FEATURE ARTICLES

A comparison is made of the performance of styling polymers on hair samples from four major racial sources, namely Asian, Caucasian, mixed race and African-American.

Repair, protect and moisturise are the key consumer requirements in skin care. The components that help achieve these claims are often either monovalent or multivalent electrolytes, such as salts of alpha hydroxy acids, sodium pyrrolidone carboxylic acid (sodium PCA), phenylbenzimidazole sulfonic acid (PBSA), etc.

Every day more and more people realise that they have sensitive skin, although a high percentage continue suffering from it without being fully aware.

Emulsions are well represented in many major categories within the personal care and cosmetic industry. Due to the fact that emulsions contain both lipophilic and hydrophilic ingredients in the desired levels, an emulsion is a versatile vehicle across many categories.

Triethyl citrate, known under the brand Citrofol® AI, approved for more than 50 years in the pharmaceutical and food industry – is now manufactured exclusively from nature-derived agro resources.

The Asian cosmetics market is growing at an exponential rate, with Euromonitor predicting that by 2014 Asia’s share of the global cosmetics and toiletries market will be the same as Western Europe.

The Thai people have always been above average per capita users of cosmetics and personal care products in the Asian region.1 Cosmetic, personal care and toiletry market segments are very competitive, with a lot of local innovation, not always seen in other countries of the region.

The purpose of cosmetic products is to enhance or correct the appearance of the skin (decorative) and to preserve skin and hair integrity (care). In both of these application areas, oils and fats (O&F) are compulsory ingredients whose properties rank from acting to preserve and restore the integrity of the stratum corneum, to building the galenic or texture of a formula.

People’s daily lives are characterised by the need to make themselves stand out, while still fitting into their society. Consumers’ desire to both stand out as individuals and fit in with their peers impacts their lifestyle, priorities and the things they like – and greatly influences which products they buy.

The Society of Cosmetic Scientists devised SCS Formulate to be a resource for everyone involved and having an influence in developing cosmetics, toiletries, hair care and skin care products, where it would be possible to view the latest developments in formulations and applications-oriented science in the personal care market.

IBR-CalmDeAge is an extract from palm date (Phoenix dactylifera) seeds. The date seeds extraction preserves the inherent botanical capital of the date seed and delivers it for the most natural active effect on the skin, resulting in a global anti-ageing effect as well as reduction of dark circles and rosacea.

Due to the effect of several internal and external factors across the years, mature skin is physiologically different from its own young predecessor.

Biomimetics is a cutting edge technology that takes inspiration from nature; its models, systems and processes and exploits them to meet consumer demands. Keratin proteins have commonly been used in hair care products as a biomimetic solution to restore the hair for many years.

Hair has always been a key beauty area for women and also represents thoughts and feelings: when a woman changes her hair style it means that something has happened in her life; this explains why the hair care industry is so important, and why expectations are very high.

The epidermis communicates with the subjacent dermis via signalling molecules. This crosstalk is particularly important for the regulation of complex events such as wound healing, but also for continuous tissue repair and regeneration.

Just because it says it is ‘green’, it does not mean that it is. While there are a lot of ‘green-washed’ products on sale, there are also some trustworthy products.

Skin is an indispensable barrier between the body and the outside world. As one of its key functions, it constitutes a physical barrier that minimises the penetration of, e.g., chemicals, microbes and UV light into our body.

Since time immemorial, the human race has been dabbling in a huge ‘trial and error’ experiment searching for antiageing actives. For generations we have looked for ways of, not just staying younger but of ways to actually achieve immortality. Many millions of materials have been tried.

Demand for sustainably-sourced products and ingredients, especially in the beauty industry, is booming and Fairtrade offers an opportunity to be part of this through independent certification.

First and foremost we need to consider that at the time of this writing, there is a very loose cosmetic safety standard in the US; cosmetic products shall be ‘generally recognised as safe’, or GRAS.