Zuzanna Fedyczak ,cosmetics & dietary supplements formulator, CEO of Countess Laboratories.

Leading Countess Laboratories—a rising R&D hub in Polands beauty industry—CEO Zuzanna Fedyczak defines herself not merely as a cosmetic formulator, but as a creative craftsperson.

Strictly rejecting white-label practices that reuse pre-made formulas, she engineers every single product completely from scratch, leveraging a diverse ecosystem of over 1,000 raw materials.

From her agile response to regulatory shifts to her unwavering ethical standards, we dive into Zuzanna’s  R&D philosophy and the dynamic pulse of the Polish beauty market.

1. What problem do you solve, and what makes your approach different?

We work with mass-market and professional brands, as well as niche brands and projects with highly specific functions and target groups.

This diversity requires, above all, flexibility - both in our approach to the product itself and to the way each project is managed. We do not operate on a white-label model. Every formulation is developed from scratch, based on a specific concept and the client’s expectations.

We work daily with a portfolio of nearly one thousand raw materials, allowing us to build and modify formulations freely rather than relying on a catalogue of ready-made recipes. This enables us to create truly unique products, quickly assess our clients’ concepts, propose alternative solutions and modify existing formulations - also in response to changing regulatory and technological requirements. We see our laboratory as an R&D hub where clients can fulfil almost all their product development needs.

If a particular service falls outside our direct scope of expertise, we help identify the right partner and support the client throughout the next stages of the project. We also place great emphasis on the raw materials we use to build our formulations.

We are not limited to ingredients available in our own warehouse. We follow global trends and participate in trade shows, seminars and webinars around the world, allowing us to work with innovative raw materials that are only beginning to gain traction in the market. In practice, this means that the whole world is our warehouse.

Equally important to us is developing formulations with the future of the product in mind. Through our active involvement with the Polish Union of the Cosmetics Industry, we stay up to date with regulatory changes and their likely direction.

This allows us, already at the development stage, to avoid raw materials or usage levels that could become problematic for our clients in the near future. An essential part of our working model is direct communication between the client and the formulator.

This allows us to respond quickly to the client’s needs and feedback, as well as to make efficient adjustments even during the testing phase of an approved formulation.

We believe that the combination of an individual approach, broad formulation expertise, access to the global raw materials market, regulatory awareness and direct communication enables us to create products that are a genuine response to the specific needs of both the brand and the market.

2. Inside Polish Beauty How do you see the Polish beauty industry today — its changes, opportunities, or challenges?

We work with mass-market and professional brands, as well as niche brands and projects with highly specific functions and target groups. This diversity requires, above all, flexibility - both in our approach to the product itself and to the way each project is managed.

We do not operate on a white-label model. Every formulation is developed from scratch, based on a specific concept and the client’s expectations. We work daily with a portfolio of nearly one thousand raw materials, allowing us to build and modify formulations freely rather than relying on a catalogue of ready-made recipes.

This enables us to create truly unique products, quickly assess our clients’ concepts, propose alternative solutions and modify existing formulations - also in response to changing regulatory and technological requirements.

We see our laboratory as an R&D hub where clients can fulfil almost all their product development needs. If a particular service falls outside our direct scope of expertise, we help identify the right partner and support the client throughout the next stages of the project. We also place great emphasis on the raw materials we use to build our formulations. We are not limited to ingredients available in our own warehouse.

We follow global trends and participate in trade shows, seminars and webinars around the world, allowing us to work with innovative raw materials that are only beginning to gain traction in the market. In practice, this means that the whole world is our warehouse.

Equally important to us is developing formulations with the future of the product in mind. Through our active involvement with the Polish Union of the Cosmetics Industry, we stay up to date with regulatory changes and their likely direction.

This allows us, already at the development stage, to avoid raw materials or usage levels that could become problematic for our clients in the near future. An essential part of our working model is direct communication between the client and the formulator.

This allows us to respond quickly to the client’s needs and feedback, as well as to make efficient adjustments even during the testing phase of an approved formulation.

We believe that the combination of an individual approach, broad formulation expertise, access to the global raw materials market, regulatory awareness and direct communication enables us to create products that are a genuine response to the specific needs of both the brand and the market.

3. People & Philosophy

When you work closely together, you often spend more hours with your colleagues than with your loved ones, so we cannot afford to let negative emotions dominate our working relationships. Mutual respect has to be a fundamental value.

I have built the team gradually and carefully — something I consider particularly important in the highly female-dominated beauty industry. There is no room in our team for personal agendas or individual ambitions at the expense of others.

The success of one team member is the success of the entire company. We also make a conscious effort to distribute projects in a way that allows everyone to develop professionally.

A formulator’s creativity needs to be constantly stimulated, challenged and given space to grow. Each of us has our own projects and clients, but whenever a formulation challenge arises, we discuss it together and brainstorm possible solutions.

On a daily basis, we also share new discoveries and interesting insights from seminars and industry trade shows — something I have never experienced to the same extent in other teams.

In our laboratory, everyone knows that there is a team behind them when a problem arises. That sense of support provides a great deal of psychological comfort and makes the work much more rewarding. Our clients are diverse, but they share one fundamental expectation: they want effective, innovative formulations that they can truly call their own.

We work with a number of distinctive and ambitious brands — although, due to NDAs, we cannot disclose details — that place a great deal of trust in us. We take that trust very seriously and strive to meet the expectations that come with it. They expect three things from us above all:

1. Integrity. We never reproduce a client’s formulation for another customer, nor do we disclose critical details of their formulation or manufacturing technology. Confidentiality and trust are the foundations of our relationships.

2. A high level of expertise. For us, expertise means much more than simply selecting the right ingredients. It means understanding the brand’s concept and translating it into an appropriate formulation, while also anticipating potential technological, regulatory or market-related challenges.

3. Long-term commitment to the client and the brand. Our responsibility does not end when the invoice for the formulation is issued. In many ways, that is when the real work begins. We support clients during implementation with the manufacturer, prepare numerous additional samples, review marketing claims from a technical perspective, provide additional documentation and arrange further testing when necessary.

We also help address packaging changes, minor formulation adjustments, raw material availability issues and the many unexpected details that inevitably arise when a product moves from the laboratory into production.

The products we create are, in a sense, a joint achievement of the brand owner and our laboratory, even though we do not retain any proprietary rights to them. This does not diminish our commitment to their success.

We remain closely involved after launch, because products sometimes require minor adjustments once they enter real-world production.

In fact, I often say that the first three production runs are a period of fine-tuning the technology — and, in a way, a true test of a formulator’s skills. Seeing our formulations on store shelves or nominated for industry awards is an enormous source of satisfaction and joy for us. It is one of the things that motivates us to keep learning, experimenting and developing further.

4. What are you planning next — new services, products, international markets, or other directions?

This will allow us to take some of the substantial documentation workload off the formulation team and give our technologists more space to focus on what they do best — developing products.

We also want to expand our international collaborations in two key areas. The first is formulation development and manufacturing; the second is providing strong support to brands entering the European market, particularly those facing the complex challenge of adapting their documentation and processes to European regulatory requirements.

At the same time, I want to grow the laboratory without losing what makes it special — our values, our way of working and the atmosphere within the team.

It is important to me that we grow together and that ambition never overshadows the purpose behind what we do. There are, of course, temptations within our industry to take shortcuts - for example, by selling the same formulation to multiple clients.

We simply do not do this. It is one of our non-negotiable principles. A good formulator does not need to copy formulations. When you are confident navigating the world of raw materials, your knowledge and imagination give you the freedom to create something new every time. Every formulation we develop is unique.

We build it from scratch, specifically for the brand and its concept. To me, this is not simply a technical process - it is a form of creative craftsmanship. It is where science meets passion, and technology meets vision.

That is what I want Countess Laboratories to remain: a place where expertise and creativity work hand in hand, and where growth never comes at the expense of our principles. And, of course, we have a few ideas for the future that, for now, will have to remain our little secret.

Science, passion, and uncompromising principles—Zuzanna Fedyczak shows us that true innovation in beauty isn't about taking shortcuts, but about mastering the craft from scratch.

As Countess Laboratories continues to bridge creativity and global standards, we look forward to seeing how her vision shapes the next chapter of European beauty.

Stay tuned for our next story in the P—BEAUTY series.