The Knowledge to Decide

Eco-friendly, organic and vegan are now common themes in the cosmetics industry – but Halal products are the latest trend . Halal cosmetics sales are estimated at over USD 50 billion globally and forecasted to grow at 14.6 per cent a year from 2017 to 2021 . A quarter of the world’s population is Muslim, at 1.6 billion people in 2016 . Will Halal products become a pillar of the global beauty products industry? What are Halal beauty products? The word ‘Halal’ means ‘permissible’ in Islamic teaching. So such beauty products may not contain any alcohol ingredients, pork or animal blood. Food products prohibited under the Islamic Sharia Law need to be avoided during manufacture. Moreover, manufacturers of such products need to adhere to strict standards throughout the supply chain. This means right from the packaging to the storage; these products must qualify as Halal. Aside from their religious appeal, Halal beauty products have also become known for quality assurance an

As an elderly person, living alone in Korea is difficult. What options do senior citizens have for nursing home facilities? Dr. Justin Lee, Managing Director of Spire Research and Consulting, South Korea shared his thoughts on Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo news portal. Korea now has 3,316 nursing homes and 1,500 specialized elderly hospitals nation-wide. The need for specialised elderly care in Korea is on a gradual rise, as those with health complications cannot live independently. At present, senior citizens with grade ratings of 1 or 2 for long term care under the Long-Term Care Insurance scheme are entitled to use these public nursing home facilities. Dr. Lee opined that paying more does not necessarily mean a better nursing home. Costs in public nursing homes are not consistently higher than those in private ones. Within the public nursing homes, the cost variation is minimal regardless of their management quality as public nursing homes need to abide by set government gui