LIPID CHEMISTRY 81
chemistry itself. The third example was the most unexpected, and probably the one with the most direct relevance to skin biology. Several confirmed strains produce a lipid
profile with palmitoleic acid (C16:1) at 38% to 60% of total fatty acids. Palmitoleic acid is not an exotic target. It occurs naturally in human sebum and viable epidermis, contributes to barrier lipid organization, and has documented antimicrobial activity against gram-positive bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus.8,9 Its levels in skin lipids decline with age, which
is largely why it has drawn interest in barrier- support and anti-ageing formulation. Sourcing it at any real concentration has been the obstacle. Macadamia oil is generally cited as the richest plant source available commercially, and peer- reviewed analysis across multiple cultivars puts it at roughly 13% to 18%.10 A strain producing two to four times that figure
is not a marginal gain over what is already on the market. For anyone formulating a sebum- mimicking or barrier-support claim, it is a different starting point altogether, and the kind of fatty acid profile that simply does not turn up if the search stops at conventional plant oils.
Accelerating strain selection and ingredient development The slow part of ingredient discovery has rarely been the chemistry. It is finding, in a reasonable amount of time, an organism whose natural output happens to match what a formulator needs, and a single screening campaign can easily run for years before producing a usable candidate. Screening a strain library against a single,
deliberately demanding medium, with genome sequencing running alongside rather than as a separate downstream step, cuts that timeline considerably. Strains that would have been overlooked based on taxonomy alone, because nothing about their classification hinted at lipid production, get evaluated on equal footing under conditions designed to show what each one is actually capable of. More than 350 confirmed oleaginous strains out of a starting library of a few hundred is a hit rate that would be hard to match through conventional screening at comparable speed. None of this removes the steps that come
after. Standardised screening narrows the field; it does not guarantee a strain with a promising fatty acid profile can be fermented economically at commercial volume, and process development, regulatory work and formulation testing still have to happen before anything reaches a shelf. What changes is that much of the early discovery process is driven by reliable, comparable data instead of waiting on fermentation results that, historically, came back negative more often than not.
Conclusion For skin care specifically, that matters because demand for new, sustainably produced lipid chemistry with an actual skin-biology rationale, not novelty for its own sake, is not going away. Platforms such as Lipid Atlas, built by Smey
www.personalcaremagazine.com Silicone ■ Noyl Silk ■ Shine Greasiness
Thickness Stickiness
Penetration 0 1 2 3 2.1 3.8 1.3 2.7 3.8 3.6 4 5 6
Figure 4: Sensory comparison with silicone. Intensity scale: 0 (none) to 10 (very high). Expert sensory panel, 2026, France. ANOVA-significant parameters only
Macadamia NOY-1078 NOY-2044 NOY-0138 3.4 5.5 3.6 5
0
10
20
30
40 C16:1 ω7 (palmitoleic acid), percentage
Figure 5: C16:1 content, microbial strains versus macadamia oil. Data from Discovery Platform Lipid Atlas
around its Lipid Atlas database and the Noyl ingredient range, will not replace plant oils. Yet it points to where the next generation of
cosmetic lipids is more likely to come from: not a new crop, but a more systematic reading of what microorganisms have already worked out how to make.
References 1
5. Szczepąńska P, Hapeta P, Lazar Z. Advances in production of high-value lipids by oleaginous yeasts. Crit Rev Biotechnol. 2022;42(1):1-22
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Vijay V, Pimm SL, Jenkins CN, Smith SJ. The impacts of oil palm on recent deforestation and biodiversity loss. PLoS One. 2016;11(7):e0159668
2. Bondé L, Ouédraogo O, Traoré S, Thiombiano A, Boussim JI. Impact of environmental conditions on fruit production patterns of shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa C.F. Gaertn) in West Africa. Afr J Ecol. 2019;57(3):353-362
3. Ofori A, Padi FK, Ameyaw GA, Dadzie AM, Opoku-Agyeman M, Domfeh O, et al. Field evaluation of the impact of cocoa swollen shoot virus disease infection on yield traits of different cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) clones in Ghana. PLoS One. 2022;17(1):e0262461
4. Sitepu IR, Garay LA, Sestric R, Levin D, Block DE, German JB, et al. Oleaginous yeasts for biodiesel: current and future trends in biology and production. Biotechnol Adv. 2014;32(7):1336-1360
6. Zhang H, Wang Z, Liu O. Development and validation of a GC-FID method for quantitative analysis of oleic acid and related fatty acids. J Pharm Anal. 2015;5(3):223-230
7. Balcázar-Zumaeta CR, Chagas-Júnior GCA, Ferreira NR, Braamcamp De Souza Pinheiro W, Maicelo-Quintana JL, Cayo-Colca IS, et al. Advances in cocoa butter and alternative fats: composition and crystallization dynamics in chocolate production. Eur Food Res Technol. 2026;252:107
8. Weimann E, Silva MBB, Murata GM, Bortolon JR, Dermargos A, Curi R, et al. Topical anti-inflammatory activity of palmitoleic acid improves wound healing. PLoS One. 2018;13(10):e0205338
9. Wille JJ, Kydonieus A. Palmitoleic acid isomer (C16:1Δ6) in human skin sebum is effective against gram-positive bacteria. Skin Pharmacol Appl Skin Physiol. 2003;16(3):176-187
10. Shuai X, Dai T, Chen M, Liang R, Du L, Chen J, Liu C. Comparative study of chemical compositions and antioxidant capacities of oils obtained from 15 macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) cultivars in China. Foods. 2021;10(5):1031
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