In the competitive beauty industry, getting your product to market efficiently can be as crucial as the product's quality itself. One of the most common questions we receive is, "How long will it take to get my product manufactured and ready for sale?" Understanding lead times is key to successful planning and a smooth launch.
At Mayk, we're committed to optimizing these timelines, leveraging our expertise and processes to get your K-Beauty products into your hands faster than traditional manufacturing paths.
Globally, creating a completely new skincare product from concept to shelf can typically take anywhere from 6 to 12 months. Some specialized products, particularly those requiring extensive stability testing, unique ingredient sourcing, or specific certifications for certain countries, can even take longer than a year. This comprehensive timeline accounts for:
Research & Development (R&D) and Formulation: Developing, testing, and refining the product formula.
Stability & Compatibility Testing: Ensuring the product remains safe and effective over time and within its packaging.
Ingredient Sourcing & Procurement: Finding and securing all necessary raw materials.
Packaging Development & Sourcing: Designing, prototyping, and manufacturing bottles, jars, tubes, etc.
Regulatory & Compliance Checks: Ensuring the product meets the legal requirements for sale in target markets.
Production & Filling: The actual manufacturing and packaging process.
It's crucial to emphasize that at Mayk, we never cut corners on these essential stages. Our unwavering commitment to product safety, stability, and efficacy means that all necessary testing, quality control, and regulatory steps are meticulously completed. Our speed comes not from skipping vital phases, but from intelligent process optimization and efficient project management.
We understand that time is money. Mayk strategically cuts down on these extensive lead times by streamlining processes and leveraging our expertise, particularly at the crucial early stages:
Traditionally, finding the right manufacturer, negotiating terms, and ensuring capabilities can be a lengthy back-and-forth process. Thanks to Mayk's extensive experience and deep network within the Korean manufacturing ecosystem, we can tell immediately which manufacturer is the best choice for each specific project. This expert matching saves our clients invaluable time, preventing them from having to vet multiple manufacturers, send out numerous inquiries, and then painstakingly decide on a partner.
Our Retail-Ready Formulations are designed for brands seeking the quickest path to market with proven K-Beauty quality. Since these formulations are already developed, tested, and optimized, you can skip the entire R&D phase.
Lead Time: Production for Retail-Ready Formulations is typically 2-3 weeks after final label design confirmation.
Even Faster: If your order quantity is above 100 units and you intend to handle labeling independently or prefer to skip it initially, the production lead time can be even faster, as we can go straight to bulk production without waiting for label printing.
Even for bespoke products, Mayk streamlines the manufacturing process post-R&D:
Lead Time: Once your custom formulation and packaging designs are confirmed (meaning samples are approved and label designs are finalized), the production lead time is typically 6-8 weeks.
Label design can sometimes become a bottleneck. Mayk offers solutions to speed this up:
Template-Based Design Service: We provide a library of pre-designed label templates that you can use for an additional charge. This significantly reduces design time.
Dieline Provision: If you have an in-house designer or prefer to work with your own design agency, we will promptly provide you with the necessary printing dielines. Your designer can then seamlessly incorporate your artwork, ready for production.
Once your product has completed its initial production run with Mayk, subsequent reorders become significantly faster and smoother:
Lead Time: Reorders typically have a lead time of just 4-6 weeks.
Since the R&D, sampling, and initial design stages are already completed and approved, the process is streamlined to focus solely on efficient production and delivery.
The journey to your final product begins with samples:
Retail-Ready Formulation Samples: These are generally available much faster and can typically be shipped within 1-2 weeks of your request.
Custom Formulation Samples: Developing a unique formula from scratch requires meticulous R&D. Samples for custom formulations typically take about 3-6 weeks to develop for the first round. Each subsequent round of revision (if needed) will also take approximately the same amount of time. To minimize revisions and accelerate this crucial stage, we highly recommend providing a benchmark product. This helps our chemists quickly understand and accurately gauge the desired textures, sensory profiles, and performance you want to achieve.
It's vital to address a significant exception to standard skincare manufacturing lead times and costs: creating sunscreen products intended for sale in the United States market. Due to their classification as Over-the-Counter (OTC) drugs by the US FDA, sunscreens require a highly rigorous and extended development, testing, and registration process.
Extended Lead Time: Developing an FDA OTC-compliant sunscreen and completing all necessary tests for certification can extend the lead time significantly, typically ranging from 1 to 2 years.
Substantial Investment: This extensive process also results in a substantial financial commitment. Brands should be prepared to allocate a minimum budget of at least USD 100,000 per product to cover the comprehensive R&D, specialized testing, and registration fees required. For instance, R&D alone for a sunscreen formulation can range from $40,000 to $60,000, with FDA registration fees being an additional, separate cost (typically around $10,000 as a rough estimate for the process itself). Production costs are also separate.
High Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ): Reflecting the specialized production and regulatory demands, manufacturing sunscreens for the US market typically requires a minimum of at least 5,000 units per order.
Non-Negotiable Terms: Due to the inherent complexities and strict regulatory requirements of OTC sunscreen manufacturing, these budget and timeline terms are generally non-negotiable.
Estimates Subject to Change: Please note that the fees provided are estimates and can fluctuate based on changes implemented by regulatory bodies, which are beyond our control.
We will detail the full complexities of US FDA OTC sunscreen manufacturing in a separate, dedicated article. However, it's essential for brands considering this product category to be fully aware of these unique demands on both time and budget from the outset.