Travel Size: The Strategic Guide to Turning a Cost into a Competitive Advantage

For years, the travel-size format has been the last wheel on the wagon in a cosmetic brand’s strategy: a marketing expense, a low-margin product, simply a necessity for those catching a flight. If your company still sees it this way, this guide is for you. A perfect storm of new consumer needs, technological innovations, and mounting pressure for sustainability is transforming this “small format” into a powerful strategic lever.

The Problem: Why the Old Way of Thinking Is a Risk The “disposable” paradigm of travel size has become a weak point.

In a market where sustainability is no longer an option but a fundamental requirement, continuing to offer single-use plastic mini formats is not only an outdated choice but also a risk to the brand’s image. The numbers are clear and unforgiving: according to NielsenIQ data from June 2024, in Italy, personal care products with a clear sustainability message are growing in value by +12.1%. Ignoring this figure, even for a format perceived as secondary, means losing market share. Travel size has therefore become a critical touchpoint to demonstrate an authentic and tangible environmental commitment.

The Solutions: 3 Innovation Platforms

How to turn this risk into an opportunity? Innovation moves along three main strategic directions.
Solution #1: Solid and Waterless Formulations Eliminating water from formulas is not only an ecological choice but a business decision that optimizes the entire value chain. The benefits are both logistical and economic, with lighter products reducing transport costs and CO₂, and also formulation-related, allowing higher concentrations of active ingredients and less reliance on preservatives. This scenario opens new frontiers for raw material suppliers, called on to develop stable actives in anhydrous form, and for packaging manufacturers, who can lead the shift toward paper and alternative materials. Finally, for brands themselves, there is the extraordinary opportunity to create entire product lines with a premium positioning based on radical sustainability.

Solution #2: Refillable and Circular Packaging Where the liquid formula is indispensable, innovation shifts to the container, transforming it into a loyalty engine. The “refill” model is strategically powerful because it transforms a single purchase into a constant revenue stream, increasing customer value over time. At the same time, choosing mono-material packaging, such as bottles made entirely of polypropylene, simplifies recycling and sends a clear message of circularity. Opportunities arise on the one hand for packaging manufacturers, who can design and patent smart and safe refill systems, and on the other for brands, which can differentiate themselves with iconic, reusable design, transforming the container into a durable luxury object.

Solution #3: The New Frontier – Science and Performance (Climate Adaptive Beauty)If sustainability is the new standard, the next wave of differentiation will be driven by science. The “Climate Adaptive Beauty” trend represents the most advanced evolution: formulations designed to protect skin and hair from specific and aggressive environmental stressors such as pollution and blue light. Brands like Prada, with this approach, do not sell a cosmetic, but a high-tech solution to a modern problem, justifying a premium price. This creates a very high-value market for R&D laboratories and ingredient suppliers, focused on developing scientifically validated “adaptogenic” actives. For brands, it means being able to build a narrative based on effectiveness and innovation, attracting demanding consumers with high purchasing power.

Conclusions

The message is unequivocal: travel size has become a laboratory of innovation. Companies in the supply chain that know how to interpret this transformation will gain a decisive competitive advantage. This is the moment for an internal strategic review, asking fundamental questions. Leading companies must consider whether their packaging offering is ready for the growing demand for refillable and circular solutions, and whether their R&D lab is actively exploring the potential of waterless formulas and climate-adaptive ingredients. Equally crucial will be assessing whether their communication strategy is capable of showcasing these innovations to B2B clients. The answers to these questions will determine who will lead the market in the coming years and who, instead, will be forced to follow.