The age of proof

A reset in beauty and wellness

Nowhere is this acceleration more visible than in beauty and wellness, categories where aspiration perhaps matters more than proof.

“What’s really interesting at the moment is that we’re seeing almost a fundamental reset within the beauty and wellness categories,” Sanderson says. “And that reset is all around efficacy.”

For decades, beauty relied on suggestion, but that world is now disappearing. “Now it’s about demonstrable effect,” he says. “Retinol, peptides – these were early signals. But fast forward to GLP-1s and semaglutides, and you have something radically changing how consumers think about consumption itself.”

The implication is broader than skincare. “Everything is around proof,” he says. “Nearly half of UK and US consumers now cite clinical effectiveness as their top purchase factor.”

The language of branding is collapsing under that pressure. “If I’m saying something is ‘natural’ or ‘clean’, these are just words. They are not proof points.”

And without proof, they are losing authority.

The end of influence as we know it

That shift is also changing how trust is distributed.

“We’re still very much focused on influencer marketing,” Sanderson notes, “but celebrity influencing, you could broadly say, is dead.”

He is careful not to overstate extinction. “It’s never going to completely go away,” he says, “but that huge spike we’ve seen over the last decade has peaked.”

In its place, authority is fragmenting and re-forming. “Consumers are not turning to influencers for trust points in wellness anymore,” he explains. “Instead, we’re back to verified experts, accredited peer communities and clinical data.”

Brands are adjusting accordingly. “We’re scraping data ourselves. We’re using AI and tools in order to conduct research at a level we never could before.”

The result is a different kind of marketing altogether. “It’s no longer science as marketing,” he says. “It’s trust architecture.”

A shift in what packaging does

Perhaps the most radical change, however, is happening on shelf.

“I think packaging is becoming more proactive,” Sanderson says, “in its ability not just to communicate what the brand stands for, but to demonstrate its function as part of what the brand delivers.”

He pauses on a key distinction. “It stops communicating about the product and starts being the product.”

The implications are already visible. He points to LYMA, whose antimicrobial copper vessel is part packaging, part protection system. Or Seed, where dark glass preserves probiotic viability.

“Packaging is doing a job,” he says. “It doesn’t need a claim. It makes the claim redundant.”

These are the kinds of shifts that are now shaping debate across the industry, including at London Packaging Week, where packaging’s role as key functional infrastructure is increasingly coming to light.

Even sustainability, long reliant on messaging, is shifting into material proof. “Increasingly, products are demonstrating sustainability through reuse, not rhetoric.”

The logic is simple: function replaces language.

A market defined by diffusion

This reframing extends into business models themselves. Beauty Pie, for instance, removes traditional mark-ups through a membership system.

“You pay for the product, not the brand theatre around it,” he says. “They go to the best labs, the best manufacturers, and strip out unnecessary cost.”

Yet even here, identity is not removed, only recalibrated. “Some of their products are beautifully packaged,” he notes. “But the value is in clarity.”

Across the wider market, hierarchy is dissolving. “We’re seeing less dominance from traditional players and more diffusion, thousands of smaller brands with specific expertise.”

The consequence is structural. “It’s easier than ever to move from idea to product to market,” he says. “But harder than ever to hold attention.”

The quantified self still doesn’t know what to do with itself

The same tension plays out in data and health.

“There are now over 287 million quantified self users globally,” Sanderson says. “Biohacking is projected to reach $100 billion by 2034.”

Yet accumulation has outpaced comprehension. “We’re amassing all this personal health data and we don’t really know what to do with it.”

The opportunity, he suggests, is not surveillance but reflection. “If you can say, ‘I never knew I did that,’ that’s where engagement happens.”

He points to Spotify Wrapped as a model. “It works because it reflects you back to yourself.”

But trust remains the barrier. “We still don’t fully trust AI with personal health data,” he adds. “That’s the next threshold.”

Toward a functional aesthetic

Despite the language of disruption, Sanderson resists the idea that beauty is disappearing from design.

“This doesn’t mean packaging stops being beautiful,” he says. “It means beauty has to do something.”

The final shift, then, is not toward austerity but integration. “Every touchpoint, from packaging to product, has to reinforce purpose.”

And increasingly, that purpose is not fixed.

“We’re moving into customisable systems,” he says. “Blending, layering, personalisation. Consumers don’t just want to buy what something is. They want to decide what it becomes.”

In that sense, the future of packaging is not surface, signal or even story.

It is evidence, in every sense that now matters.

Christopher Sanderson will speak at London Packaging Week alongside more than 90 industry leaders. Complimentary tickets are available for industry professionals.