Full Speed Into 2009
By: Rachel Grabenhofer, Cosmetics & Toiletries magazine
Posted: November 26, 2008, from the December 2008 issue of Cosmetics & Toiletries.
The holiday season brings with it an air of excitement as the weather changes, families gather and childhood stories come to life. Lighting a menorah or kinara, burning a Yule log, or trimming a Christmas tree are just a few traditions that spark within us feelings instilled from youth. It is a time of reflection to revel in our victories, and to tuck an entire year’s lessons under our belts as we uncork the champagne bottle and toast another year.
The cosmetics and personal care industry has accomplished much in the past year. Formulators are wearing hats from each other’s fields and playing the roles of, among others: biologists, microbiologists, ecologists, botanists, geneticists, pharmacists, marketing specialists—even to some degree mystics, predicting what consumers want. While a wealth of knowledge has accumulated over the past year, the next step is taking all that information and figuring out how it can be applied. (One must crawl before they walk, right?) This will add a new hat to the formulator's collection: that of the realist.
During this R&D crescendo, personal care formulators may be filled with a childlike excitement, just like the holiday season brings. It is in this youthful spiritedness that Cosmetics & Toiletries magazine offers two feature articles this month focused on baby care formulating.
Skin microbiology and its effect on infant health is the focus of Hoffman et al.’s feature beginning. Here, the authors discuss healthy skin microbial flora and the effects of this balance being disrupted. In addition, Walters et al. review baby skin reminding formulators that mildness is required for developing infant skin.
Looking more generally at skin, Wiechers shows on Page 61 how new research suggests skin to be more acidic—around a pH of 4.7—than the generally accepted pH of 6, and provides good argument for formulating at this level. And Dell’Acqua examines the relationship between sensitive skin, proteins and lipids, suggesting an approach to help the skin boost its own defenses from the inside-out.