PANEL DISCUSSION
17
LC: The frontier between medicine and cosmetics I mentioned earlier is driving us to think differently and suggest new active ingredients for post-treatment. We have done some inspiring
research in the lab in terms of wound healing. Using fibroblasts, for example, we have found very good efficacy focusing on regenerative tissue.
Question from the floor: What kind of analysis methods for hair care ingredients are you using to show your customers that it really works? SL: There are various methods available, from microscopy to analysis of hair fibres, or analysing the compounds of hair, or maybe using some special ingredients which you can track. There are very many analytical
knowledge as well. AI helps us to enrich our
understanding of mechanisms. It gives us the possibility to understand more deeply how an ingredient works.
TP: As a marketing guy, Marc, how are you using AI at Provital? MB: Much in the same way as others use AI to analyse scientific data and to predict outcomes, we use these tools to make marketing predictions. To understand what is coming, in terms of consumer demand. AI also helps us to digest enormous amounts of data and process them into language that the end-customer can understand more easily.
TP: How does Evonik use AI, Stefan? SL: We have internal versions of AI. It’s very important to have good databases and understanding of your data. Besides that, we also use commercial versions of AI for things like literature research. It makes the process much faster.
Question from the floor: What strategic advice do you have for luxury brands in terms of developing new products? JA: When designing products, think about the wellbeing of the customer. It’s not just the formulation, the active ingredient, the marketing. Combine cosmetics and neuroscience. That will help
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brands to push their consumers to fall in love with your products. LC: It can be a challenge to have a good balance between high performance, sustainability and cost. For luxury brands, I would focus on high innovation, high performance and high technology, perhaps using synthetic biology. MB: For luxury brands, efficacy has become the new natural. We used to be always talking about natural origin. The end-consumer is more educated than ever, so you have to prove that everything you are claiming is really working. It is essential to be completely transparent. It’s a must.
Question from the floor: Ozempic face. It’s a real problem, for example, in Russia. What can be done about it by cosmetic actives? SL: It’s a tough question because Ozempic is a very strong compound and Ozempic face comes from the inside. So to treat it topically is quite a task. Maybe using less Ozempic would
be helpful! I don’t think we can compete topically with those kind of compounds or effects. There are actives, like growth
factors, which might have the power to compete. High impact, high price compounds could do part of the job.
The trend towards dermatology is driving us to understand the skin more
deeply for cosmetic purposes Gattefossé actives R&D leader Lucie Couturier
methods available, and depending on the active character, or the functional character of the ingredient, you have the possibility to track it. It needs to be defined if it’s
a more functional thing, like hair breakage, or if it’s about the biological part of the hair. DS: In our hair care centre in Brazil, and we have something like 500 methods to analyse hair, from shine compatibility and lustre, down to the proteomics of the hair.
TP: Are there any technologies in early stages of development that you think will become mainstream in the next few years? LC: In vitro methods for targeting new performance. We are developing spheroid technology, which are microtissues that are more powerful than standard 2D cell cultures for in vitro studies. Another disruptive technology
I see is in testing instruments and imaging. We are seeing some very high-tech technologies coming through. Microscopy is becoming live microscopy, it really improves the imagery. MB: We’ve been talking a lot about omics, proteomics and transcriptomics. We are also studying single cell
transcriptomics. Instead of talking about a
general omic, we are focused on a cell or types of cells with which are expressing certain genes so we can specifically think about a metabolic group. We are working hard on that now. JA: Biocatalysis is not new, but for
May 2026 PERSONAL CARE MAGAZINE
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