In this article: an episode of our Beyond the Lab series in which Alma Alibegovic discusses today’s biggest cosmetics challenges and the role of credible product demos in solving them.
Alma Alibegovic has spent her career at the intersection of formulation science, regulation and brand storytelling, and that perspective makes her one of the most direct voices on what is genuinely hard in cosmetics right now. In this Beyond the Lab conversation she works through three pressure points she sees in nearly every brief: shrinking trust in claims, the speed of social proof, and the rising bar for ingredient transparency.
Trust in claims
Consumers no longer take a percentage on a pack at face value. Alma argues that claims now need to be paired with something the shopper can see, hold or test for themselves — which is exactly the gap a well-designed demo fills. A diagnostic card, a sensory tester or a phygital reveal turns a number into an experience.
The speed of social proof
A creator can dismantle a brand promise in a 30-second video before the marketing team has had its morning coffee. The defensive answer, Alma says, is to make sure the same product story stands up to a hand-held demo by anyone, anywhere. If your demo works in a creator’s bathroom, it will work in a Sephora aisle too.
Ingredient transparency
Modern cosmetics buyers want to know not just what is in a formula but why it is there and what it does. Demos that visualise mechanism of action — how an active reduces sebum, hydrates the stratum corneum, or shields against UV — bridge the gap between an INCI list and a benefit.
For a complementary perspective from another USP voice, see our episode What is a Demo? with Niccolò Palazzoni.