in-cosmetics Global 2026 is wrapped. A few days in Paris, a bustling exhibition floor, a packed conference programme and a wide mix of conversations across formulation, ingredients, testing and product performance.

From the outset, the scale of the event was clear. The exhibition brought together a broad mix of participants spanning the personal care industry from ingredient suppliers and formulation specialists to testing, regulatory and technology providers. Across the floor and within technical sessions, there was a clear sense of an industry continuing to move quickly, with new ingredients, evolving claims and increasingly advanced approaches to product development all on show.

However, it also became clear that not every part of the development process is advancing at the same pace. While formulation strategies and product positioning continue to evolve, the challenge of understanding and validating performance remains a recurring theme.

What We Heard Across the Event

A consistent point across the event was the balance between speed and confidence.

Personal care trends move quickly, driven by social media and changing consumer expectations. This creates pressure to respond at speed, whether that means reformulating existing products, creating new textures or supporting emerging claims with greater confidence.

At the same time, development cycles can still be slow and iterative, with validation often relying on established approaches such as clinical testing and consumer panels. This creates a challenge: teams need to move quickly, but confidence in performance often comes further down the line.

One point that came through strongly was the risk that by the time a product has been developed, tested and validated, the trend it was responding to may already have shifted. That does not remove the need for careful development, but it does highlight the pressure on teams to build confidence earlier, before decisions become more difficult or costly to change.

Performance, Texture and Measurement

A lot of the conversations and demonstrations around product performance centred on tactile experience. In many cases, this was described through texture: how products spread, how they feel during application, how they absorb and how they leave the skin after use.

These qualities are central to personal care. They influence how products are experienced and directly shape whether consumers choose to buy, or buy again, based on whether something feels like it works for them or not. They are also difficult to describe in simple terms, as they reflect both formulation behaviour and human perception.

What stood out was that, while texture and sensory experience were discussed in detail, approaches to measurement were more varied and, at times, limited. Rheology featured in a number of conversations, often through familiar parameters such as viscosity, even when the systems being discussed were more complex. These measurements are valuable, but they may only capture part of how a product behaves during application.

This is where a gap starts to appear. The industry is becoming more sophisticated in how it talks about performance, but the tools and methods used to understand that performance do not always reflect the full complexity of the experience. Tribology can help address part of this gap by adding a controlled way to study friction, contact and surface interaction alongside established analytical and sensory approaches.

Claims and Scientific Support

Another clear theme was claims substantiation.

Across the event, there was a clear shift towards more biological claims, particularly in relation to longevity, skin health and cellular-level mechanisms. This reflects a wider move away from surface-level product narratives towards deeper scientific positioning, with ingredients and formulations increasingly framed around how they interact with or support biological processes.

In some cases, this scientific positioning was supported by detailed data and clearly explained mechanisms. In others, the level of detail varied. That variation highlights a broader challenge across the sector: scientific language alone is not enough. The data needs to connect clearly to performance in a way that is both relevant and meaningful.

This becomes particularly important when claims are linked to how a product behaves or is experienced in use. Supporting those claims requires more than a strong formulation story; it needs evidence that helps explain what the product does, how it performs and how that relates to the intended application.

The Gap Between Formulation and Real Use

Across the talks and wider event, one of the clearest themes was the gap between formulation and real-world performance.

On one side, there is formulation: ingredient selection, system design, stability, rheology and predicted behaviour. On the other, there is validation: panels, clinical work and other methods that help confirm performance.

What is less apparent is the space in between. How does the product behave during application? How does it spread under low load? How do formulation changes influence the interaction between surfaces? How does that behaviour contribute to the overall experience?

These are not minor details. They are closely linked to how personal care products are used and experienced, yet they are not always easy to understand early enough in development to guide decisions with confidence.

This is where the wider testing conversation becomes important. Existing methods are not being replaced, and they should not be. Rheology, sensory panels and clinical studies all have clear roles. But tribology can add a complementary layer, helping generate more application-relevant understanding of friction, contact and surface interaction earlier in the process.

Where This Leaves Testing

For PCS Instruments, the event reinforced the importance of testing approaches that help connect controlled measurement with real-use behaviour.

The challenge is not simply about generating more data, but about generating data that is relevant to the way products are applied, experienced and evaluated, in a controlled and repeatable manner. This is particularly important where formulation changes are not fully captured by bulk measurements alone. Earlier insight into these behaviours can help build a clearer understanding of performance before later-stage validation.

This does not replace panels, clinical studies or established formulation methods. Instead, it highlights the value of complementary testing approaches that can sit alongside them and help fill part of the gap between formulation development and final performance evaluation.

Team Takeaways

Across the event, a few points stood out:

• Development teams are under pressure to move faster, while validation methods often remain slower and later-stage.
• Claims substantiation remains a key challenge, especially where product performance needs to be supported with application-relevant evidence.
• Sensory experience, often discussed as texture, is central to personal care product development.
• Measurement approaches vary, and do not always capture the full complexity of in-use behaviour.
• There is a growing shift towards biological claims, particularly around longevity, skin health and cellular-level mechanisms.
• A key opportunity lies in better understanding the space between formulation and real-world performance earlier in development, supported by testing approaches that reflect how products behave in use.

Looking Ahead

in-cosmetics Global 2026 offered a useful view of where the personal care industry is heading. There is clear momentum around formulation innovation, scientific positioning and more advanced approaches to product development. At the same time, the pressures around speed, confidence and claims substantiation remain very real.

As product cycles continue to move quickly and expectations around evidence grow, the ability to connect formulation, testing and real-world behaviour will become increasingly important.

Events like in-cosmetics Global help bring these challenges into focus, creating space to understand not only where the industry is moving, but where testing and development approaches may need to evolve alongside it. For PCS Instruments, that makes the conversation around application-relevant testing especially important.