The Challenge

A Canadian leader in premium natural bodycare, built on products with no toxic ingredients, had a new ambition: to extend that leadership into all-natural face care, starting with a super balm, a product that works on lips and across the face, in a category moving faster than ever in the beauty industry.

Their first instinct was to run focus groups, but Claudia Aguirre, the brand's strategist of 15 years and founder of Kind Atom, pushed back: in beauty, what people say and what they do are two different things. Women will describe a virtuous routine in a group setting, then reach for the pharmacy-grade shampoo at home, because the category speaks to who we are and people curate their answers accordingly.

“You don't know what you don't know. You think women are going to come to a focus group and tell you everything. They are not going to remember. And they are going to say things that they think other women would accept as desirable.”

If the brand wanted to understand how women actually care for their faces, the research had to catch them in the moment, there and then: at the sink, in the mirror, morning and night.

The Approach

Claudia designed an eight-task digital diary study over four days and three nights with women across Canada, spanning different ages and walks of life, all through Indeemo.

It opened with each woman's real routine, filmed in her own bathroom morning and evening: twenty-minute walkthroughs in pyjamas and headbands that gave the research what Claudia calls the silent witness effect, watching real behaviour without changing it.

Participants then opened their drawers, bags, cars and bedside tables to show every beauty product they owned, and lip balms turned up everywhere: the home office, the car, the purse, the cosmetic bag. Their facecare shelves told a story of their own, with women juggling as many as 20 brands at once and mixing natural and non-natural freely, even the self-described purists.

When the product itself arrived, it came unbranded. Each woman applied the super balm over three consecutive nights, capturing application in the evening and results the next morning alongside detailed feedback on absorbency, hydration and performance, while further tasks asked her to design her perfect packaging, react to scent and ingredient concepts,and give a perceived price that fed an elasticity analysis.

Not until the final day did participants learn whose product they had been testing. Most had guessed at luxury and premium names rather than pharmacy brands, and some existing customers of the brand's original range admitted they had never imagined it had the credentials for facecare, an insight in itself.

“It was almost like we were witnessing, we were the silent witness of their routine.”

The Results

Fieldwork wrapped on a Monday and by Wednesday Claudia's executive summary was with the R&D team, where decisions were being made by the hour: the packaging design was revised and the order secured, and when the research showed women wanted richer, ingredient-led moisturising options, a second formula joined the launch roster.

Pricing, so often the nervous question, was answered by the testers themselves. Having placed the unbranded product alongside luxury names, and with the perceived-price and elasticity analysis to back it up, the client had everything they needed to price beyond pharmacy grade.

Meanwhile the brand's own R&D, marketing and retail teams were watching the study unfold live on the platform. On day one, one of them texted Claudia: “I never thought this was possible.” Fourteen edited videos followed, highlights and clips that carried real customers into every product conversation from then on.

And the work has outgrown the project. Once it wrapped,the brand's owner asked Claudia for a research roadmap covering the next two years of customer centricity, with Indeemo as a key element of the plan.

“They were understanding their customer in a different, deeperway than they've ever done before.”