GREEN CERTIFICATION PROGRAM
Formulating with Green in mind isn’t the easiest prospect given demand for crisp color, unfading fragrance and elegant emulsions. However, manufacturers and cosmetic chemists are forging a path to natural, sustainable products that are effective and good for the planet.

Although the palette of green materials available for beauty product development has widened in recent years, Organic Monitor finds beauty product formulators and developers still face many technical and sustainability issues when using natural ingredients.

Preservation remains the number one technical hurdle for developers of natural and organic personal care products. Although many green materials have become available for preservation, no single material is popular because of variations in product composition.

Stability also is a major issue, with some green preservative systems leading to discoloration and/or odor changes. Green surfactants are another problematic area, partly because certification agencies cannot agree on permissible green chemistry processes.

However, most progress has been made in the area of green emulsifiers and rheology modifiers. Organic Monitor finds that many ingredients are now available to produce elegant skin care emulsions.

Another major development in this area is the move from producing green materials to the use of sustainable processes and extraction techniques. A number of ingredient companies are investing in new processing techniques and sustainable technologies. For instance, the Zeta Fraction technology of AkzoNobel enables natural actives to be harvested from plant materials with a lower environment impact than traditional methods. Mibelle Biochemistry is using plant stem cell technology to extract actives from plants, and its PhytoCellTec technique allows active ingredients to be extracted from rare and exotic plant species in a sustainable manner.