so is it time to see the light and invest in the future of your skin? around the world, iconic cosmetic brands are losing ground to small and fast moving new players, starting up with a direct line to their customers on social media. so can these digital disruptors really challenge the global giants like estee lauder and l'oreal? i'm going to be asking two women giving it a go. there they are. megha ashar, who's start up in india, just got millions of dollars of investment. and trinny woodall, the big boss of trinny london, who's gone from telling women what not to wear on her television show to selling cosmetics directly to them online. plus, why a lack of truck drivers around the world could be another big hit to our global supply chain. the big boss of the global truck maker scania joins me to talk truckers and whether an all electric future is possible.

wherever you'rejoining me from around the world. once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. you know, just over six years ago, the singing superstar rihanna, she launched a cosmetic brand called fenty. she had the backing of the global luxury goods giant lvmh. today, fenty has made rihanna a billionaire, but she's not alone. kyliejenner, one of the most followed people in the world on social media, launched a makeup line and became hugely successful all by the age of 21. the cosmetics industry, it's one of the most disrupted out there, as well as coping with covid. it's had to deal with an onslaught of these start—ups, which use the founder who can talk directly to customers on social media to drive growth and create a seemingly personal relationship with them. that's according to one of the authors of one of the most widely read reports in the cosmetic and beauty world. they're not necessarily celebrity driven, many of them are, but often there's a very strong founder story.

and that story can be someone who had a skin problem, be it acne, something else, and that they found ingredient or solution that helped them. and then they developed a product and then developed a range of products. a lot of it has to do with the visual nature of it, which really played well for instagram as well as for the makeup tutorials. and the prize? oh, it's huge. the global industry is set to be worth $580 billion within the next three years, a growth rate of 6% a year. and it's increasingly digital. during the pandemic, online or digital sales easily overtook those from shops, but it's a trend that stuck around still today in the united states, digital sales are outstripping those from expensive to run physical stores. but it's india, which is one of the biggest hotspots for industry growth, as millions of new female consumers well, they have more disposable income to spend on luxuries like lipstick. india was one of the countries that we highlighted

in our beauty reports as being an exciting market to watch, along with the middle east and africa. and it's largely because of a few exciting factors. it is a fast—growing economy. beauty tends to be well correlated with that, but importantly, it has an expanding middle class and the younger generation is a significant share of the population, among them women who are increasingly able to purchase in the category. i would say that there's many female consumers who would love to purchase in the category but aren't necessarily at that socioeconomic level. and so india is a good example where we're seeing a large number of young consumers, many of whom are women, who are also entering the middle class and then able to have that purchasing power. and one of those targeting this demographic is the cofounder ofjuicy chemistry, an organic only brand which just banked a round of investments worth millions of dollars. megha ashar, great to see you and thanks forjoining me. and, megha, let me start

with this because the industry research is spotlighting the indian beauty market is certainly one with some of the biggest growth potential. so i'm kind of wondering, megha, how is digital commerce driving all of that? aaron, thank you so much for having me on the show. the indian beauty and personal care market size is growing at a staggering pace. it's unbelievable. this year we touched almost 28 billion in revenue and the market size is expected to grow by 5—6% year on year. there's also been an exposure where the rise of income has become a very big factor in women spending more on cosmetics because there, you know, there's a rise of entrepreneurship. there's a rise of lot ofjobs, there's a lot of awareness in terms of what opportunities are around us. so that has made a lot of difference and the rise in consumption that we see. and megha, as we know, i mean, you're going up against big global brands. i'm kind of wondering, in your opinion, how

well suited are they to the indian market? i think there is competition now. i think they are getting stiff competition from the home—grown brands, especially when we talk about the color cosmetics side of the industry. definitely there's a challenge because the formulations are not well—suited for indian skin tone. you know, we have to be very clear about the tones of the skin, as you mentioned. and i don't think the shade range is correctly put out there. secondly, i think also the formulations, sometimes they might be a bit too heavy on indian skin. sometimes itjust may not work for indian skin tone. but that being said, you know, i think they're getting stiff competition because more home—grown brands are coming up with variations specifically for indian skin tone. there are things that only an indian skin like maybe, you know, skin tone in this region actually goes through. and that's something that brands understand really well. so you started your company in your kitchen with

about 70 bucks, but. recently you raised several millions of dollars in investment funding. mega, i'm just wondering, what are you going to do with it? you know, being a bootstrap company when you get that investment, you know, first, you know, the whole validation of the fact that what you've done is really meaningful and what you've done is out there to make a difference. the biggest idea is to spread that message, spread that message of a proudly made in india brand across the globe and within india itself, you know, go omnichannel because while we have been an internet force brand, we've been online for a very long time. we recently launched on amazon.com, amazon dot, uae, australia and uk are happening in the next couple of months. so yeah, that's what the expansion plans are as far as the brand goes, because i think organic

is very well established internationally and there will be a lot more accepted acceptance to what we are doing. well, i've got to ask you, if a multinational came along and offered you a bucket load of cash to sell the brand, would you? it really has to be a good one. but i think we do need to scale a little bit more. i mean, we know that we have the potential and last two years were not great in terms of business, in terms of the market, and things were still a little low after covid. so i think we saw the covid peak and then, you know, there was a little bit of stagnation. and then, you know, now we are again, scaling markets have gotten a little better. so we want to definitely get to a point where we feel, yes, we've done it all and now a strategic partner coming through will make sense because then the brand can really shine. so that's i think it needs the founders handholding for a little bit more time and it needs the founders to guide the brand a little more.

well, on that point, meghan asia, co, founder ofjuicy chemistry, good luck with everything. i don't think you're going to need it. and thanks forjoining me. absolutely. thank you so much for having me over. it's been an absolute pleasure. well, back here in the uk, a former tv star has gone on to create one of the most talked about cosmetic launches in decades. she rose to fame on the international bbc hit what not to wear, where in no uncertain terms, she advised people how to dress. fast forward a few years and she's recreated herself as a makeup and skincare maverick. trinny woodall, a real pleasure having you on the show. and trinny, look, let's start with this. i mean, the basics. just how did you start your company? because i believe it wasn't easy to find the financial backing. in fact, and correct me if i'm wrong here, you sold your clothes to help fund it. is that right? i sold my clothes in my house,

but i had overextended myself. i was at the end of one career with a weaning revenue, waning revenue, and i knew i had too many overheads starting this career and also funding that initial r&d. and so i started by selling my clothes because i worked in fashion for 20 years, opened my house up, put it on craigslist, emily's list and had people in and raised an amount of money. and then i realised in fact i couldn't live in my house, so i rented it out and then i realised i had to sell it. so it was a process slowly of, you know, what do you need to do to get a business off the ground when you don't want to go out too early for funding and you need to bootstrap for an initial proof of concept? how critical has the rise of social media been in making direct to consumer models for cosmetics possible? i think what it does is it deals with the most important factorfor a consumer, which is trust and building up a trust with a consumer. i'd always been in front ofa camera, so i, i enjoy speaking to women.

so the progression to social media was a more natural one for me. i look down the line like i'm looking down to you now and i'm aware. i'm talking to a lot of people, notjust you. and that first business plan i did, the only way i could look at the projection of revenue, because so many business plans are done on that, is to say, all right, let me say 3% of the people who follow me will convert to be customers. and i built the plan that way. and at the beginning when i started, i had 100,000 followers. and so it was just done on this conversion of of of those people who follow, some of them won't be a customer of trinny london. some of them will love makeup and not other things. they want to do it a different way. and there will be a number of people who have followed me for advice and that naturally makes them become a customer. and trinny, talking of costs, where we're seeing supply chain issues, they're coming back.

it's just the latest challenge to to industry. and if we include the pandemic, which must have been very tough for a cosmetic company, how have you coped with all these challenges over the last few years? well, i think i feel planning and supply chain are at the core of a business like ours because you've got to get it right. and especially as you're growing these verticals, maybe going into concessions and going into wholesale, it's a totally different ball game. you've got to have, on one hand, built in margins, take you to the farthest away from dtc, which would be wholesale, but also our promise to our customers that we want to give you the most active ingredients and not overcharge you. so we have a reasonable margin which has some flex in it. and as we've seen in the last two or three years, our cost of raw materials has really gone up. and scarcity of some raw materials is an issue for us more than anything we might. we have our own lab for skin care, so we develop something with ingredients that we bring in from around the world. and then we scale it up to then want to make 20, 30, 40,000 of those units. and then it's about can we get the raw ingredients for the time in which we

want to launch? so our launch calendar has been affected by covid coming out of covid supply chain issues. and i think it is relevant for us to we're putting a lot more resource into the ops planning side of the business as we grow to make sure that we can meet that demand, whatever we choose to sell. and how important is it truly to to know your niche in this market? and because, again, correct me if i'm wrong, but your products are aimed at people who are over 35. and i'm just wondering, does that make it easier to to target your digital messaging? ifeel the more you refine a market, the easier it is, because otherwise you're doing a scatter—gun. you know, if you're, if you're a makeup brand for everyone, you kind of have got to think, how do i encapsulate in one message what we are as a brand? i think it's slightly more challenging. we are definitely for a woman who i think

is a grown up woman. she's got to a stage in her life where she knows she needs to make some decisions to invest in things that really work. and that could be somebody, oddly, who's 25 more unusual, but has that feeling of grown up just around her skincare makeup routine. let me ask you this. if you're targeting this particular niche market, i guess it also means that you're well, you're ignoring or not targeting the men's cosmetic market, because that's also a huge market, estimated at some estimates, more than $200 billion in growing. i mean, are you missing a trick there? well, i would say about 8% of our customers are men. and i think that some of our ads very much you know, there are women on the ads and we are a female—orientated company. but when we talk about singular products and we have some best selling products that kind of give you a little bit of life to your skin without looking like you're wearing makeup, we have a surprisingly large audience that's male, that loves that. they don't want to look like they're wearing makeup, our kind of male customer, but they want to feel they look well. and we specialise in things

that don't make you look like you're wearing makeup, but you are skin care. when i was designing the skincare range and it's very colour driven, i thought to myself, i don't want too many pinks there because that can be a little, you know, in traditional methods there is a little connotation with feminine pink. so i thought of routines oddly that somebody who's more neutral or masculine than feminine orientated, whatever their original gender and i've kind of made routines where they're sort of green and yellow and blue, and it's like when you have it sitting in your bathroom, you're not going to think, 0h, she's got a girls range there. it'sjust this is phenomenal skin care and it's for everyone who's interested in taking their skincare seriously. do you think it would have been possible to create this brand without having a media profile beforehand?

because if your show what not to wear hadn't been such a huge show in the uk and around the world, would would trinny london have still worked? i think it can accelerate your growth. it can be a preventative for some people. they can have an opinion of you which makes them think, oh, i won't even look there. there's still people who think, you know, does she actually do anything with the brand? and then they watch my social and they realise that i live and breathe it 2a hours a day. so there's pluses and minuses. but you know, it got me in the door maybe to have an investor meeting. i had 220 meetings and 218 turned me down. you know, it only gets you so far and trinny, and trinny, as you probably know this, you know, some market analysts suggest that very few direct to consumer cosmetic brands can can become massive. yeah. what do you say to that? i bloody love direct to consumer. i think it's a phenomenal market. i think there's a ceiling to it. a maximal number of women who will go as a new customer to online. so you have to think, i want to be global. how do i get in front of every consumer? now the brand has got enough

gravitas and growth about it. if i'm going to be truly global, i need to look at my channels and i need to look at my territories. so from day one, we shipped worldwide, we have about 180 countries we shipped to. stage two with localizing some of the warehousing. so australia and soon to come will be europe and the us. and third is what are the channels? so for me it's about localization. in australia we have warehousing and we're building it out in europe and in the us as we grow globally. and also it's about positioning yourself to be where your customer is. we have kiosks all around australia in front of sephora's in westfield centres and it's about positioning yourself where people go for beauty. so we are growing each channel out to be truly global in new territories. and trinny, let me end on this. i mean, well, to the point, what is the end game here, trinny?

would you sell if l'0real or lvmh came knocking at the door with a big bag of money? i do feel that i'm not a 20 year old saying, let me buy and sell and buy and sell. we want to grow a phenomenal brand. it would be great to have a partner at some stage who can really expand that growth and to have enough on the table that they think, my god, look where i can take that brand with my infrastructure. so that is an opportunity and we'll see where we go. but for right now, i'm just building the business. well, on that point, trinny woodhull, the founder and the big boss of trinny london, an absolute pleasure having you on the show. good luck with everything. i don't think you need it, but good luck and we'll check in with you soon. fantastic. really nice talking to you. 0k. changing lanes entirely now. you know, 2023 ended with global leaders at cop28 declaring that the world should move away from fossil fuels. well, my next guest is one whose business depends on getting that right. he's the big boss of the global truck making giant scania, which is part of the even bigger volkswagen group.

scania has made a commitment that all of its vehicles will be electric by 2040. but can the company and more importantly, the infrastructure on the roads around the world be ready for electrification? christian levine, our real pleasure having you on the show. and christian, let's start with this because your goal is for your trucks to be fully electric by 2040. so, christian, what are the biggest challenges to making that happen? yeah, great question. so i turn to the customers of ours, the transport companies, logistic, and i ask that question, what do you need to change? so the first one is, okay, what is my business case? i'm in this to move goods and make money, right? so how can we make sure that over the coming five, seven years, if i invest into this vehicle, i get my money back. hence, where are these price is going to go and where is electricity price going to go second on value, etc.. secondly, can i charge? how can you make sure that charging infrastructure

is built where i am operating? right? we all know about ranging site. you can imagine if you transport fresh fish from norway or fresh vegetable or livestock. third is there and that's more of an existential question, is there going to be green electricity in the grid? you know, because otherwise it seems to customers that this whole exercise doesn't make sense. right? i mean, if i speak for scania, i can solve them in the company. we cannot solve it in the industry. we need to work together. and christian, you talk about charging, but and correct me if i'm wrong here, but it's estimated that for europe to go fully electric, it's going to need something like 30 to 40000 charging points. is that even realistic? so what is happening right now is that the first movers, the courageous customers, the bigger ones that move into electric, they build chargers at their depots. they usually charge overnight so they can charge rather slowly. and many of them, not all of them, unfortunately, many of them get access to the grid and can actually start this build up.

this is where the majority of the chargers will actually be situated at logistic centers, at depots. but then what you think about is, of course, all these charging stations along the highways, we do not need 30,000 of these, but we might need 5 to 10000 of them. now, we don't need them tomorrow, but we need to build them over the coming ten, 15 years. and that, of course, has to start now. otherwise this will not work. it's as simple as that. and we know that you've unveiled a new battery with your partner, north volt, that you say can keep the trucks on the road for longer. but christian, break it down a little bit furtherfor us, for the uninitiated, i mean, what are we talking about in terms of these trucks and their driving distance? yeah, the two aspects on this that that that is also worrying our customers. the first one is really this range anxiety, you know, how long can i drive? and that's what you're into. and i think we have solved that problem, at least for a typical 44 tonne european or british

haulier, because we have something called drive time regulation, meaning that you're just allowed to drive 4.5 hours and then you have to take a break for safety reasons. and that break needs to be 45 minutes at least, meaning that that if you drive 80, 90 kilometres per hour, that will take you, let's say, up to 400 kilometres. so this was our target, the 44 minutes to be able to move for 4.5 hours, 400 kilometres without charging. right? and that's where we are today. that is technically not only feasible, but with the latest battery generation, that's rather actually quite easy. the other part of this question is, of course, now these batteries are expensive, everyone knows. right? so how long will they lost? will i have to change my batteries after three or four years of operations? and then the good answer is no. together with northvolt, scania is very proud to have just announced that we can do

up to 1.5 million kilometres on these battery packs, and that fits very well to the life length of the vehicle. and christian, as we know during the pandemic, a lot of truck drivers, they left the industry altogether. and i'm just wondering, has that settled down? are the drivers coming back? not not at all, unfortunately. so this is a problem. and you might think it's a problem in the uk or in europe. it's a global problem. wherever i go, whether that's brazil, whether that's china, we hear the same thing. young people, they simply don't want to become truck drivers. and this could be, this could be a huge problem for the global logistical system. i mean, trucks are some kind of bloodstream of society. you know, if trucks are not moving, we will not have food on the shelves in our stores injusta number of hours or perhaps days. so this we need to address and we're trying to do our best as a vehicle manufacturer to create an attractive vehicle with an attractive, appealing and also ergonomic work space with a good bed,

with good infotainment system, so that at least the life in the cab can be made really, really attractive. but i think we need to go beyond that. i think this is a systems issue. we need to look into drive times. we need to be able to give younger people the opportunity to return to base, meaning sleep in their own bed when they come home. not many people think about that. but land transport is dominating global trade. so it depends on country again. but typically you have around about 60 to 70% of all transport being done on on land. and usually it's the flexible part up to the last mile. but you have markets where 90% japan is a good example. injapan, 90% of all transport is done on trucks. if this doesn't work, if there is a shortage of drivers, there is a shortage of truck hauling capacity, the entire global trade will be put at danger. so this is tremendously important. 0k, christian, but what about this? as we're building the infrastructure for electrification,

is there also an opportunity to, well, to build better infrastructure that makes truck driving just more appealing? yeah, i think you're on to something very important there. and probably they could be combined, you know, as trucks, truck stops are not at all very attractive. most of them today. i think as you need to rebuild and build out spaces where 20, 30, 40, maybe 50 trucks can stop at the same time to charge. it's a great opportunity to also create an infrastructure around that, with possibilities, to rest, with food possibilities, take a shower, and amenities that really look nice and appealing to drivers. great chance. well, on that point, christian levine, the big boss of scania, really appreciate your time. good luck with everything and i'll talk to you soon. thanks, aaron. it was great talking to you. keep it up. well, that's it for this week's show. i hope you enjoyed it. don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website

or the smartphone app. of course, you can also follow me on x x me. i'll x you back. you can get me at bbc. thanks for watching. i'll see you soon. bye— bye. hello, thanks forjoining me. fairly quiet on the weather front across most of the uk right now. the storms have also cleared from south—western england as well as wales. this is what we had during saturday — flash floods in places. how about the weather on sunday? it's actually not looking bad at all for most of us. a lot of bright, if not sunny weather on the way. however, some coastal areas, particularly around the north sea, could be grey and chilly. so this is how we start the day. inland and out towards the west, the weather's looking fine and sunny right

from the word go. but these eastern counties, or here, it may take time for that sunshine to break through that layer of gray or that stratus and sea fog that will have rolled in overnight. so the afternoon looking pretty sunny across most of the uk, again, with the exception of some coastal areas. could be some showers across south—western parts of scotland, maybe the south—west of england. inland 22 or 23 celsius in that strong sunshine. but where the low, grey clouds stick around anywhere along the north sea coast, but particularly the further north you are, it will be chilly, maybe no higher than around 12 degrees. we have that on saturday. could happen again on sunday. so through the course of the evening, you can see that low grey cloud. once again it's going to roll inland out towards the west, it's going to stay generally clear. now, here's monday. cloudy skies out towards the east, but then the sun comes out and it's a repeat performance. a fine day on the way. again, temperatures in the low 20s inland, closer to the coast closer to around the mid—teens.

now, on tuesday, subtle changes. showers will appear in different areas. we could see some forming across scotland, northern ireland, the lake district as well. but i think the further south you are, the better the weather will be. temperatures won't really change an awful lot. in fact, overall, the first half of the week for most of us isn't looking too bad. but, as we head through wednesday and thursday, this low pressure sweeps in out of the east this time. it'll bring quite breezy weather and also a spell of persistent rain, and at times it will be heavy. so a change on the way second half of the week, and that's reflected in the forecast here. not really bad at all until around about tuesday, bar a few showers here and there. but then wednesday, thursday and friday, it's all change and it's hello low. bye— bye.

live from washington. this is bbc news. israeli police break up anti—government protests in tel aviv as its military recovers the body of another hostage in gaza. president zelensky says ukraine only has about a quarter of the air defences needed, to fend off russian attacks — warning moscow could increase strikes following recent gains near kharkiv.

plus, the president of georgia vetoes a controversial new law on foreign funding that's sparked weeks of protests. hello, i'm helena humphrey. glad you could join me. we begin in the middle east, where thousands of protesters have gathered in israel amid anger over prime minister benjamin netanyahu's failure to secure the release of hostages still being held in gaza. these are the scenes in tel aviv. police have arrested some demonstrators and used water canon to disperse two rallies, which had merged. in the latest development, the israel defence forces say that they recovered the body of another hostage — identified as ron binyamin. in the latest sign of divisions within mr netanyahu's war cabinet, benny gantz has threatened to bring down the prime minister's government, unless he agrees to a far—reaching plan for gaza with a deadline to do so in around three weeks time. meanwhile, the united nations

says more than 800,000 people have now fled rafah in southern gaza.