Foot care - Sole traders

With the body care category approaching maturity, manufacturers have turned their attention to the underdeveloped foot care category. But has the flurry of launches translated into actual growth? ECM looks at a category that is keeping manufacturers on their toes.

Until a few years ago, mention of the foot care category would have brought to mind insoles, anti-fungal treatments, corn plasters and padded plasters. The nearest thing to a cosmetic product would perhaps have been a deodorising spray or powder. Well, times have changed. Today’s foot care products include a vast array of mousses, creams, lotions and wipes to both treat and pamper the feet.

“Up until now, there has been a gap in the market for feet,” explains UK chiropodist Margaret Dabbs. “Previously, products have been purely functional and have never combined the feel-good and beauty factors that consumers are responding to.”

An indication of just how big the market could become comes from the US. Industry estimates peg the entire foot care market through drugstores and supermarkets at approximately, $540m, of which perhaps $240m is spent on topical products.

This should inspire the European markets, which have a lot of ground to make up. Scholl says that the UK foot care market has been growing slowly and steadily to reach £105m, although this does include insoles. Nonetheless, it’s a long way ahead of the rest of the Big 5. French foot care sales, according to ECM calculations based on figures from the Fédération des Industries de la Parfumerie, rose 3.4% to t29.68m in 2004, followed by Italy, where Unipro says that sales grew just 0.7% to t21.39m in the same year. IRI says that German sales performed even more poorly, dropping 1.4% to t16.14m, while the tiny Spanish market grew an astonishing 44% to t1.67m, according to Ventas de Perfumería.

A suitable case for treatment

Undeterred, manufacturers have been forcing the pace as they try to convince consumers that feet deserve their own products. And just as the body care category has become increasingly segmented, to draw in as many consumers as possible and increase their spend, the foot care category is showing signs of similar treatment.

The most common approach is to treat feet in a seasonal fashion. Much as consumers are encouraged to apply body care products and self tanners in preparation for summer, so they are told that their feet need to get in shape before they are aired in sandals.

UK health and beauty retail giants Boots and Superdrug have both created foot care lines designed to get feet in trim for the summer. Boots’ Gorgeous Feet provides a complete regime, starting with Seriously Smooth Foot Scrub with apricot and walnut particles and moving on to Incredibly Intensive Moisturiser packed with natural lipids and aloe vera, and finishing off with Sexy Shimmer, which contains aloe vera and camomile and adds a gold shimmer to the skin. And for feet that suffer from new or uncomfortable shoes, Amazing Anti-Rub helps prevent blisters and chafing.

This month, Superdrug joins the fray with a four-step foot spa system ‘to revitalise tired winter feet and get them ready for a sandal-wearing summer’. Soothing Foot Soak is a fizzy bath with sugar cane and minerals to melt away aches and leave the feet hydrated. Stimulating Foot Polish contains exfoliating apricot kernel and revitalising ginger. Relaxing Foot Mask claims to calm and nourish feet with oat, milk and honey, while Moisturising Foot Butter hydrates and softens the skin with sweet almond and coconut.

Neutrogena’s Norwegian Formula Foot Cream has a similar positioning. The firm favourite with both genders caring for dry and rough feet has been joined in France by La Crème Pieds Callosités, which exfoliates and hydrates the skin with urea, glycerine and grapeseed oil. La Crème Pieds Anti-Crevasses is designed to repair cracked skin with panthenol, sodium hyaluronate, bisabolol and allantoin as well as glycerine and vitamin E.

In the spirit of segmentation, night products are also making an appearance in the foot care category. Boots’ Botanics line includes Overnight Foot Treatment, described as a luxurious cream rich in hydrating, smoothing and softening oils. The cream also contains nourishing honey and moisturising grape extract. Gorgeous Feet also has a night-time treatment. Outstanding Overnight Rescue is said to dissolve hard skin and help generate new, softer, smoother skin with conditioning pro-vitamin B5.

These intensive conditioning treatments have also provided a route into the category for prestige brands. Bliss says its hero foot care product is Softening Sock Salve, which can be used for maximum effect with the company’s Softening Socks. The salve contains deeply nourishing ingredients such as oat kernel extract, aloe, camomile and babassu seed oil as well as rosemary and lemon peel oils. The salve can be left on for 20 minutes or overnight.

Clinique’s Water Therapy Foot Smoothing Cream, meanwhile, is described as a DIY spa pedicure in a tube. The cream promises to hydrate, exfoliate and deodorise tired and stressed feet with a combination of shea butter, waxes and white birch extract. Acetyl glucosamine provides the exfoliating action, while peppermint, menthol, camomile and zeolite combat odours. Clinique says the cream should be used daily, and can be left on overnight for deeper conditioning.

Dr Hauschka’s Rosemary Foot Balm is another do-it-all intensive product. The balm promises to treat excessive perspiration, hardened skin, corns and bacterial and fungal problems with a combination of herbal extracts and silk powder for a holistic home experience.

Spa attraction

This clearly shows that the link between spas and feet is no longer confined to a home foot bath. Showing just how different the new generation of home spa products can be, Charisma has created Gelicity Ultimate Foot Therapy. One sachet of powder turns water to a richly fragranced gel with either refreshing tea tree and grapefruit oils or soothing lavender and lemongrass oils, each designed to attack hard skin and deeply cleanse, moisturise and soothe aching feet. After a good, long soak, a second sachet of powder turns the gel back to water.

Traditional spa names have also dived into the category feet first. The Sanctuary has a complete foot care line designed to bring spa treatments into the home. These range from Pumice Foot Scrub, Liquid Foot Powder and Leg and Foot Spritzer to Foot Soak with revitalising seaweed extract, menthol, tea tree and lavender and Foot Salt Scrub with salts and oils of tea tree and lavender. Most recently, The Sanctuary brought wipes to the foot care category. Its Foot Wipes are impregnated with tea tree and lavender essential oils and are designed to exfoliate and refresh the feet.

And Decléor has also got in on the act. The company says its professional foot spa treatment can be recreated in the home with Beauté des Pieds. The ultra nourishing cream cares for very dry feet with shea butter, avocado and prairie pearl oils, while astringent sage and cypress oils help control perspiration and tea tree oil fights bacteria. Decléor says that a more intensive treatment can be created by applying the cream on top of its aromatherapy oil Aromessence Ongles, formulated to protect hands and nails.

In fact nails have provided an entry route for two contrasting nail care giants. Sally Hansen has developed a vast 50-sku line called Just Feet. The range is divided into four lines: Spa Pedicure, Fast Foot Fixes, Dry, Cracked Feet and Spa Pedicure Color.

Celebrity nail artist Leighton Denny chimed in with his own range of pedicure products and tools. The hero product is Sole Relief, a triple-action pedicure soak that promises to cleanse, purify and exfoliate the feet. Sole Mate is a foot scrub with volcanic mineral pumice, Sole Pleasure moisturises and deodorises feet with green tea, while Brilliance Gel is a nail brightener and strengthener in one.

Leave it to the professionals

The foot care category is also developing a professional segment in much the same way that salon brands are a mainstay of the hair care market. Scholl is arguably the best known of such brands, but it is being increasingly challenged by individual professionals.

Dabbs, for example, has developed a six-sku range based on the hydrating, antibacterial and rejuvenating properties of emu oil and the soothing action of lemon myrtle. “This is the first foot care product range that comprises both effective treatment results and gives beautifying results with a touch of luxury that you can do at home,” says Dabbs. “In addition, the fact that I am well placed to know what I am talking about, gives credence and support to the brand.”

She is currently developing a travel pack and plans to add a pure emu oil later in the year to sit alongside the Rejuvenating and Hydrating Foot Scrubs, Treatment Foot Soak, Intensive Treatment Foot Oil, Intensive Treatment Foot Lotion, Anti Fungal Hygiene Cream and Nourishing Nail & Cuticle Serum.

Her French counterpart, Bastien Gonzalez, has also developed a line. Gonzalez says his philosophy is “to include foot care within a more holistic concept of well-being”. The Révérence de Bastien range carried by Space.NK includes Sensitive Feet Balm with moisturising NMF, cooling mint derivatives and nail nourishing zinc and marigold, Unguent for nails and cuticles with a cocktail of essential oils and medicinal plants, and the Cool Veil silky talc.

However, there are fewer big names in foot care than there are in hair care, so continued segmentation will be the real driver of growth along with a repositioning of the category from seasonal to daily use and from hygiene to grooming. And the word grooming brings in another underexploited consumer growth. It can’t be long before mainstream men’s brands start to toe the line.