MIL Research Programme — Paper 2 of 3
Reading the shelf and the formula.
Most market analysis never opens the product — it counts prices, reviews, and launches, and mistakes visibility for substance. We read both at once: decompose the formulation, cost it, test it against regulatory reality, and read it against live market signal. Five layers, one viability score, one gap map.
What the weightings are — the calibration from sixteen years of building real products — stays proprietary. Worked examples are shared with partners under confidentiality.
01 · The five layers
01 · Formulation
Decompose the INCI list — actives, positions, likely concentration. Can the product deliver what it implies?
02 · Cost
Ingredient cost, complexity, packaging, plausible cost of goods. The gap between make-cost and shelf price.
03 · Regulatory
What the product is legally allowed to say — and where it has overstepped, by market.
04 · Market signal
Price position, category density, claim language, reviews. How the market values it today.
05 · Opportunity
All four integrated — where a defensible, deliverable, compliant product could win.
02 · Proven on our own shelf
This is the method BP Derma was built with — nineteen products across seven skin-concern categories, in six markets. Each scored through all five layers before it existed. For cosmetics and supplements alike: decompose, cost, check what is permitted and proven, read the market, score.
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