The company officially launched two new effervescent tablet products known as Flavettes Effervescent Glamz and Flavettes Effervescent H-DRATE in December.
The former contains L-glutathione, collagen peptide, vitamin C to improve skin suppleness, while the latter contains hyaluronic acid, rice-derived ceramide, and vitamin C for skin hydration.
Together with Flavettes Effervescent Glow launched about 2.5 years ago, the three products form the Flavettes Nutriskincare range. Flavettes Effervescent Glow contains vitamin C, L-glutathione, and vitamin E.
The products are sold online and offline in pharmacy retail chains such as Watson’s, Guardian, Healthlane, Caring, Shopee, and Lazada.
Speaking to NutraIngredients-Asia, Leonard Ariff Abdul Shatar, group managing director at Duopharma Biotech, said that the company has been closely studying the South Korean and Japanese markets – two of the leading beauty-from-within markets influencing the South East Asia region.
“We are studying these two markets very closely, because generally speaking, when you talk about the Asian skin and beauty, a lot of the new areas of interests usually start from these two markets.
“Hyaluronic acid is a classic example. At one stage, Korea was the largest manufacturer of hyaluronic acid because the ingredient was so popular in Korea.
“However, what is unusual about our new products is that we have incorporated these popular ingredients into effervescent tablets,” he said, adding that the products were made in the company’s GMP-certified facility that met both halal and pharmaceutical standards.
The company mainly source the ingredients from countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Europe.
Future SKUs
He also revealed that the company would be exploring new products that addressed the needs of different skin types.
Similarly, these products will come in the form of effervescent tablets.
“What we are trying to do now is to look at brand extensions into different skin types, where we think a supplement that caters for a person’s specific skin type can be offered into the market, but at the same time, ensuring that the immunity of the individual is built up.”
Based on the company’s observations, the consumers of beauty-from-within products are generally women between the age of 24 to 40.
While offline retail is still the biggest sales revenue, digital marketing is crucial for building brand recognition, which is why the company has allocated about 40 per cent of its expenditure into digital marketing.
“We are still exploring the beauty markets in countries like South Korea and Japan. You will find that there’s quite a number of products available off the shelves in these countries that are not common in Malaysia.
“We also share commonalities in terms of the Asiatic skin type and so, as we observe these markets, we also observe what products are popular, and we looked at the possibility of how we can bring these products to Malaysia step-by-step.
“This is because we need to make sure that we can formulate them into a format that is acceptable in the effervescent tablets.”
Effervescent – pros and cons
He explained that effervescent tablets were preferred since they were more convenient for consumption and that the active ingredients were more easily absorbed by the body when consumed in a liquid format.
However, there are also key challenges which the R&D needed to address when developing effervescent tablets.
For one, effervescent tablets are hygroscopic – which means that they tend to absorb moisture from the air.
As such, it is crucial to ensure that the manufacturing environment and packaging materials are dry to reduce the chances of the tablets coming into contact with moisture.
On the other hand, it is also important to ensure that the tablet disperses properly, instead of forming clumps when dissolved in water.
“It was challenging but with our experience developing Flavettes Effervescent Glow, it gave us a lot of experience in how to handle the dispersal of the effervescent tablets in liquid.”
Flavettes’ transformation
The Flavettes Nutriskincare range was launched in response to shifts in consumers demands.
Prior to this, the Flavettes brand mainly consist of vitamin C in normal tablets and effervescent tablets.
“As far as Duopharma is concerned, we are already the largest vitamin C brand in the Malaysian market, and obviously we have aspirations to go beyond just Malaysia.
“There’s quite a lot of history behind Flavettes, and we have been trying to decide how we can position the brand in the longer term. Obviously, the main thrust of vitamin C as an underlying formulation is all about its immune boosting benefits.
“But we also noticed that there has been a shift in terms of demand where there is recognition among consumers that beauty is not just about make-up but good health as well, which is why we came up with the concept of positioning Flavettes into the beauty-from-within sector.”
Aside from Malaysia, the company intends to introduce the range into Indonesia, Singapore, and Philippines and has began product registration process.
“We are trying to build Flavettes into a pan-South East Asia brand, we think the demand is there, the skin types that we are trying to address are prevalent throughout this part of the world, and obviously, we are looking to make sure that we are able to manufacture sufficient quantity to cater for the region.”