How exactly do consumers use styling products, shower gels or toothpastes? In Henkel's Beauty Insights center, the company's beauty care experts can now observe these consumer habits and directly transform insights into the design and development of new products. Henkel's new consumer tests center located at its headquarters in Düsseldorf opened recently.


For many years, Henkel's beauty care business unit has been incorporating extensive feedback from consumers into their innovation process. For example, there already are two test salons in Düsseldorf and Hamburg, where new hair colorations are applied. With its recently opened Beauty Insights center, Henkel is not only extending the already existing facilities in Düsseldorf but is also gaining insights into the use of further product categories - from body care to shampoos and styling products.


"Consumers use our beauty care products in their own individual way. Different trends, but also regional practices are the reason why we observe significant differences in consumer behavior. We can now analyze these differences in detail in our North American test center in Stamford and the beauty insights center in Düsseldorf and integrate these differences directly into our product development process," says Thomas Forster, head of global R&D at Henkel beauty care.


The experts are particularly interested in how consumers handle the products, how much water they use and how exactly they apply the product. Thanks to the test center, Henkel beauty care experts can now directly test and improve products and new developments with their consumers - and gain new inspirations for innovations. Furthermore, the center provides an appropriate setting to gain authentic insights into consumers' behavior: Product testers apply the particular products in fully equipped bathrooms and can be watched by the team of researchers - of course, under consideration of applicable privacy policies and strict guidelines.