Natural polymers as a promising route to face challenges in cosmetics
Résumé
ecently, the cosmetics industry has initiated an unprecedented shift towards naturality to meet the high expectations of consumers. They now are demanding products which are safer for health, more environmentally friendly as well as ethically and socially responsible; at the same time they show a distrust of chemical ingredients. The real challenge is to replace the technical and sensory performances of historical synthetic ingredients with new natural ingredients which have at least equivalent performance and quality level. Therefore, formulating with natural ingredients instead of petroleum-based ingredients while keeping the same performances has gained much interest in the cosmetics industry, and many recent progresses have been made. Within this context, among other bio sourced ingredients, natural polymers (see Figure 1[1]) are very interesting candidates because of their wide variety and their numerous advantages including: large availability, biocompatibility, low cost, biodegradability, non-toxicity and (multi)functional properties[2]. In this context, in order to meet the challenges, many research works are carried out to replace synthetic (e.g. Carbomers®) with natural or artificial polymers respecting the principles of green chemistry. This presentation offers an overview of recent work highlighting the opportunities and advantages of these natural polymers, often with multifunctional properties; nevertheless, it also illustrates the difficulties and challenges faced by researchers, such as processability or sensory performance, to continue to innovate.