36 NATURALS To allow a brand to build trust and achieve


a solid consumer base, it must have clear communication with consumers about its sustainability commitments and actions. Recognisable certification organisations like Fairtrade, BCorp and COSMOS can be used to reassure the consumer.


Future technologies Personal care is a fast-moving, trend-driven industry. As the conscious consumer pushes brands to embrace sustainability, and with the continued growth of the natural market, the way we produce natural ingredients needs to evolve. This has led to the rise of the ‘Biotech Beauty’


trend: beauty products which use ingredients produced through various cutting-edge technologies that combine new technologies with the legacy of nature, to create ‘super-natural’ ingredients.13


Lab-grown alternatives to animal-


derived ingredients also offer a promising new direction for vegan products. Alongside the pharmaceutical and food industries, personal care is expected to be one of the biggest adopters of the end products of white biotechnology, in which living cells from yeast, moulds, bacteria, plants and enzymes are used to create raw materials. These products do not rely on a finite resource, are easily degradable, require less energy to create and result in less waste during production.14 Fermentation sits under this umbrella. It is


more sustainable than agriculture because it uses less water, land, pesticides and herbicides. The process can be optimised to ensure that only the desired product is manufactured and it allows for efficient scale-up in production with controlled waste management. It also avoids seasonality issues, which are a downside of current agricultural methods.15 Fermentation has seen a resurgence in recent


years in the food and drink industry with drinks such as Kombucha, a fermented probiotic tea, becoming increasingly popular.16


In beauty, the


skin microbiome trend has reignited consumer curiosity for fermented products, repositioned as probiotic materials.17


For example, Lactococcus


Ferment Lysate accelerates the speed and quality of the epidermal growth, promoting skin health, while also helping the skin’s microbiota to recover after dysbiosis.18 The use of stem cell technology is also rapidly


advancing and can be used to produce natural, plant-derived products in the lab. It can generate any molecule that would be found naturally within the plant, offering access to a broader range of phytomolecules than would be obtainable by extracting them directly from harvest material. Ingredients can be produced using stem cell


technology with up to 99.98% less water and 99% less soil than when grown in fields, without the need to use pesticides or herbicides, and without any risk of supply being affected by adverse weather conditions.19


It also has a smaller carbon


footprint as the ingredients are produced directly in the manufacture site. This produces consistent ingredients with a reduced risk of impurities. Stem cell cultures can be stressed, encouraging


the production of specific secondary metabolites and essential substances to harness the regenerative potential of the plants. This yields


PERSONAL CARE October 2021


pesticides or herbicides, resulting in fresh produce and an incredibly high, reliable yield. For example, Plenty’s Tigris farm, can process 200 plants per minute, using less than 5% of the water and 1% of the land required by normal farming techniques.22,23 Seaweed aquaculture is projected to grow


from $16.7 billion in 2020 to $30.2 billion by 2025.24


Using marine ingredients like seaweed


can also save on land and freshwater use, while farming it gives coastal communities an alternative source of income to fishing. Seaweed grows fast and has benefits to the environment as it sequesters CO2


.25


Surveys find ever more consumers making choices on sustainability grounds


an active with a much higher concentration of phytomolecules versus traditional plant extraction, meeting demand for sustainable, more efficacious products.19


As with most wild crops, there


can be natural variations in yield and quality. Among many other possible uses, seaweed is


The actives can target


specific cosmetic indications such as ageing, radiance and sensitivity. New technologies can also lead to brand new


ways of growing crops in a variety of non-soil substrates, such as hydroponics, aquaponics and vertical farming. As the technology advances, hydroponics is becoming a more commercially viable way of growing plants. It allows plants to be grown in areas where you would not be able to use regular farming methods. Hydroponics also recycles the water used in the system and can reduce water usage by up to 90%, as well as removing the need for pesticides.20 Aquaponics also uses water to grow plants, but includes aquatic animals in the water as part of the process. This creates an ecosystem where the animals excrete ammonia, which is converted to nitrate by bacteria in the water. The plant then absorbs the nitrate, therefore maintaining the cleanliness of the water.21 With vertical farming, crops are grown in


vertically stacked layers and thus a smaller footprint, lit by LED lighting. The environment is controlled to give the best results, without


a popular personal care ingredient, with benefits in thickening and texture modification. It is packed with antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins, and anti-inflammatory agents. In addition, actives derived from marine algae like Rhodophyceae and Phaeophyceae can be hydrating and can help increase cell turnover to give healthy and radiant skin and hair. The UN Food & Agriculture Organisation says


that nearly a third of all food produced every year is wasted.26


Upcycling, the creation of functional


products from materials that would usually be discarded as waste, reduces overall waste by removing material from the waste stream. It also contributes to the reduction of methane released by rotting food, a key contributor to climate change. Much of the waste from the food processing


industry is created once the edible component is extracted. However, these by-products are valuable: the majority still contain valuable plant materials which can have a huge benefit in personal care products. For example, the leftover fruit pulp from


Annona Cherimola (or custard apple) can be upcycled and further processed to create an adaptogenic ingredient that helps skin to maintain a homeostatic balance, reduce inflammation, and improve skin health and wellbeing. Using waste from juice production


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