The Personal Care Products Council (PCPC – the same trade association that administers those all-important INCI names) sponsors a charity called Look Good Feel Better. It’s a cancer support program dedicated to restoring the confidence and self-esteem of people during cancer treatment. Their free workshops help people learn how to safely use beauty products and effectively apply beauty techniques to address the appearance related side effects of their cancer care. The name of charity is instructive isn’t it? If you look good, you inevitably tend to feel better. And that is part of the thousands of years of pursuit of beauty and personal care by humans all over the planet.

Look inside a package of personal care or cosmetic product and one of the top few ingredients (the top one in the case of cleaning products like shampoo or facial cleaner) is going to be a surfactant. They are key to the properties of those products that consumers love. Almost three quarters of the surfactants market by weight is made up by those used in some form of cleaning. Household is the biggest segment followed by personal care and cosmetics which make up about 13% of the surfactant market by weight and almost 15% by value.

The retail value of beauty and personal care products globally is around USD 675 Billion. By some interesting numerical coincidence, the wholesale value of the surfactants sold by the manufacturers into these applications is around USD 6.75 Billion. Does this mean that surfactants are marked up by 100X for sale to consumers? Well, no. There are many steps between the factory gate and the consumers shopping cart. And many other ingredients and packaging and other costs, like marketing and transportation that go into the mix. Jealous surfactant companies looking for who is capturing all that apparent margin may want to look at their cousins in aroma chemicals. But that is not going to help you much unless you want to enter that business. So, lets’ continue.

A useful way to divide up the market for surfactants in beauty is into rinse off and leave on products. Rinse off is just what it sounds like - products like shampoo and facial cleansers which are used in the shower, for maybe a minute or less and then rinsed off down the drain. These tend to be mainly mass marketed products where cost effectiveness is the overarching concern. Big customers like P&G, Unilever and L'Oreal predominate. Leave on products – are, well, left on - often all day and include cosmetics like foundation, lipstick, eyeliner, blush etc. Cost effectiveness is important here also but the premium and niche portions of this segment tend to be more important vs the rinse off products. The global CPG companies also operate here but there are many niche players and big but luxury companies such as Chanel and Shiseido.

Another way to look at this beauty market for surfactants is in terms of the function of the surfactant. This ranges from primary cleaning as you might expect, to foaming, skin feel, emulsification, lubricity, moisturization and so on. You are going to see the high volume surfactants like SLES used for cleaning in the rinse off products and more specialized products like highly ethoxylated long chain alcohols for emulsification in leave on products for skin care for example.

The trends in this sector are more consumer driven than in others. To those of you that are scientists, some may seem odd to you but nonetheless they move the market – so you must pay attention to them. There’s plenty of material out there on trends on TikTok, Instagram and many popular media sources.

First – sustainability. This is a little more nuanced today than I would have said 10 – 15 years ago. Generally, there’s a preference for vegetable derived products that consumers use. So most SLES used in this market is based on oleochemical alcohols. Having said that, I’m seeing renewed interest in AOS (alpha olefin sulfonate, very much a petrochemical product) and of course widespread use of alkanes, silicones and white oils and petroleum jelly in a range of hair and skin care products.

Sulfate Free – yes it’s a sizeable niche. And no I don't understand the scientific justification for it (because there really is none). Along with recent regulations governing dioxane content in consumer products, this has led to interest in the aforementioned AOS as well as other surfactants like APGs, Taurates and Isethionates.

Water- Free or at least concentrated products. Things like sheets and pods and drops are entering this market from big and small companies. There has been a lot of innovation in this area and some interesting products test marketed by big companies (like P&G) under new brand names (like EC-30). Keep an eye on this.

Silicone – Free – Popular silicones are cheap and effective at providing skin feel and shine to hair and skin care products. However EU regulation of certain cyclic silicones has companies looking for alternatives and surfactants which can provide some multifunctional benefits are going to be very interesting to customers.

Palm Free – Some brands, often small ones, regard the non-use of palm derivatives as a benefit – conveying their disapproval of deforestation. The impact of the EUDR, European Deforestation Regulation in Europe however has got companies looking more seriously again at petrochemical alcohols and olefins in this area.

Regulatory is key in the beauty market. Most major economies have approval processes for cosmetics and personal care ingredients. For the major global consumer products companies it is often important that suppliers of new ingredients have at least US, Europe and China approval. You should get expert advice as soon as possible before entering a new market with a new ingredient. Once an INCI name is chosen it can have an outsized impact on the life of your product.

Finally – for new companies with new products, like biobased surfactants, I like the beauty market. While it’s of a significant size, it’s less concentrated than the household cleaning sector, that’s very much dominated by the big soapers. It’s relatively easy to get started with small brands, selling small commercial quantities and these companies can often move very quickly to approve and start using a new ingredient – say in six months – albeit in small quantities but still commercial sales. New ingredient introduction times at the big companies can be up to 5 years. This beauty market values innovation and is interested in the provenance (that is the origin story and supply chain) of the ingredients. As a result of the trends and regulations I’ve mentioned they’re open to new concepts and new suppliers with something useful to offer. Bear in mind that the big business opportunities are still at the big companies and so despite or perhaps because of long lead times, you should also engage with them as soon as you are ready.

Look Good Feel Better supported by surfactants. Yet another critical role for our favorite chemicals.

Interested in the topic? Don’t miss more insights in the episode “Surfactants Driving Beauty”, part of Neil Burns’ podcast series “Surfactant Insights” presented by HPC Today.