Formulating Green Comes Naturally if You Already Think Green
I recently read an article about cosmetics formulating that caught my interest. The author maintained formulating with plant-based/natural/green ingredients was akin to working with ones hands tied.
Interesting standpoint.
Not having worked with very many petroleum based ingredients throughout my formulating years (subtle pun intended), It took me a bit to process this line of thinking.
Maybe it's a Petrolhead Thing?
The author was clearly a 'petrolhead'.
Petrolhead is a friendly term for cosmetics formulators who work with petroleum-based ingredients. I didn't coin this phrase. It was introduced to me by an absolutely lovely gentleman who is a formulator and self-professed petrolhead.
I couldn't help wondering if petrolheads have a super easy time of it and whip out cosmetics formulas like there's no tomorrow.
Could that explain the antagonism to plant-based ingredients in the article – because they're more challenging to work with than petroleum-based?
And why would anyone with such obvious resentment towards formulating natural cosmetics even want to go 'green' if the ingredients were nothing but trouble?
And then it hit me.There could only be one reason.
The Advance of The Green Revolution
It's beginning to look like consumer demands have successfully influenced the industry to the point where they need to actually formulate green instead of merely greenwashing their products.It's no longer good enough to just toss in a few of the trendiest ingredients as tip-ins and go about business as usual. Consumers have become more savvy and are not only beginning to understand ingredients lists on cosmetics labels, they're also more demanding about what they are willing to pay for.
Natural cosmetics is no longer a niche or passing trend. With the continuous growth of green brands over the past many years, consumer desire for natural products can no longer be ignored.
The industry is trying to going green - for real!
Good News For Some...
While 'us greenies' can pat ourselves on the back for achieving a solid foothold on the market, the industry appears to be in a bit of a conundrum – where to find folks who can formulate green products – real green products?Perhaps they would do well inviting a few greenies in to help. After all, formulating green comes quite naturally to folks who think green to begin with.
Comments
The result of all this is an even larger gap between science and consumers. Just ask people what they associate with the word chemical and most will probably have negative associations even though almost everything around us are chemicals. This is probably the most infuriating thing to me because people don't understand that they lack the proper knowledge to make safety claims. They rely on their feelings and not facts.
As humans it's our responsibility to make sure we are making educated choices not based on fears and propaganda.