The world’s leading personal care ingredients tradeshow, in-cosmetics, held this year in sunny Barcelona, has once again brought together an immense
number of ingredient suppliers and marketing specialists to showcase the novelties offered by their businesses.
While some novel ingredients were introduced at the show, this year is rather signified by new end product concepts and formulations with the existing ingredients. Textures, softness, smoothness, comfort, and consumer needs were touted by many marketers and the word “sensory” permeated a variety of marketing campaigns.
The new concepts were key at Lubrizol’s booth. The new skin care concept called A Sweet Escape… is focusing on new textures and sensuality in skin care. With the help of Lipotec’s actives and peptides acquired a few years back, this concept offers new textures with novel performance benefits to inspire personal care formulators into creating products offering new sensations.
The new sensory dimension was tested out by us in person at Clariant’s stand, designed for test driving the novel ingredient in skin cleansing, GlucoTain, which is a mild surfactant, as well as a renewable surfactant based on sugar and vegetable oils. Unlike most other liquid surfactants, GlucoTain is a thickener additionally offering a smooth conditioning effect. We have tried and tested this against non-GlucoTain liquid soap, and the GlucoTain did leave a feeling of silky skin after application. Find out more about surfactants and other personal care ingredients in our Personal Care Ingredients: Global Market Analysis market analysis.
The idea of sustainability was also spread across the in-cosmetics floor. The improved sustainability profile could be found in one of Evonik’s highlights. The new hair conditioning agent Varisoft EQ 100 can boast universality, as it is also applicable in shampoos, providing them with the thickening effect. Additionally, this 100% active liquid esterquat is based on renewable feedstock. Review our Natural Personal Care Global Series study for the sustainability trends of this vivid market. Evonik also marketed its recently introduced concept, a structured surfactants system containing oil inside surfactants, pampering the skin with oily moisture while foaming and cleansing.
Existing ingredients were also combined for Solvay’s portfolio of 45 innovative formulations to address consumer market needs. Solvay’s European communications specialists Eugenie Wartel explained that there has been a lot of testing involved with consumers to achieve the desired and promised final results.
Kemin caught our attention by introducing a new ingredient at the show. The company, which grows their own ingredient sources, arrived in Barcelona with an ingredient that protects consumers from visible blue light, which is more dangerous than ultraviolet light. FloraGLO Lutein Topical plant-based actives are able to absorb harmful blue light, offering strong oxidative protection. Kemin’s marketing director has revealed to us that “the ingredient has been already used to protect the eye macula, and these same benefits can now be applied to consumers’ skin protection.” While the formula has a lightly orange tint, after applying to one’s skin, the tint disappears, leading us to believe that this product can be safely applied in many of the trendy alphabet cream options. Review the evolution of the growing alphabet trend in our Cosmetics & Toiletries USA report.
Other companies showed off their novelties at in-cosmetics. Dow Corning arrived in Barcelona with a new leave-in frizz control ingredient for water-based formulations. Merck introduced its new concept of DermoCosmetics. Ashland has focused on rheology formulations addressing skin and hair textures, a concept touched upon in our in-cosmetics Marketing Trends presentation on the ethnic beauty market.
To bring you more trendy insights on the two-faced ethnic market, in addition to our recently published report on Multicultural Beauty and Grooming Products: U.S. Market Analysis and Opportunities, we are now launching the Professional Ethnic Hair Care: Global Market Brief.