

Personal & home care products

ET&C Best Paper of 2016.

Engineered nanoparticles are increasingly produced because of their innovative functionalities and are used in consumer products (such as personal and home care products, clothes, paints, and toys) and different processes (e.g., biomedical, electronic, industrial, and environmental). Their unique size‐dependent physicochemical properties are often the reason for their use; however, these same properties have prompted their environmental concern. Difference in their physicochemical properties compared to conventional anthropogenic stressors like chemicals, may imply that the way uncertainty is addressed in conventional risk assessment methods is not fit to evaluate engineered nanoparticles. In recent years, there has been much work done on the exposure and effects of engineered nanoparticles in the environment with few papers trying to characterise risk. Jacobs et al. 1 describes a thoroughly conducted and innovative study on a probabilistic environmental risk assessment of TiO2 nanoparticles. The authors present a novel method to model variability and uncertainty separately in the environmental risk assessment of engineered nanoparticles, so their separate contribution can be assessed. By doing so the authors provide clear guidance for future research in order to reduce uncertainty in the risk assessment of engineered nanoparticles, something that is greatly needed for their sustainable use.

Sediments as a sink for UV filters and benzotriazoles: the case study of Upper Iguaçu watershed, Curitiba (Brazil).

Ingredients in home and personal care products, including UV filters and benzotriazoles, are high production volume chemicals extensively used in our daily life, despite several studies revealed their potential eco-toxicity and endocrine-disrupting capacity. Due to some features, such as high lipophilicity, low degradability, and persistence of many of these compounds, sediments can be considered a sink for them in the aquatic environment. In the present study, nine organic UV filters and three benzotriazoles were investigated for the first time in sediments from four urban rivers in Brazil. The contaminants were analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The results revealed that octocrylene (OC), etylhexyl-methoxycinnamate (EHMC), benzophenone-3 (oxybenzone, BP3), and benzotriazole (BZT) were the predominant compounds adsorbed on the sediments, with concentrations ranging from 5.6 to 322.2ngg-1 dry weight. The results reported in this work constitute the first data on the accumulation of polar benzotriazoles and lipophilic organic UV filters in sediments from Brazil.

Patterns in Personal and Home Care Products along Pregnancy in Puerto Rican woman from the Northern Karst Region: The Role of Socio-Demographic Characteristics

Patterns in Personal and Home Care Products along Pregnancy in Puerto Rican woman from the Northern Karst Region: The Role of Socio-Demographic Characteristics

Personal & home care products

Personal & home care products

Personal & home care products

Personal & home care products

Business Strategy and Marketing Management of a Multinational Organization Development

Unilever Bangladesh Limited, a fast moving consumer goods company, engages in the manufacture and distribution of home care products, personal care products, and foods. It offers household care, fabric cleaning, skin cleansing, skin care, oral care, hair care, and personal grooming products, as well as tea based beverages. The company was formerly known as Lever Brothers Bangladesh Ltd. and changed its name in December 2004. Unilever Bangladesh Limited was founded in 1964 and is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Unilever Bangladesh Limited operates as a subsidiary of Unilever Public Limited Company. Unilever believes profitable growth should also be responsible growth. That approach lies at the heart of their business model, driven by sustainable living and the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. It guides their approach to how they do business and how they meet the growing consumer demand for brands that act responsibly in a world of finite resources. Their business model begins with consumer insight that informs brand innovation, often with partners in their supply chain, to create products they take to market supported by marketing and advertising across a range of distribution channels.

Unilever to disclose fragrance ingredients

Consumer goods giant Unilever says it will begin to voluntarily disclose the fragrance ingredients in its individual home and personal care products down to 0.01% of the products’ formulations. It will also disclose the scent that each fragrance ingredient contributes. The lists will be available on Unilever’s website by 2018. In addition, the company will label fragrance allergens on the packages of its personal care products in the U.S. Generally, fragrance formulas are considered trade secrets and are not part of ingredient disclosure rules. The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that tracks ingredients in personal care and cleaning products, applauded the move. EWG says the new policy is a game changer, and it expects other major companies to follow suit.

Probing the surface of aqueous surfactant-perfume mixed solutions during perfume evaporation

The rate of release or evaporation of perfume molecules from surfaces is a key factor in determining the impact of the perfume in a range of applications relating to home and personal care products. For mixtures of the anionic surfactant sodium dodecylsulfate and the model perfume linalool the rate of change of adsorption with time due to forced air flow over a fixed headspace was evaluated using neutron reflectivity over a period of up to ∼250min. The measurements were made in the limit of the high flow rates where the evaporation is independent of the air flow rate. The amount of perfume at the interface decreases with time, and this occurs at a faster rate as the initial amount of perfume in solution is decreased. The variation of the perfume adsorption with time for different surfactant/perfume solution compositions illustrates the increasing importance of diffusion to the surface as the perfume concentration in solution decreases.

Lubrizol home care products added to Safer Choice programme

Lubrizol home care products added to Safer Choice programme

Encapsulation firm buys itaconic acid maker

Revolymer, a U.K. company selling encapsulation technology for controlled release, has agreed to acquire the U.S.-based specialty polymer firm Itaconix for $7 million and a further $6 million subject to performance criteria. Itaconix produces polymers from biobased itaconic acid. It has 40 pending or issued patents relating to itaconic acid-based polymers for uses including mineral dispersion in paints and odor removal in home care products.

An ecosystem model of the lower Po river for use in ecological risk assessment of xenobiotics

Ecological modelling has the potential to increase the realism of chemical risk assessment for better informed risk management and decision making meeting the protection goals and requirements of the EU's chemicals- and water-related regulations. We developed a food web model of the final lowland section of the longest Italian river (Po) to assess the importance of ecological interactions in setting protective thresholds for river ecosystems exposed to chemicals discharged via wastewater. An integrated 14 compartment model was setup using AQUATOX 3.1, providing a dynamic, quantitative representation of the main functional groups in the food web. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the functioning of the Po ecosystem is quantitatively described. The model was calibrated against observations of biomass density of riverine biota, as typically available for a large lowland river in Europe. The role of ecological interactions on the response of the modelled organisms to chemical exposure was tested on realistic and hypothetical exposure scenarios for two compounds contained in home and personal care products: the anionic surfactant linear alkylbenzene sulphonate and the antimicrobial triclosan. At realistic exposure concentrations the model showed no significant effect compared to control simulations. At hypothetical higher exposure, effects resulting from complex ecosystem-scale interactions emerge. Depending on the organism's position in the food web, indirect effects due to ecological interactions can either amplify or mitigate the effect of direct toxicity. Model results indicate that organisms’ responses to chemicals in real ecosystems is poorly correlated to their direct toxicity (i.e. measured by L/ECX values) for a range of simulated exposure, including concentrations equal to the reported PNEC values. AQUATOX is a useful tool to investigate the relative importance of direct toxicity and ecological interactions, but at this stage it is difficult to use it for prospective chemical risk assessment, given the underlying model uncertainties and the practical limitations of field scale evaluations. An improvement of the quantitative monitoring of feeding preferences and abundance over time of the most representative species within each functional group would be of great help to refine the model parameterisation and calibration. Nonetheless, the development of river ecosystem model scenarios is a stepping stone towards the incorporation of ecological modelling in risk assessment. When extensively tested on different scenarios AQUATOX provides a useful platform, which can be linked to mechanistic effect models as long as this component can be evaluated in controlled settings (i.e. laboratory or mesocosm scale).

Treatment of Dentin Hypersensitivity Using Nano-Hydroxyapatite Pastes: A Randomized Three-Month Clinical Trial.

This randomized clinical trial tested the three-month desensitizing effect of two protocols using nano-hydroxyapatite formulations compared with Pro-Argin and fluoride varnish. Twenty-eight subjects with 137 teeth presenting dentin exposure with a minimal hypersensitivity of four on the visual analog scale (VAS) took part of this study. The subjects were randomly assigned to four groups: Desensibilize Nano-P paste (20% hydroxyapatite [HAP], potassium nitrate, and sodium fluoride [NaF]; 9000 ppm fluoride [F]); Desensibilize Nano-P associated with experimental home-care pastes (10% HA, potassium nitrate, and NaF; 900 ppm F); Pro-Relief professional paste (8% arginine with Pro-Argin technology) associated with home-care toothpaste (8% arginine, sodium monofluorophosphate, 1450 ppm F); and Duraphat professional varnish (NaF varnish, 22,600 ppm F). The professional treatments were performed in weekly appointments over three weeks. The home-care products were used continuously for three months. A VAS was used to assess the tooth sensitivity response after standardized evaporative stimulus at baseline and after one month and three months. The baseline score was deducted from the final score, and the means were analyzed using nested analysis of variance, while the comparison between times was performed by a general linear model (p<0.05). At the first month all treatments were effective, but there were no significant differences among them (p=0.94). At the third month, despite the fact that NaF varnish had the lowest effect in reducing hypersensitivity, no significant difference was found among the treatments (p=0.09). Only Pro-Relief increased its effect over time (p=0.049). Nano-hydroxyapatite formulations (with or without home->care product association) were as effective as the other treatments in reducing dentin hypersensitivity over three months.

Manipulating perfume delivery to the interface using polymer–surfactant interactions

Enhanced delivery of perfumes to interfaces is an important element of their effectiveness in a range of home and personal care products. The role of polyelectrolyte–surfactant mixtures to promote perfume adsorption at interfaces is explored here. Neutron reflectivity, NR, was used to quantify the adsorption of the model perfumes phenylethanol, PE, and linalool, LL, at the air–water interface in the presence of the anionic surfactant sodium dodecylsulfate, SDS, and the cationic polyelectrolytes, poly(dimethyldiallyl ammonium chloride), polydmdaac, and poly(ethyleneimine), PEI. The strong SDS–polydmdaac interaction dominates the surface adsorption in SDS–polymer–perfume (PE, LL) mixtures, such that the PE and LL adsorption is greatly suppressed. For PEI–SDS–perfume mixtures the PEI–LL interaction competes with the SDS–PEI interaction at all pH at the surface and significant LL adsorption occurs, whereas for PE the PEI–SDS interaction dominates and the PE adsorption is greatly reduced. The use of the strong surface polyelectrolyte–ionic surfactant interaction to manipulate perfume adsorption at the air–water interface has been demonstrated. In particular the results show how the competition between polyelectrolyte, surfactant and perfume interactions at the surface and in solution affect the partitioning of perfumes to the surface

Laundry & home care products

Laundry & home care products