Formulating with non-toxic components could boost your next product’s sales and even attract lifelong customers. At MakeUp in NewYork, held at Center415 on September 11 and 12, a panel of industry insiders presented to a packed conference room on how to develop “Clean Beauty” products that are sustainable, reliable and ethically sourced.

Topics discussed included the science behind clean beauty, how to be “eco-socio” responsible, meeting consumer expectations and building a modern skin care brand. The seminar featured everything from supply chain to safety issues.
 
Crucial Components
“The demand for clean beauty is on the rise from consumers, and there is no sign of stopping.  It is important that beauty and personal care professionals understand the science and entire product development cycle behind this trend,” Giorgio Dell’Acqua, chair, New York Chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists’ Scientific Committee, told Happi. 

Dell’Acqua added that the focus of the event was to reveal all essential information regarding formulating cleaner beauty products—how to source ingredients responsibly, maintaining efficacy, complying to safety, delivering a high-quality SKU and effective branding.

According to Dell’Acqua, Clean Beauty is associated with a transparent supply chain that does not threaten the environment or social footprint. A Clean Beauty product is built by sourcing natural ingredients in a way that does not endanger local biodiversity, but in fact protects and preserves local biodiversity.

One raw material, soothing cold-pressed pomegranate oil, which contains 65% omega-5/punicic acid), is a powerful antioxidant. Seaweed can be sustainably sourced and extracted to isolate its polysaccharides for personal care.

“The marketing message of Clean Beauty products are often linked to the ingredients’ sourcing, functionality and safety—including the absence of ‘no-no’ components,” he said. “Natural ingredients easily fit into the concept of safety…but we don’t really know if they are going to work!”

According to Dell’Acqua, technologies derived from the pharma and the imaging industries are available at affordable prices and flexibilities (for more on testing services, read the feature in the October edition of Happi). Genomics, proteomics and metabolomics analysis are ideal to test the efficacy of naturals, he added.

“The biggest takeaway here is that Clean Beauty brands needs to validate efficacy through testing and tap the right suppliers!” he said.
 
Join the Club
In fact, Clean Beauty is all about working with suppliers’ communities in a fair and responsible way. Noreza Papin, vice president of sales, cosmetic active ingredients division, Expanscience, expanded on this topic. You might know Papin’s parent company Laboratoires Expanscience. This family-owned French pharmaceutical and dermo-cosmetics company is behind the popular Mustela skin care brand.

“Transparency is the new cool,” said Papin. “Consumers expect a company’s involvement in ingredient disclosure and certification. They care about sourcing with respect.”

Companies with an EcoVadis sustainability rating or B-Corp certification meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. Expanscience was the first French laboratory to be certified B Corp, by the way.

The Union for Ethical BioTrade is also something to look for in clean beauty products. This nonprofit association promotes the “Sourcing with Respect” of ingredients that come from biodiversity.
 
Creative Ingredients
Toussaint Jordan, senior technical marketing leader, Gattefossé USA, presented on “Clean Without Compromise: Consumer Expectations vs. Reality.” According to Jordan, the term “clean” refers to products formulated without harmful ingredients.

As a growing number of consumers are looking for Clean Beauty products, the ever-evolving list of unusable ingredients makes product development challenging, especially for more complex formulations like color cosmetics.
“The internet is driving Clean Beauty as it gives access to information for the consumers,” Jordan said.

Survey Says
Recently, Gattefossé conducted a consumer survey to understand women’s expectations of clean makeup. It varies by region: in the US, top criteria are PEG-free, silicone-free and cruelty-free; in Europe, it’s organic, botanical/herbal and vegan; for Asia Pacific, it’s botanical/herbal, vegan and paraben-free.

According to the survey, Clean Beauty consumers want:
-       High performance (texture, coverage);
-       Safe, non-toxic ingredients;
-       Transparency;
-       Silicone-free;
-       Vegan and cruelty-free;
-       Environmentally friendly options.

In developing cleaner makeup, some alternatives have “poor performance” compared to silicone-based formulas with inferior coverage or a cakey finish.  Gattefossé’s latest ingredient, Emulium Illustro, is a novel water-in-oil emulsifier is highly compatible with pigments and UV filters as well as a wide range of cosmetic ingredients. PEG-free and Cosmos-approved, this new ingredient meets consumer requirements in terms of naturality and formulator expectations in performance and flexibility, she said. In fact, Emulium Illustro earned the Best Functional Ingredient award at In-Cosmetics in April.

A Knack for Naturals
Christine Chang, co-founder and co-CEO of popular K-Beauty brand Glow Recipe, shared her expertise about formulating modern skin care that caters to the Clean Beauty consumer’s needs.
 “Natural ingredients have always been part of K-Beauty,” said Chang. “We grew up visiting Korean bath houses, where ingredients such as green tea and milk were commonly used to tone and treat the skin. DIY masking at home with honey, green tea, yogurt was also something we learned from our mothers, and Sarah [Lee, the other co-founder and co-CEO of Glow Recipe] and I both grew up with the memory of our grandmothers rubbing chilled watermelon rind to soothe our heat rashes in the summer.

“It has always been important to us to harness the power of natural ingredients, as we found fruits like watermelon and avocado both fascinating and familiar, but potent and antioxidant-powered for skin,” said Chang. “The K-Beauty industry is also powered by a local customer who is highly engaged with the ingredients in their skin care and clean formulations free of certain ‘no-no’ ingredients have been trending for some time now.”
        
What’s Next?
For 2020, the industry will see a rise in soothing products that focus on ingredients and innovations that are incredibly gentle to skin, Chang noted.

“We think this trend is especially important because as customers are experimenting with higher concentration of actives and encountering increasing amounts of environmental aggressors such as UV and pollution, fortifying and repairing the skin barrier is a critical step to health, glowing skin,” she said.

Additionally, encapsulated ingredients are on the rise, as encapsulation provides a gentle delivery system for ingredients that can be considered more potent in their traditional form. For example, Glow Recipe’s new Avocado Retinol line (an eye and face sleeping mask) harnesses encapsulated retinol to release the potent effects of retinol deeper and more effectively into the skin.

“Today’s consumers are more knowledgeable and curious than ever before. Every day, we see consumers asking to be fully informed on ingredient breakdowns and transparency with formulas, which is why it’s so important for us to educate our audiences on each product launch,” said Chang. “Shoppers are looking for products with formulas that are easy to understand but still efficacious for their skin.”
 
Save the Date
Makeup In New York returns to the city on Sept. 16-17, 2020 at a new location—the Javits Convention Center!
More info: https://makeup-in.com/en/