COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Leading retail industry trade association Global Market Development Center (GMDC)|Retail Tomorrow recently launched its Selfcare Summit in Indianapolis. The inaugural event marked the only industry gathering focused exclusively on the consumerization of healthcare, bringing together retailers, wholesalers, suppliers and service/solution companies to learn how to strategically re-position health, beauty and wellness products to enhance the shopping experience.

Natural and CBD products ranked heavily among many of the top-rated items in the Product Showcase, reinforcing the influence of the selfcare movement within retail. The consumer’s wellness-focused mindset, combined with the rising cost of healthcare, is driving consumers to seek local, natural and personalized products and solutions that not only help them to look good and feel better, but also to prevent disease, treat chronic conditions and improve their quality of life.

Suppliers displayed more than 110 new and innovative health, beauty, personal-care and wellness products and merchandising concepts at the conference’s Product Showcase. Retail and wholesale executives in attendance evaluated the products to select the entries they found most likely to generate strong consumer interest and opportunities for growth. The Top 10 products in the showcase as determined by retailer and wholesaler votes were:

1. Cremo Company: Complete Grooming (Gold Award). The shaving and skincare manufacturer delivers a full range of men’s and women’s premium grooming products crafted with barber-grade quality.
2. Olive Skincare of New Zealand: Olive Bio-Complex Skincare (Silver Award). Olive was developed to harness the antioxidant power of olives. Made in New Zealand, the certified natural, plant-based skincare products aim to balance, replenish and restore the skin.
3. Harmony Products LLC: Harmony Hemp Product Lines (Bronze Award). Harmony Products delivers an approach to wellness committed to creating effective, condition-specific products with the addition of the highest-quality CBD. Its exclusive HempBath line is designed to provide users with a luxurious and calming wellness ritual using ingredients like lavender essential oil, shea butter and CBD.
4. Xtreme Beauty International: OKAY Pure Naturals. OKAY provides nourishing, self-fulfilling, healthy and natural beauty products designed to enhance natural beauty. The Pure Naturals collection features soaps, shampoos, conditioners, oils and lotions.
5. Flex Beauty Labs: Licensed Three-Pack Bath Bombs. The beauty manufacturer features national brand licenses with household names including Mike and Ike, Airheads and Smarties. Its bath fizzes are designed to enhance retailers’ bath sections.
6. Lafe’s Natural Body Care: Natural/CBD Deodorant. The natural body care manufacturer designs personal-care products made with natural and organic ingredients and without toxins, preservatives, artificial fragrances or petroleum. Its CBD roll-on deodorant is infused with 50 mg of high-quality, full-spectrum CBD oil. The deodorant employs CBD oil’s natural antibacterial elements to help fight odor.
7. BIC Corporation: BIC Shaver Mixed 38-piece Display. From a world leader in stationery, lighters and shavers, BIC’s display highlights the best of its made-to-last shavers, bringing to market a complete range of razors offering technological innovation at a fair price.
8. Axcess Global LLC/Real Ketones LLC: Real Ketones Supplement. Real Ketones features a patented and clinically proven formulation using bio-identical ketones. The supplement provides the body with added energy, improved performance, appetite suppression, stress reduction and enhanced brain speed.
9. Abacus Health Products: Arthritis Moisturizing Hand Cream. Abacus Health Products represents the first company to develop a family of OTC products blended with CBD hemp extract. CBDMEDIC™ Arthritis Aches & Pain Relief Ointment and Cream uses menthol and camphor in a proprietary formulation designed to provide safe, fast and powerful relief from arthritis aches, pain and stiffness.
10. The Hygenic Corporation: Biofreeze® 26 PDQ. The fast-acting, menthol-based formula of Biofreeze® topical pain reliever has proven results — clinical studies have shown that those who use Biofreeze® decrease their pain twice as much as those who use ice.

In addition, select suppliers delivered six-minute product presentations directly to retailers in the summit’s entrepreneurial-style pitch session called Mic-Drop. This industry-first venue presented emerging and new-to-market innovation inside a room of more than 70 interested retail and wholesale buyers. Tallying up the ratings, the three highest-scoring Mic-Drop pitches included:

1. Maxine + Morgan: The herbal supplements are made from pure and natural ingredients designed to relieve women’s menstrual cycle symptoms. The supplements are OB/GYN approved, vegan, gluten free, non-GMO and kosher.
2. MarketHub: The hemp retail category managers provide expertise, education, sales, marketing and distribution services to manufacturers within the emerging hemp-based health category.
3. Nerv LLC: Nerv Shots are small, healthy, on-the-go drinks to help manage occasional anxiety and stress, and improve focus. The unique Pherelax™ formula provides a non-drowsy, alcohol-free over-the-counter solution with no calories, sugar or caffeine.

“Our Selfcare Summit was not only a first-of-its-kind for GMDC|Retail Tomorrow, but also for the retail industry,” said Patrick Spear, president and CEO of GMDC|Retail Tomorrow. “Over the course of five days, GMDC|Retail Tomorrow cemented its standing as the leader in the health, beauty and wellness revolution at retail, curating more than 3,100 networking meetings and connecting 70-plus retailers with more than 100 suppliers.”