Beauty and Vanity in Relation to New Food Types: A Study on the Nutricosmetics Market

Abstract

The Brazilian market has shown growth in some sectors, due to increased consumer purchasing power over the years. Among these markets are the food market that passes through the search for healthy foods trend, and cosmetics market, whose products have become increasingly important in people’s lives, who constantly seek improvement of beauty. These markets have given rise to a new, the nutricosmetics market, that is food that aim to improve the beauty from the inside out. The nutricosmetics meet both the need for food as beauty, so this article aims to identify the values ​​associated with these two needs together, aiming to capture the perceptions of individuals about this product. For this, a literature review on the subject was made in addition to the implementation of the Focus Group, the Laddering and Conjoint Analysis, appropriate techniques to analyze new products. The results showed that consumers have sought to improve the beauty as a lifestyle, through the adoption of attitudes and healthy habits, since it makes them feel better about themselves and makes them more successful in social relations. It was observed that the most valued aspect in relation to nutricosmetics is the scientific basis, indicating a difficulty of launching new products. It was considered, finally, that the nutricosmetics represent that there is a fine line between the values ​​related to food and related to beauty.