Details from RPI’s Natural & Biobased Cosmetic Ingredients Conference

The Conference on Natural and Biobased Cosmetic Ingredients, organized by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), was held in Troy, NY in April. As it often happens when something really important takes place, this conference passed nearly unnoticed. And yet, the simple fact of it being organized signaled that a major change is intervening in the personal care industry: a major academic player manifests interest for—and promotes research about—new technologies that might introduce a profound modification in the procedures of preparing ingredients.

Plant-derived ingredients are not new in the cosmetic arena. And neither are biotech-generated ingredients such as polysaccharides. And yet, too often, the plant-derived ingredients are no more than buzzwords claiming unproven activities. Biotech-derived biopolymers are not competitive, for instance, against silicones; petrochemical-derived ingredients—and ingredients synthesized using toxic metal catalyzers—still take the lion’s share of attention.

The least that one can say is that there is an unmet market need for green ingredients and there is room for new technologies. The time is ripe for innovation.

Some Topics of Interest

Fermented Surfactants

Whether as a feedstock or as functional chemistry, fermentation has played an important role in new surfactant development in recent years. Today, it’s increasingly likely that surfactants incorporate some kind of fermentation along the way. The talk by Dennis Abbeduto reviewed what has been done, recent developments and the future potential of these technologies. It also discussed their advantages and pitfalls and pointed out how we may utilize some base principles to accelerate development in this area.

Sophorolipids

Lisa Kaid introduced sophorolipids, a family of natural glycolipid biosurfactants produced by the fermentation of non-pathogenic yeast species such as Starmerella bombicola, using carbohydrates and fatty acids as primary carbon sources. After fermentation, sophorolipids are extracted with ethyl acetate and washed with hexane to remove residual fatty acids. Sophorolipids are isolated primarily in two forms, lactonic and acidic, with lactonic sophorolipids being the major and often predominant fraction depending on fermentation conditions. Both natural and modified sophorolipids display surface activity, and a range of biological properties, including antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, as well as dermatologically interesting effects such as the inhibition of histamine-induced itch, the inhibition of elastase, and the stimulation of collagen neosynthesis. Because of their biodegradability, lack of topical irritancy and low toxicity, they are promised to become widely used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and environmental remediation.

Microbial Lipids

David Heller gave a great example of selective interventions to achieve higher yields of production. Microorganisms were selected through several rounds of centrifugation in density gradients to finally obtain a strain rich in lipids (hence with lower density than strains producing less lipids) that can be cultivated with large yields of lipid production. These lipids can then be used as such or biotech-modified to generate new, green and safe cosmetic ingredients.

Multi-prong Actives

In addition to the preparation of polymers to serve as excipient, moisturizers, thickeners, boosters of esthetic and tighteners, new categories of actives were discussed, in a way meant to distinguish between the science and the narrative that support some best-sellers. Because of a track of new discoveries about the activities of bakuchiol over the last twenty years; the consensus is now that bakuchiol is more of a category than of a single active. Bakuchiol has been shown by randomized, double-blind clinical tests to outperform retinol as a powerful anti-acne and anti-photoaging ingredient, in addition to its anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Some doubts are cast on the lack of transparency in the description of the purification of some other actives, whereas it was pointed out that bakuchiol is only as credible as the science, quality and safety behind it and that for dermatologists it is mandatory that their decisions rest no longer just on claimed efficacy but on trust and standards.

Anarul Hoque pointed out that proteins that are generally purified from plants at high cost and with low yields, such as papain, can be obtained from E. coli cloned with the papain gene. A curiosity was presented by Ilse Nava-Medina who discussed the use of snail mucin in cosmetics.

New Test Methods

It is often ethically unacceptable to test materials on human volunteers without previous knowledge of the toxicological properties of the material. Purnendu Sharma presented a new technology that makes human skin explants fit for testing up to one month after surgical resection.

A surprise? An unexpected domain of application of biotechnology was revealed by the description of the possible covalent binding of “top notes” of fragrances to polymers via ester bonds. This allows one to generate perfumes with sustained release of top notes. 

The top notes are released at a rate dictated by the kinetics of digestion of the ester bond linking the fragrant molecule to the polymer by esterases resident in the stratum corneum. Such perfumes do maintain for longer times their initial aroma and do not undergo the undesired quick loss of the initial scent. These results were obtained about 20 years ago, a time in which the fragrance department of major cosmetic distributors was structurally dissociated from the R&D. 

The patents that were granted in this instance did not excite the curiosity of the fragrant executives and were dropped.

Paolo Giacomoni, PhD

Insight Analysis Consulting
[email protected]

Paolo Giacomoni acts as an independent consultant to the skin care industry. He served as Executive Director of Research at Estée Lauder and was Head of the Department of Biology with L’Oréal. He has built a record of achievements through research on DNA damage and metabolic impairment induced by UV radiation as well as on the positive effects of vitamins and antioxidants. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and has more than 20 patents. He is presently Head of R&D with L.RAPHAEL—The science of beauty—Geneva, Switzerland.