18
INTERVIEW Sophia Bull
Marketing Manager, North America - Lucas Meyer Cosmetics by Clariant
Some people associate K-beauty with the 11-step routine. That was an early 2000s iteration of K-beauty led by Amorepacific and those types of Korean brands. What we see with K-beauty
today is what I refer to as the democratization of K-beauty. We see a lot of indie brands. We see a lot of K-beauty brands represented in mass market retailers like Ulta Beauty and Target. We see it at a cheaper price point and open to more people to really discover the beauty of K-beauty. [In terms of Lucas Meyer
Cosmetics], we have a whole range of products for K-beauty that touch on different aspects of skin health.
Akshay Talati
Chief innovation officer - Supergoop!
You may have heard of glass
skin; smooth, poreless, very translucent, flawless skin. The new iteration is called boiled egg skin; this is the new glass skin. This is like when you feel the eggshell away leaving a beautiful smooth surface. We have a very exciting
new data piece that we’ll be launching probably towards the end of the summer. The new data piece is adding
to our product called Celyscence, which is a milk thistle extract that helps with removing senescent cells from the skin and optimise cellular health. The new data will focus on smoothness, pores, and skin texture.
I have been formulating sunscreens for around 30 years. Going back 20-25 years, it was very difficult to formulate sunscreens, even which were SPF 5 or SPF 8. They were white, sticky, and pasty. Incrementally, year after year,
we have seen advancement in formulation technologies: better dispersions, better zinc oxide, titanium dispersion, better film formers, better emulsifiers, liquid crystals, better gelling technology. The sunscreen molecules
have not changed over the last 27 years in US, but the ancillary ingredients have changed to make formulations better. The key point in innovation
is how you make sunscreens usable and effortless every day. Sunscreen can be seen as an add-on product, that you use it on vacation or the beach. So, how do you make
sunscreen fit into skin care? How do you fit it into it into a serum? How do you fit it into your regular makeup products in a way that feels like sunscreen?
Texture is important. Our
innovation philosophy is that every product that we launch has to feel like a non-SPF product. If
we crack that code, then the products automatically fit into a consumer’s normal routine. In terms of the future of
sunscreen innovation, we are seeing a lot of trends. At Suppliers’ Day, we are seeing the longevity trend. For sure, the code is being cracked: the effect of sun damage on the microbiome, on elastin, on barrier repair, on pigmentation, on collagen, on DNA. Over the next few years, I
think you will see multitasking sunscreen products that will incorporate multiple technologies to provide multitasking benefits - not only skin care. The other trend is the
Paul Lawrence Executive director for bioscience research, discovery, and scientific communication – Biocogent
[Our active ingredient for countering facial sagging from GLP-1 medication]is a fully sustainable, clean beauty, carbon zero product where we harvest fatty acid alkylamides from Echinacea purpurea – the pink coneflower plant. These fatty acid alkylamides actually stimulate fat cell formation in the face. They have a really nice plumping effect that reinforces the hypodermal layer in the skin. So the sagging is reversed, essentially.
We have brilliant
laboratory data from a couple of clinical [studies] where we see plumping of the facial features. We’ve also seen it with the back of the hands, and we’ve also done lip plumping studies, too. We’re constantly being
asked if it will work for a particular body area. Right now, the data is limited to mostly just the face and lip plumping. [In terms of our new
product development], we
have a variety of new ferments. We’re really interested in seeing how extremophile microorganisms can render incredibly powerful fermented products. A couple of new botanical
extracts are in the pipeline that are going to be addressing advanced glycation end products (AGEs) that are such a formidable part of skin ageing.
influence of artificial intelligence. AI is just beginning to crack the code in the beauty industry. Over time, we are going to see its impact not only in formulation design but also in better ingredient selection, as well as sunscreen testing. We have a lot of controversies in sunscreen testing; I think AI will also help. I also see a future where
sunscreens will be more adaptable and personalized. It’s not there yet but I can imagine a day when you take out your phone that has a personalized app telling you what the UV index is, and that you need to wear a so and so SPF with UV protection.
I think there will be a trend
in the future where you will have more personalized sunscreen.
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PERSONAL CARE MAGAZINE July 2026
www.personalcaremagazine.com
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