NATURALS 31


Navigating buzzwords to address demand fornaturality


n Pascal Yvon, PharmD, MBA - Alban Muller International, US


Consumers’ demand for natural cosmetics has been continuously growing over recent years.1,2


They are looking for truly natural


products containing natural ingredients, moving away from synthetic substances. They believe in the “primum non nocere” principle: “first, don’t harm” - which means they prefer natural active ingredients which may be standardized and analytically defined for a safe performance. Plants have been used in beauty and health for centuries around the world and have been well studied.3


Today,


plants amount to 50% of pharmaceutical products. Ethnobotany revealed that plant properties are linked to their active molecules, a wide variety (thousands+) of secondary metabolites. These phytochemicals act as defensive molecules for the plant to address, adapt and survive to their environmental stressors (climate, insects, etc.) and they express a wide range of activities, e.g. antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, etc. of high relevance and great interest in cosmetic applications.4


If on top these actives


are blended in biocompatible bases, their global synergistic effectiveness is multiplied. Even during the recent pandemic, consumer want naturals,5


and in fact, the


unprecedented situation created by COVID- 19 generated a fulgurant acceleration in this consumers interest and request. Today, what consumers really expect is much more than a little bit of extracts from natural origin


sprinkled parsimoniously in the cosmetic formula, they want full naturality. It is not just about a product to address a fleeting trend, consumers want a series of attributes that address their long-term 360° lifestyle for wellness and holistic wellbeing goal. Naturality of cosmetic products and ingredients involve many aspects, many more than just being from nature: the devil is in the details. However, in addition to the lack of definition from regulatory bodies for “natural”, thus for “Natural beauty”, recent years have seen the emergence of many buzzwords to describe industry market movements, such as “Clean beauty”, “Green beauty”, and more recently “Conscious beauty”, and they are used with various interpretations.6


Without regulatory or


even confirmed definition, brands and retailers have stepped in and use them as they see fit with their own company goals. This creates serious confusion in the marketplace, possible consumer misconceptions, so clarification is welcome, in particular to prevent greenwashing (a.k.a. green marketing spin). Clarification will support and foster messages from companies seriously committed to offer effective and clearly substantiated claims of Naturality to consumers. Transparency is key for consumers and this paper would like to foster discussion and clarification by presenting the main focus for each qualification as well as their extended interpretation.


Table 1: Natural Beauty focus and extended considerations Focus


And...


Formula ingredients of natural origin or naturally derived, minimally modified


Natural extracts with natural bases Well-recognized certifications High concentration of actives Organic culture produced on and in living soil Good agricultural and collection practices (GACP) Clean production process / eco-conception Vegan Fragrance-free Absence of petroleum and petroleum derived ingredients Pesticide-free, chemically derived fertilizer-free


Absence of Nanomaterials, GMOs, raw materials extracted from living or slaughtered animals


Not allowed: use of Gamma and X-ray irradiation October 2020


Natural beauty At its core, Natural Beauty defines a cosmetic product with ingredients of natural origin (plant, mineral, animal by- products) or naturally derived, minimally modified. It looks simple, but there is no regulatory definition of “Natural” and if there are some natural ingredients in the cosmetic formulation, an important consideration is how much. Consumers are left with reading the labels which can be a challenging exercise. To address this situation in the US, a bill was introduced in November 2019, the Natural Cosmetics Act.7


Its goal is to provide a definition for


“natural” and “naturally-derived” for cosmetics: “Cosmetics must contain at least 70 percent natural substances (other than water and salt)”. Ingredient suppliers would be required to share testing data on any natural inputs and the FDA would have authority to call out beauty brands that misuse the term “natural”.8


The bill was


endorsed by many cosmetic companies and players.9


Without waiting for any


confirmed regulatory definition, standards have been introduced in recent years. They list qualitative and quantitative criteria that define natural cosmetics and thus provide the industry and consumers with an ‘official reference’ for their product selection. Certified content brings transparency to natural claims.10


However, standards are not


created equal and they list different criteria to comply to for the certification, thus the use of “natural’’ in labeling and marketing. Significant differences can be observed, both quantitatively (naturalness thresholds of 50, 70 or 95%) and qualitatively. Thus, it is important to have a good understanding of what standard is being used and what this means, i.e. the final % of natural ingredients in the formula. A well- recognized and strict standard (e.g. requires manufacturer on-site audits), specifically created for cosmetic products and ingredients, is COSMOS: COSMetics Organic and Natural Standard.11


It includes


also the important following notes: l When there is scientific evidence that an ingredient, technology, or process could


PERSONAL CARE NORTH AMERICA


Natural Beauty


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