Full clarity is needed over natural ingredients, says Organic Monitor

It is time for manufacturers to provide full clarity over natural ingredients, says Organic Monitor’s Judi Beerling. And companies also need to be concerned about other issues such as sustainability, carbon footprint and reducing energy during manufacture.

Speaking ahead of an Organic Monitor workshop to be held at in-cosmetics, Beerling told cosmeticsbusiness.com: “The natural cosmetic industry has woken up to the fact that the future lies in producing greener, more sustainable products, which may translate to more authentic natural formulations.

“This is causing headaches for the conventionally trained development chemist, who needs to know how to replace high-performing synthetics with more natural alternatives whilst remaining cost effective.”

Obtaining adequate shelf life can be a major issue to overcome when formulations are developed, she added. “Stability of emulsion structures and viscosity changes with surfactant systems are particular problems that need to be controlled,” she said. When it comes to issues such as sustainability and recyclable packaging, Beerling said that although initially there were likely to be some upfront costs for R&D and development of renewable raw materials, in the long term costs in theory should reduce, as such innovations would reduce energy and utility bills, distribution and raw materials costs and so on.

The Organic Monitor workshop will focus on green ingredients at the more functional end of the spectrum: surfactants, emollients, emulsifiers, preservatives, polymers, etc.

“These ingredients tend to be the more difficult ones to live without when formulating,” said Beerling, “and finding slot-in alternatives with the same functionality as their synthetic counterparts is not easy. Thus, the workshop will attempt to give participants ideas of how to work with some of the innovative alternatives that are becoming available but may need to be formulated in a different way.”