The cosmetic industry worldwide has been evolving over recent years. Constant product development and reformulation are required to compete and meet consumer preferences. As the baby boomer generation moves into old age, the desire to look younger and healthier has become a global priority.
The influence of social media on the population and the effective dissemination of scientific research has raised awareness of the risks of using many chemicals in cosmetics and the health benefits of compounds obtained from natural resources.
Ingredients from nature are becoming increasingly popular. Natural products are also abundant in nature and are sustainable.
Natural products from sources such as plants, fungi, and marine organisms are already being used effectively as active beauty ingredients and will play an even greater role in the future, with great prospects for development.
The plant kingdom has served humankind for centuries and represents a vast library of compounds with a wide range of bioactive properties, including whitening, moisturising, and anti-aging, some displaying aromatic properties. As mentioned earlier, much research has been carried out on the various properties exhibited by different plant extracts and isolated natural compounds. Most of them seem to exhibit antioxidant activity, probably due to the plant’s adaptability to survive in a highly oxidative environment, but also anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, anti-cytotoxic, pro-synthetic, and proliferative activities, which have the potential to help reduce or protect the skin from the harmful effects of UVB radiation.
As an alternative to "green technology", marine or "blue biotechnology" is gaining its turf as it offers a myriad of natural products that cannot be found in terrestrial environments and have unprecedented biological and pharmacological properties. Although a number of products of marine origin are already on the market, they are still very few in number compared to the vastness of the oceans and the discoveries to come. This suggests that there are still many marine compounds, especially small molecules, that can be utilized as medicinal and nutritional cosmetics.
The biological material collected from the marine environment is often in very small quantities and is very difficult for further bioassays and development. It is possible to seek to farm marine organisms under optimal conditions in order to harvest bioactive metabolites for use as active ingredients, excipients, and additives. On the other hand, microbial biotechnology can be considered a promising way to obtain a large number of high-value compounds for use as medicinal and nutritional cosmetics.
Nanotechnology will continue to be used more and more extensively in beauty cosmetics, and formulations will be more optimised, allowing for fuller absorption of active ingredients. With the complete deciphering of the human genome, genes related to skin and aging are being elucidated one after another. In the future, more personalised and refined products will enter the market.
Taken from: Liu JK. Natural products in cosmetics. Nat Prod Bioprospect. 2022 Nov 28;12(1):40. doi: 10.1007/s13659-022-00363-y. PMID: 36437391; PMCID: PMC9702281.
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