Speaking in an interview with the in-cosmetics organisers, the Nivea skin care maker’s chief of Open Innovation outlines the challenges in today’s cosmetic raw material finished products manufacturers world.
“Firstly, the animal testing ban starting in March 2013 will hit the industry intensively,” says Andreas Clausen.
“But its impact on the development of novel ingredients can hardly be foreseen today as the complete industry will try to stay innovative anyhow.”
Natural and sustainable
The Beiersdorf boss adds that trends like natural cosmetics and sustainable living have resulted in more public discussions and this has seen an increase in industry activities to meet the public’s and consumers’ demands.
“Take preservatives or silicones as an example: Even though some of them can toxicologically be considered as safe, public discussions lead to their reduction in products to a minimum,” he continues.
Another stumbling block for the industry may come in the form of the different regulatory situation in regions like Europe, Asia or North America, as manufacturers may have to look to avoid the development of specific products for each market.
Innovation
However, this can lead to further innovation in the industry and the emergence of different trends.
The demand for sustainable and natural ingredients continues to pick up pace, whilst the request for products to be ‘paraben-free’ or contain ‘no mineral oils’ has led to a growing trend in Europe and worldwide.
For Beiersdorf, according to Clausen, active ingredients remain an important ingredient class.
The skin care maker’s focus is on novel ingredients with proven efficacy which support the skin’s own processes and metabolism as well as supporting Nivea’s core categories Body, Face, Sun, Men, Deodorants and Shower.
Development
This has seen the company team up with a German university recently to develop understanding of the skin and develop novel ingredients for skin care and anti-ageing products.
Together with researchers of Charité University Medicine Berlin they demonstrated the existence of an inner clock in human skin cells, which controls skin regeneration amongst other things.
Dr. Jörn Hendrik Reuter, head of the General Skin Care Laboratory at Beiersdorf says “the findings from our collaborative research could have a large influence on the skin care of the future.”