Formulating effective products isn’t the issue, regulation and negative reports are!

The main challenges formulators face in the industry at present are to be compliant with global regulation and to use ingredients that are not subject to negative media reports, rather than making a safe and effective product.

This is the view of Marc Pissavini, Basic & Applied Research Director at Coty, who spoke with CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com ahead of the in-cosmetics event in Barcelona next week, where he will be talking about sun care and speculation surrounding negative claims.

“It is not that difficult for a formulator to formulate a safe and efficient product,” he tells us.

“The main issue is creating a product that is compliant with regulation in China or the US and EU, and which uses raw materials which have no negative connotations with the media.”

Challenges

The sun care expert explains that unfortunately negative media reports and perceptions do have an impact on formulating and even though in many cases the report is not true or realistic, it can still hinder product development.

“Many of these are based on urban legends or inaccurate readings and interpretations of scientific publications,” he continues. “As formulators we have to be aware that things like this happen, if all of it was true we’d only be able to formulate with water at best!”

New developments at Coty have seen a sun care focus on protecting against infra-red after research suggests that it creates free radicals and also accelerates ageing.

“We have been developing products protecting against UVB and UVA for decades, but if we consider that the creation of free radicals is the first step in the interaction between sunlight and skin, then we have to protect our skin from the harmful effect of the UV,” explains Pissavini.

“We should also be protecting our skin from infra-red, as it is the infra-red that created free radicals.”

Presentation

At in-cosmetics Barcelona 2015 Marc will be discussing the myths and realities surrounding the sun care market.

He will also be exploring how the speculation surrounding negative claims is seeing research budgets increase, whilst reliance on a traditional scientific and a pragmatic approach appears to have fallen by the wayside.

Marc is part of a strong panel of experts taking a workshop on the morning of Tuesday 14th April.