PERRY ROMANOWSKI
Element 44 Inc, Chicago, USA

Formulating new skin care products that are significantly better than current products is one of the most challenging tasks a cosmetic chemist may be asked to do. There are a number of reasons such as a lack of consumer perceivable differences, the influence of fragrance, packaging and marketing on consumer experience and the length of time it takes to see real results.

But perhaps the main reason is that, despite all the claims of innovation in the industry, there really haven’t been any significant consumer perceptible improvements in decades. The skin creams and lotions people use today look, feel, and behave pretty much the same as things did 20 or 30 years ago.

It turns out that it is really difficult to make technical improvements in standard skincare ingredients like emollients, humectants and occlusive agents. It is quite likely that we have maximized the consumer perceptible improvements that can be made with those technologies. That is why when a technology comes around that represents a completely new approach, it is worthwhile for formulators to take notice. There has been a lot of research looking at the skin’s micro ...