Opinion: 2020 Will Be The Largest Year For CBD Cosmetics So Far

By Milagros Hernandez, M.D.

2020 is going to be amazing for the cosmetics industry, as CBD’s explosive growth continues in an upward swing and takes the once-toxic, unregulated beauty biz on a ride to a world filled with healthier, happier, and still affordable skincare products. I believe this coming year will be the best yet for consumers, for CBD and cosmetics businesses, and for the planet overall - big talk for a tiny plant, I know! 

How can I be so confident about this? I’ll give you four reasons for 2020’s stellar outlook:

REASON #1: The market’s on fire, and investors are ready for the Rush. 

By 2025, researchers are predicting the entire marijuana industry will reach between $66.3 billion (Grand View Research) to a more optimistic $75.6 billion (Research and Markets). In any case, this represents incredible growth and opportunities for small businesses to grow and flourish, merge with others, or get acquired by larger companies looking for fresh talent and ideas. It also represents a robust future for many other sectors related to the growing, harvesting, packaging, advertising, and dispensing of CBD / hemp / THC products. I’m not alone in my excitement about this growth; earlier this year, founder of BeautyStat and cosmetic chemist Ron Robinson said, “The CBD category is going to be HUGE! The CBD Health and Wellness category is at about $1 billion now. It is expected to grow $20 billion next year...the normalization and elevation of CBD has allowed it to be brought to new audiences and new applications.” The global cosmetics industry is also seeing continued growth, with market research firm Coherent Market Insights projecting CAGR of 4.37% during the forecast period of 2019–2027. 

In an article titled “Therapeutic and dermo skin care to be ‘main driver’ of cannabis beauty growth,” Euromonitor International’s Kacey Culliney says the world of “Cannabis beauty will soar over the next five years as major players integrate the plant’s active extracts into portfolios, and skin care will contribute to most of this growth.”

Such growth will drive the need for a strong infrastructure to be created which, in turn, means more jobs. And wouldn’t most people rather work on a hemp farm than in a factory? Wouldn’t most of us rather work at Weedbucks than behind a desk developing carpal tunnel, poor eyesight, and a hunchback? 

The answer? Yes. Read on… 

REASON #2: Marijuana becomes legal in all fifty states by the end of 2020

The American people have spoken, and it’s unanimous: we support the legalization of marijuana. Nine out of ten Americans favor the legalization of marijuana for recreational or medical purposes, according to a Pew research study from earlier this year. Just this month, Michigan became the 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana, and I predict that lawmakers in the sixteen states that have yet to legalize pot at all will hasten to jump onto the meal train they missed, and pass legislation to make at least medical marijuana use legal within the year, and most likely recreational use in most states. This will create a healthy sense of competition between states, which will in turn result in the best possible costs passed on to consumers. With the knowledge that competition can and will undercut exorbitant CBD prices, legislators will attempt to create favorable tax laws to attract and maintain businesses within their state lines - or risk losing them, their profits, and their jobs to another state. This process will create a more affordable market value for CBD products; I expect bottles of authentic CBD that currently sell for $20, for example, to drop by at least 25 percent, to somewhere between $12-15 by the end of 2020, making products more affordable for a broader audience. What CBD companies will then see is that this broader audience will create a higher profit margin for them - and consumers, CEOs, and investors will all be happy! Stellar, no? 

REASON #3: The spirit of innovation in the world of CBD cosmetics 

In 2020, I believe more CBD companies will partner in innovative ways and reveal exciting new skincare products; toward the end of the year, companies like Saint Jane, Kush by Milk, and Lord Jones will unveil new products and trigger a purchasing spree - not just among consumers, but among larger corps eager to purchase startups and nuvo-green think-tanks at a rapid pace to enhance their product lines. The same spirit of innovation that brought us advances in the worlds of technology, the arts, and science, will propel research and development quickly in order to capitalize on the Weed Rush that is only growing in momentum.

With marijuana legal, CBD will also be in the clear, and some of the roadblocks that have kept many CBD companies from growing or even getting off the ground will be removed. My CBD skincare company, for example, faced great challenges in terms of finding online selling platforms that carry CBD, navigating convoluted social media rules about using ‘CBD’ in an ad, even though that is a key differentiator in our product. I know others in the CBD world have faced the same issues, and we look forward to these processes getting smoother as the US legalizes cannabis and companies will be able to easily host and promote these now-legal CBD-related companies and products.  

In short, this doctor believes unregulated CBD and marijuana use is more dangerous than a legalized, controlled system. We should have learned from alcohol - people are using CBD and marijuana anyway, so we may as well legalize it - at least then regulation will help separate the frauds from the certified growers. 

REASON #4: More doctors, medical professionals become advocates for hemp/marijuana, research will boom. 

"There is increasing evidence suggesting that CBD oil could become a mainstream product that is used throughout the U.S. and internationally as early as next year, in 2020," said Marina Turea of CBD Kyro, and I wholeheartedly agree. With this acceptance of CBD as a safe and natural wellness product (think of it like the new aloe vera), I believe more doctors and medical professionals will step forward like I have and embrace the healing powers of this super-oil. Too many doctors are tied up with pharmaceutical companies and don’t want to talk about natural, over-the-counter measures that have been shown in studies to help with everything from gastro issues to eczema to anxiety. 

As a medical doctor, I believe in research and data. The data is already in when it comes to CBD - it’s good for us. But what other plants and natural substances have we ignored, while paying into a chemical-filled cosmetics industry filled with toxic carcinogens? We know that many materials used as “fillers” and “enhancers” are very unhealthy for us - and yet consumers have allowed businesses to get away with it, because we haven’t taken the time to read our labels. I was one of those people, until nine years ago, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a doctor, I had been so good at caring for others, but when it came time to read my labels and use natural, chemical-free products, I had been too busy. But my son was  young, and I fought cancer, and threw away all the products in my home and my makeup bag that were not organic. I tried to find new, organic makeup, but I had a hard time finding a skincare line I loved, or even liked. So I spent many years experimenting with different ingredients, and then when I was introduced to CBD, I knew I had to share this miracle oil, as I call it, with as many people as I could. I believe the same spirit of entrepreneurship that led me to start my own company, is alive and well in many others - people who, like me, are trying to return to nature in our work and our homes. I also believe this coming year will feature more scientific research into what I call “enhanced cosmetics,” which are products infused with new - but all-natural - ingredients like CBD.

The organic skincare business has come a long way in a pretty short time though, as trying to harness the power of natural ingredients in a safe and effective way turned out to be hard, as Business Insider’s Janine Clements says, “One of the biggest concerns with natural makeup has been poor quality and effectiveness. However, thanks to the increase in shopper demand, there's a new generation of makeup brands with bigger and better ranges, and highly effective products formulated with safe and natural ingredients.” As this industry grows, we will see fewer chemicals in our products, and this will mean less pollution affecting our planet. See how this tiny plant and its advocates are creating Big Change for our planet?

I am excited to see all the new products coming out in 2020, and believe the year will be profitable for many entrepreneurs in both the CBD cosmetics and general health and wellness sectors. What do you think we will see in 2020?

Dr. Milagros Hernandez has practiced medicine in NYC for nearly two decades. In 2018, she launched the first organic CBD isolate skincare line designed by a medical doctor, TEScosmetics by Dr. Milagros. She can be reached via Email, and found on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as Doctor Milagros.

Picture courtesy of Dr. Hernandez.

The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.