Shopping for new clothes on a weekend is a favorite pastime, even when it's not raining. Around the world, I see marketers adding new twists to what some call the "retail therapy" experience.
In a mall in Kazakhstan, shoppers find an indoor river, and they can ride an indoor monorail, just like the one at Disneyland. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, there are carnival rides and an assortment of LEGOs kids and adults can use to build whatever they want.
Slip on a ZOZOSUIT from the Japanese retailer, ZOZO, and the stretchy black bodysuit, with the help of a mobile app, takes perfect measurements for a new outfit. In your own home, the 150 white dot sensors covering the suit enable a 3-D scan to make, for example, custom-fit jeans for online purchase at prices starting at $58. But It's only a matter of time before in store customers also might expect to use this innovation to insure a perfect fit that doesn't require additional tailoring.
UK retailer, ASOS, already entices customers with photographs and augmented reality (AR) showing how the same outfit looks on different body types.
Mall customers in Chinese In Time retail restrooms can use augmented reality mirrors to test makeup products before using a mobile code to purchase Lancome, Benefit, or Shu Uemura cosmetics from the vending machine next to them.
Brands have begun to bundle products with services. Adidas sneakers serve as metro passes in Berlin. Nike's NBA Jerseys connect wearers to digital content about their favorite teams and players. A Tuxe bodysuit comes with an offer for free online business and life coaching sessions.
At REI Co-op, customers know the clothing, footwear, and camping gear they purchase meet sustainable business practices.
Combat Flip Flops (combatfllipflops.com) converts objects used in warfare into flip flops and accessories. Melted unexploded ordinance (UXO) become jewelry.
Graphic T-shirts say a lot these days. Keep looking until you find the message that suits you to a "T."
Showing posts with label cosmetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cosmetics. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2018
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Winners and Losers as the Climate Changes
Heat, drought, smog, and car and power plant emissions motivate a search for ways to deal with the climate changes they are causing.
Cosmetic experts, for example, have found plants that purify the skin from pollutants and protect it from sun damage. Moringa seeds from trees that purify water where they grow in Africa and Asia are the secret ingredients in Vichy's Purete Thermale, a cleansing gel that removes pollution's impurities from the skin.
Leila Janah wondered how women in Uganda managed to have lovely, unwrinkled skin despite their country's sun-soaked environment. She discovered their secret was a rare strain of African nilotica shea nuts with an extra concentration of healthy fatty acids that they purchased in a market in Gulu, Uganda. Inspired by this find, she developed a high-end beauty cream line, LXMI, named for the Hindu goddess of beauty and prosperity. Her creams contain not only organic cold-pressed butter from Gulu's shea nuts but also antioxidant fighting Ndali vanilla and Nile-grown hibiscus flowers known to plump and smooth the skin. Perhaps best of all, because LXMI is a high-priced brand that will be sold at Sephora, Janah is able to pay a dignified living wage to the women who harvest the raw materials in her creams.
Drought has launched many a scheme, including an ill-advised one to drag an iceberg south, to provide water for farmers who are said to account for 69% of the water used around the world. Pimpri Sandas in India is among the world's villages that are watering their crops with unfiltered rainwater collected in tanks on billboards designed by Kinetic. Once a tank is full, water sensor technology sends a text message to a mobile phone that alerts a tanker to pick up and deliver the water. In India, Vodafone, owner of the billboards, funds the entire process. Other businesses, such as Hindustan Unilever and Reliance Industries, have constructed dams and ponds to help communities conserve water.
What do frustrated farmers do when their crops die from drought and they go deeper into debt year after year? They move to cities where the UN estimates two-thirds of the world's population will live by 2050. This coming migration emphasizes the importance of the growing urban farming movement which, unfortunately, can produce too little and be too expensive for many displaced farmers. Nevertheless, it is worth examining the option of producing crops closer to where they are consumed. This process reduces pollution from trucking, a health benefit as well as a way to reduce climate warming carbon emissions. And urban farms also absorb rainwater and prevent sewer overflow from polluting rivers and lakes.
City farms can be as simple as outside planter boxes or black pond liners filled with soil. A variety of crops can be planted to determine which are best suited for local conditions, including natural rainfall rather than irrigation. More complicated urban farms rely on greenhouses, earthworms, compost, and recycled water, that is, aquaponics (for more details, see the earlier post, "Exotic Farming."), where filtered water from tanks of edible fish water crops. In some cases, computers monitor water levels, nutrient concentration, and ideal temperatures for different crops.
Overall, efforts to increase yields by planting crops that can withstand changes in traditional heat and rain conditions have not been promising. While cross-breeding created hybrid maize seeds that mature over shorter periods and use water more efficiently, sales are expensive and not widespread. Hybrid seeds have to be purchased each year rather than grown from the seeds of earlier crops, and since fake and falsely labeled seeds have been sold as drought-resistant, the new seeds gained a reputation as unreliable.
Cosmetic experts, for example, have found plants that purify the skin from pollutants and protect it from sun damage. Moringa seeds from trees that purify water where they grow in Africa and Asia are the secret ingredients in Vichy's Purete Thermale, a cleansing gel that removes pollution's impurities from the skin.
Leila Janah wondered how women in Uganda managed to have lovely, unwrinkled skin despite their country's sun-soaked environment. She discovered their secret was a rare strain of African nilotica shea nuts with an extra concentration of healthy fatty acids that they purchased in a market in Gulu, Uganda. Inspired by this find, she developed a high-end beauty cream line, LXMI, named for the Hindu goddess of beauty and prosperity. Her creams contain not only organic cold-pressed butter from Gulu's shea nuts but also antioxidant fighting Ndali vanilla and Nile-grown hibiscus flowers known to plump and smooth the skin. Perhaps best of all, because LXMI is a high-priced brand that will be sold at Sephora, Janah is able to pay a dignified living wage to the women who harvest the raw materials in her creams.
Drought has launched many a scheme, including an ill-advised one to drag an iceberg south, to provide water for farmers who are said to account for 69% of the water used around the world. Pimpri Sandas in India is among the world's villages that are watering their crops with unfiltered rainwater collected in tanks on billboards designed by Kinetic. Once a tank is full, water sensor technology sends a text message to a mobile phone that alerts a tanker to pick up and deliver the water. In India, Vodafone, owner of the billboards, funds the entire process. Other businesses, such as Hindustan Unilever and Reliance Industries, have constructed dams and ponds to help communities conserve water.
What do frustrated farmers do when their crops die from drought and they go deeper into debt year after year? They move to cities where the UN estimates two-thirds of the world's population will live by 2050. This coming migration emphasizes the importance of the growing urban farming movement which, unfortunately, can produce too little and be too expensive for many displaced farmers. Nevertheless, it is worth examining the option of producing crops closer to where they are consumed. This process reduces pollution from trucking, a health benefit as well as a way to reduce climate warming carbon emissions. And urban farms also absorb rainwater and prevent sewer overflow from polluting rivers and lakes.
City farms can be as simple as outside planter boxes or black pond liners filled with soil. A variety of crops can be planted to determine which are best suited for local conditions, including natural rainfall rather than irrigation. More complicated urban farms rely on greenhouses, earthworms, compost, and recycled water, that is, aquaponics (for more details, see the earlier post, "Exotic Farming."), where filtered water from tanks of edible fish water crops. In some cases, computers monitor water levels, nutrient concentration, and ideal temperatures for different crops.
Overall, efforts to increase yields by planting crops that can withstand changes in traditional heat and rain conditions have not been promising. While cross-breeding created hybrid maize seeds that mature over shorter periods and use water more efficiently, sales are expensive and not widespread. Hybrid seeds have to be purchased each year rather than grown from the seeds of earlier crops, and since fake and falsely labeled seeds have been sold as drought-resistant, the new seeds gained a reputation as unreliable.
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