Length / 6 minutes
We’re proud to say we can answer this in full, as we know not every beauty brand can (and wants to). But, we believe in transparency with our Tailor community, so here it goes, our NEW Tailor Elevate. As you know, each product in our range is formulated to be tailored to our customer’s needs and wants. And, if you don’t need or want it, then we simply won’t supply it. It’s as simple as that, because we’re a concise skincare brand. Like our other products in our range, we just want Tailor Elevate to address your skin concerns, fit your routine, and make you feel good.
How will Elevate fit into the Tailor range and be tailored?
Tailor Elevate is a skincare boosting mask, formulated to get more out of the active ingredients in your skincare products, this mask is set to transform all skincare routines.
Just one product is all you need in your routine to enhance the penetration of your existing skincare products and their moisturisation performance, leaving your skin smooth and radiant. Elevate, with its powerful blend of fruit acids, marshmallow plant extract, and Pentavitin is a multi-functional mask that is a time saver, money saver and space saver.
Tailor Elevate will slot into our existing range as an exfoliating mask, which is actually complementary to Tailor Polish, so they can be mixed & matched, but as you can see it’s actually opposite in function. Don’t know Tailor Polish too well and unsure what this difference is? Well, the difference is that Tailor Polish is a detox mask which absorbs oils and congestion, exfoliates mechanically and chemically, and contains Salicylic acid, a BHA. Now you’ve gotten to know both our exfoliating masks in the Tailor range, combining Elevate and Polish will have your skin looking and feeling its absolute best.
Research, research, research...
As always, this phase is time heavy, because perfection takes time. Before any research begins, we need to identify the gap in our existing skincare range. This gap was for a mask that was hydrating, soothing and strengthening for the skin, which meant something different to our existing Tailor Polish detox mask. However, this was already available in this market, so this is when we started researching where there was a gap. Skin barrier is a growing concern for consumers and so we looked into how we absorb our skincare ingredients and if we absorb them all when applied straight to the skin. After many learnings and discoveries, this research process led us to grow our initial concept of this hydrating, soothing and strengthening mask, into pioneering a new era of skincare, a skincare booster.
Chosen ingredients:
During our research stage for Tailor Elevate, we started to create a mask that would complement our existing and best selling Tailor Polish, a detox mask that absorbs oils and congestion, exfoliates mechanically and chemically, and contains Salicylic acid, a BHA. However, while we wanted Tailor Elevate to do the opposite, we didn’t want it to be just another exfoliating mask. So we delved deeper into our natural skin processes and how well does our skin absorb all the benefits of the skincare we apply to it. As we age, our natural cell turnover slows down. Therefore, if you don’t remove the top layer of dead skin cells, it hinders your skincare ingredients' effectiveness. You don’t want your skincare to do only half the job. That's why we have aimed to create a skincare-boosting mask. But of course, it wouldn’t be a Tailor product if it didn’t have multi-purpose and multi-targeting benefits, too. Pioneering a new category of skincare in the industry.
As always, we discovered our key ingredients that would help deliver these benefits. First, we discovered fruit acids as our AHA ingredient. This works on the surface of our skin to deeply exfoliate, brighten and improve your skin’s texture. Ultimately, leaving your skin smooth, radiant and clear, ready for the skincare ingredients in your routine to penetrate effectively into your skin. Second, we discovered marshmallow plant extract as our key hydrating ingredient. This works to soothe redness and relieve inflammation in your skin, as well as helping to retain moisture to keep your skin hydrated for longer. Another hero ingredient which I can’t help but mention is Pentavitin. This hydrating ingredient provides instant hydration for 72 hours (yes, you heard that right), as well as helps restore your barrier function and relieve any irritated skin. But if you don’t know already, we use multi-purpose ingredients across our range, to avoid wastage from minimum ordering requirements from ingredients. So, we have included some hero Tailor ingredients found in our range, including glycerin (humectant) which binds water to the skin, leaving it hydrated and soft. As well as, hemp seed oil which is rich in both omega 3 and 6 and provides long-lasting moisture. With continuous use over time, it helps improve your skin's ability to retain moisture. As you can see, the reason these two ingredients were chosen in our new mask formulation is because of their ultra-hydrating benefits.
However, as we know there is no I in team, so not only do we need our hero ingredients to support our mask’s goal, we also need other key properties and ingredients to create this free-flow, creamy and light-weight formula. Starting with the bulk ingredient, the carrier, which is aqua (water). We also need functional ingredients e.g., humectants, emollients, skin-conditioning ingredients, because these act as a transmitter for the delivery of our hero ingredients. Finally, we have our stabilisers e.g., preservatives, chelating and texture agents, and these ensure our product stability, making sure the product remains at it’s best throughout its lifespan, no bacteria growing around here thanks. And, after much back and forth with the scent, we have decided to keep Tailor Elevate fragrance free, same with our other mask, Tailor Polish.
Sustainable packaging research and application:
Not only do we live and breathe skin, we also live and breathe the environment, so it’s safe to say we’re pretty committed to doing our best to lend it a hand. It’s definitely a lot harder, but we choose the no cutting corner path, to deliver our products, in this case Tailor Elevate, in the form of sustainable and clean packaging. With this product’s free-flowing, buttery and light-weight cream consistency, we head to the drawing board to look into how the customer would use this product, ensuring it’s in line with our sustainability KPI’s. So, once we decided it was best dispensed from a tube, due to how the customer would be using it, it was obvious to go with our current tube packaging.
For our tubes we use PCR, post-consumer resin, plastic which comes from recycled milk bottles. We use 50%, this is the maximum before the plastic becomes too rigid for the customer to use (i.e you can’t even squeeze the tube). This is how we landed on 50% plus its kerbside recyclable. Sustainable inner packaging option, check.
It comes in Tailor’s compostable and recyclable cardboard box. This cardboard is sourced locally in Whakatane and is ‘well-managed forests’ certified, you can see this stamp at the bottom of your box. It isn’t printed with a plastic film coating, which most are btw, but it is printed with vegetable inks (it’s natural!) in Petone, Wellington which makes it able to be placed into your at-home compost or with your kerbside recycling. Our box supply chain is completely localised to NZ, cool right? (yes we’re bragging). Learn more about our box supply chain here.
Check product stability:
Our products undergo stability testing to ensure that they are shelf stable, as well as to measure its shelf life. Here at Tailor we set out to achieve a 3 year shelf-life as a minimum. We use a combination of accelerated and real-time to determine this. Accelerated stability is when the product is exposed to high temperatures to speed the time along, and is observed weekly for noticeable changes that could indicate the product is not stable. These physicochemical properties that we observe are changes in colour, PH, viscosity and odour. We use accelerated testing so that we can quickly determine if a formulation is stable, and if it’s not, we can quickly go back to the drawing board. But if you pass with flying colours (as Tailor does), then it’s time to celebrate!
Challenge testing:
The primary reason to put our products through challenge testing is to determine whether the preservative system is holding across different stages of the products shelf life. Not only does the product need to be stable it also needs to be safe for customer use. So, in order for a water-based product to be safe it requires a preservative to be present. You can read more about preservatives in skincare, in our blog here. The preservative that we use in all our water-based products is a combination of a Dehydroacetic Acid (anti-fungal) and Benzyl Alcohol (anti-bacterial). These two combined create a strong system to stop the growth of bacteria, moulds or yeasts ensuring the product sits on shelf for an extended period of time and is still safe for use. We’re talking a 3-year shelf life (humble brag). But how do we test it?
We make a large sample of products for challenge testing. We send our product freshly made (time-zero) to the lab to be challenge tested, this is where they inject our product with high levels of bacteria, moulds or yeast and observe it over a 28-day period to see if the preservative system works by reducing the count of the added microbes. This is our base report and the same sample is then put into an oven in the lab to age, and then sent to be challenge tested under the same conditions to see if the aged sample works as well as it did when it was first made at time-zero. If it does, then that is a pass! A preservative will ensure microbes don’t make their way into a product, because we don’t want any living organisms living in our skincare thanks. But don’t worry, our preservative is safe and ECOCERT & COSMOS certified as safe to use in natural skincare.
Dermatesting:
We welcome consumer testing, because we need to actually make sure this product will be loved by you and not just come in an aesthetic orange tube. Because, we want our skincare to actually work. We invite our family and friends to try this product and tell us, no filter required, about what they really think about Tailor Elevate. This feedback is crucial, because we don’t launch products that are less than the utmost highest of quality. So, if it doesn’t pass our toughest critics, we go back to the drawing board. But if they do, then we’re ready for you to tailor it to your routine, which means launch time!
Once our formula has been finalised we send it to be dermatologically tested. This test is carried out with 30 subjects, aged 18 and above. All subjects recruited had (very) dry, normal, combination or oily skin, as well as some with sensitive skin. The compiled lab report for Tailor Elevate confirmed that 100% of all participants reported no relevant skin reactions were detected and was awarded with a dermatological rating of excellent including for sensitive skin (off to a fab start, already).
Share with our Tailor’s:
Introducing you to a new era of skincare and a world first skincare category, tailored to you (ofc), Tailor Elevate. Find and fall in love at first sight (because we know you will, trust us) with our new skincare boosting mask on our website here. P.S. Take your skincare results to new heights. Because, you don’t want your skincare routine ingredients to do only half the job, right?
Talk soon,
Tailor x