CHAILEEDO Debuts at SCC76

Chaileedo, presented by Dr. Lizhi has been showcased on SCC's annual meeting, demosntrating the emerging cosmetic market in China.

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SCC76 has been held in Los Angeles from December 12 to 14, 2022, which is the first appearance of the conference on the West Coast. It invited more than 40 speakers, divided into 8 group meetings and 3 keynote speeches, covering the latest research and innovation in the fields of cosmetics' raw material trends, consumer insights and regulatory discussions.

More Chinese cosmetic scientists have also stepped onto the international stage of SCC. Zhi Li, Ph.D., a senior independent consultant of beauty cosmetics, discussed the Chinese indie beauty brands thrive with their marketing innovations on mobile social platforms with CHAILEEDO. In addition, he made a conference report on the progress of China's cosmetics regulations with Winkey and ZMUni.

Chinese brands such as BLOOMAGE BIOTECH, Trautec and Sino Lion went to the exhibition to show the latest technology and development of Chinese cosmetics, which attracted many people to stop and exchange ideas.

AI is increasingly important in raw material development

Joe Dallal, of Ashland, presented on creating an aqueous, unscented jasmine extract that connects with emotion, capturing the holistic microbiome to do so, and using phytofermentation to produce and apply the resulting ingredient.

An audience member asked whether AI was used in the development of the extract. “We used bioinformatics in the early days,” he said. “AI narrows the among of tests performed and helps to identify areas where to look,” he said. “But it doesn’t give you the answers; it just saves you a lot of work.”

Jasmina Aganovic, founder and CEO of Arcaea, an innovative beauty company, has been thinking about how biotechnology can change the beauty industry in her career. In this "The Power of Biology" keynote speech, she mentioned the role of artificial intelligence in biological materials.

For example, she described recent work to control body odor through biology. Using AI to identify odor-causing microbes and study their metabolism, her team created a metabolic map to assess whether the food the microbes ate impacted their behavior; e.g., the odors they produced. High throughput data informatics revealed there was a connection and in vitro tests validated this probiotic effect. She additionally shared the idea of using this approach to not only remove malodor, but also influence microbes to produce desired scents.

Consumers in the Information Age

Communication with consumers has always been one of the issues that the brand needs to consider. The panel mostly agreed that science takes more explanation than the 15 sec you have to communicate to the consumer (per their attention span). This is where the importance of scientific communication becomes key.

Using influencers to communicate with consumers is one of the strategies. Independent consultant Zhi Li, Ph.D., looked the East with his talk on how Chinese indie beauty brands thrive with their marketing using livestreaming on mobile social platforms. Using CHAILEEDO's data on Florasis and Proya, he talked about the powerful driving effect of China's top influencers on the online sales of beauty products.

Clarisonic founder and founder/CEO of Opulus Beauty Lab Robb Akridge, Ph.D., has his own views on the characteristics of consumers in the new era.

"The biggest challenge is about consumer knowledge," said Akridge. He explained consumers used to get information from print ads, dermatologists, beauty editors and department stores, but now they look to macro and micro influencers and bloggers. "Trends used to migrate from east to west or west to east," he added, "but trends don't migrate any more. They are always everywhere."

This can lead to information overload, however. "How much is too much?" he asked. "How do you hone it in and make it real?" Akridge added that social media in the future will need to be reigned in; for example, the way the Federal Trade Commission protects consumers.

Regulatory Talk

The regulatory session, moderated by Craig Weiss and co-sponsored by the Independent Beauty Association, kicked off with Sharon Blinkoff, Esq., senior counsel of Locke Lord LLP, with a talk on new regulations. Blinkoff discussed why product claims are important, mentioning the recent Sephora lawsuit, and emphasized a need to educate consumers on product benefits and features, and the necessity of data to prove claims and proper testing to use methods that are accepted by experts in the field.

Yun Shao, Ph.D., of Kobo Products, Inc., presented, "Selecting the Right TiO2/ZnO for Performance and Regulatory Compliance." Shao discussed global requirements per regions of sunscreen efficacy regulations to claim SPF 50+, including EU, Australia, the USA, Japan and China. Complications stem from UVA regulation, according to Shao, which varies in ratios per region. He continued with the interaction of light and TiO2 and ZnO in terms of refraction and absorption; how the particle size of TiO2 affects UV protection; and then delved into the UV efficacy of ZnO.

Stephanie Ross Leshney, founder and CEO of Dabble & Dollop, presented on a novel approach to formulation, scale-up and testing. Leshney emphasized the importance of ingredient quality, especially those for children. “Ingredient decks don’t tell you everything, they don’t tell you the quality of the ingredients being used," she said. Ross continued by talking about the tendencies of indie brands to be celebrity backed and focused on a narrative.

The session continued with Paul Slavashevich, of Symrise, who detailed a way to evaluate and grade skin sensitivity through a skin sensitivity index. Classical methods such as the sting test may not be correlated enough to address skin sensitivity, according to Symrise. As such, two indices were developed: a clinical index, based on self-perception; and an instrumental image-based index, which predicts the sensitive from parameters computed from hyperspectral acquisitions. The two are used to complement each other; soothing performance assessments are next steps.

The final discussion was presented by Zhi Li, Ph.D., independent consultant, who expanded on China's latest CSAR, which contains many regulation changes and updates, as well as requirements for cosmetic formulations.

Source： SCC76