Earlier this month, the SCS held its annual conference in York. It was a fascinating agenda with a mix of haircare and skincare, and a celebration of innovation and collaboration across the UK cosmetics industry.
Our Founder, Dr Carol Treasure, attended and enjoyed 2 days packed with insightful discussions, both in the programme of talks, and networking with industry friends and colleagues.
If you couldn’t attend, here’s a few bite-size take-home messages to give you a flavour of the meeting (and if you were there, perhaps you’ll have a few of your own to add, especially if you’re a hair person rather than skin!) These are a fairly random selection of a few memorable scientific facts, alongside a couple of more serious points as food for thought….
1. Forget invasive skin biopsies for research – now it’s all about micro-biopsies which are easily collected for RNA extraction to create a “digital skin twin”, with the aim of profiling diverse populations across the globe. (Prof. Tarl Prow, Skin Research Centre, Hull York Medical School).
2. Emulsifiers don’t just mix oil and water and enhance formulation texture: don’t overlook their skin health benefits such as enhancing the skin barrier. (Dr Bhaven Chavan, Croda Europe).
3. The exogen phase of the hair cycle (ejection of the hair) can be targeted by protease inhibitors to limit hair loss – it’s a stage worthy of more attention, as most haircare products tend to focus on anagen phase. (Dr Ranjit Bhogal, Unilever).
4. Humans have inhabited the Earth for around 30,000 years. If one imagines this condensed down to one year, light skin has only appeared in the population this week! Until relatively recent history, Europeans had dark skin, which has only lightened due to lifestyle changes (eg farming practices and associated dietary changes) and vitamin D deficiency. (Prof. Des Tobin, University College, Dublin).
5. Sun exposure is critical for a variety of health benefits which far outweigh the risk of skin cancer. Morbidity rates from skin cancer are extremely low, with significantly higher death rates for numerous health conditions resulting from inadequate sun exposure (eg high blood pressure). (Prof. Des Tobin, University College, Dublin). (See our recent blog on this topic: the current obsession with constant, repeat application is unhealthy for body and mind, and results in a huge dose of some ingredients to the body, raising toxicology concerns).
6. Even in the current economic climate, the cosmetics industry continues to innovate, albeit this may be at a reduced level according to some reports. The jury is out, with different opinions between industry experts. While global factors impacting the chemical industry mean that fewer new ingredients are coming through the development pipeline, those that do tend to have a more sustainable focus. Many brands are “renovating” – a concept including reformulating or adding to existing lines.
7. Claim support is an ongoing challenge, with many regulators tightening up their requirements. Lab-based (in vitro) and clinical studies can both provide supporting data, and the options should be carefully considered when budgeting for NPD, to ensure that product claims will be adequately supported in target markets. (Learn more about in vitro options here).
8. Given that the UK cosmetics industry has so much to offer, it merits more attention and funding from Government. We are major contributors to the UK economy, relatively resilient during economic recession, have world-leading science and the potential to create a lot of future-fit scientific jobs. Great to discuss this with Karen Wilkinson from Innovate UK, who highlighted in her talk the funding accessed by XCellR8 to develop in vitro tests for cosmetics safety and efficacy.
9. When conducting R&D, an outsource partner should be fit for purpose. Both academic labs and CRO’s (contract research organisations, including labs like XCellR8) present different pros and cons depending on your project goals. Academic partners make perfect sense for fundamental research into skin and hair biology. But for more commercially focussed projects with strict deadlines, and perhaps quality standards like GLP, CROs are the best choice and often unexpectedly cheaper than academia (lower overheads). Scientific teams at CROs have often come from an academic background, so the expertise is still there. There was a comment made in the discussion about CRO’s being more transactional and less collaborative, which we must admit we found unfair and perhaps this person has never worked with XCellR8! 😉 As our client companies know, we take a lot of pride in our flexible approaches for long term projects, with agreed milestones and project management that allows adaptations mid-project when needed. We’d love to see some more time allocated for a balanced debate on this next year, so that the audience, including many young scientists relatively new to the industry, can make an informed decision.
10. Animals may no longer be used for cosmetics testing in many parts of the world, but sadly, they are still in use for cosmetics research. Mice are being used in pigmentation and skin barrier studies in academia – in the latter, the animal left to dehydrate to death through evaporation after compromising the skin barrier. In our view, as a 100% animal product free testing lab, this is really concerning, and poses clear ethical issues as well as scientific ones. The move to human-relevant science in testing must also happen in research, and there’s a lack of transparency about this where the public are concerned. Anecdotally (and thankfully), animals are not being used in menopause research, as they don’t have one, the menopause being a unique phenomenon to humans.
If you went to the conference – thanks for helping to make it a great success. What was memorable about this event for you? If you weren’t there, we hope this was a useful overview. Let us know what you think!
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