Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating General What do you think about this?

  • OldPerry

    Member
    June 3, 2022 at 12:59 pm

    This is not new technology. The paper was published in 2012. So, you have to ask yourself, why would a brilliant technology that has been known about for more than a decade not have taken off?

    Why would an excellent anti-aging compound languish in obscurity for years? Why wouldn’t the big guys (P&G, Unilever, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, etc) launch products that feature this great working ingredient?

    I think the answer is pretty simple…the ingredient doesn’t do much that is noticeable to consumers.

    A reasonable heuristic is, if a big company isn’t using an ingredient, the ingredient probably doesn’t provide noticeable benefits.

    Of course, the opposite is NOT true. Just because a big company includes an ingredient doesn’t mean that it actually does anything.

  • Pharma

    Member
    June 3, 2022 at 7:31 pm

    There are other factors such as patentability, marketability, hypes, ease of sourcing and so on and so forth. Many things which have been published never made it for sometimes obscure reasons whilst others just popped up decades later as ‘new’ inventions. Sometimes, the time of publication just wasn’t right. (BTW too lazy to read the article, sorry)

  • DaveStone

    Member
    June 6, 2022 at 6:06 am

    Perry said:

    This is not new technology. The paper was published in 2012. So, you have to ask yourself, why would a brilliant technology that has been known about for more than a decade not have taken off?

    Why would an excellent anti-aging compound languish in obscurity for years? Why wouldn’t the big guys (P&G, Unilever, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, etc) launch products that feature this great working ingredient?

    I think the answer is pretty simple…the ingredient doesn’t do much that is noticeable to consumers.

    A reasonable heuristic is, if a big company isn’t using an ingredient, the ingredient probably doesn’t provide noticeable benefits.

    Of course, the opposite is NOT true. Just because a big company includes an ingredient doesn’t mean that it actually does anything.

    Good points. Although I would think a big company might not use an ingredient simply to cut costs.

  • PhilGeis

    Member
    June 6, 2022 at 8:51 am

    DaveStone said:

    Good points. Although I would think a big company might not use an ingredient simply to cut costs.

    I assure that a big company would use an ingredient simply to cut costs. Consider millions of units sold globally for years - a couple of pennies per unit is worth pursuing.

    To the paper - please understand reports of “significant” differences versus controls in controlled protocol may not - often do not - amount to benefit in product application and there was no comparison to ingredients currently used. Don’t forget that academics often exaggerate impact of their work.
    Further, use as sunscreen would require new drug approval.
    Above doesn’t mean folks wouldn’t use a n ingredient just for the “story”. Most of cosmetics are sold on hype.

  • OldPerry

    Member
    June 6, 2022 at 1:01 pm

    @DaveStone - If an ingredient made a significant enough difference, the cost would not be much concern to a big company. There are plenty of expensive skin brands owned by big companies.

    Also, these companies would get economies of scale that small companies wouldn’t get & they have distribution channels that other companies don’t have. 

    I think the most likely explanation is the ingredient hasn’t caught on because it doesn’t bring any thing new to the table (beyond a marketing story).

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