Company Uses Plant-Derived Sustainable Silica for Beauty Products

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by | Jul 15, 2020

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(Credit: Pixabay)

Aprinnova, Inc., an Amyris joint venture and a supplier of beauty ingredients, is commercializing a plant-derived silica made from sugarcane ashes. Silica is used widely in personal care and cosmetics. It is traditionally sourced from non-renewable sand dredging, which requires significant energy consumption and emits large amounts of C02. The new ingredient branded Biosilica can be used in foundations, creams, lotions, and other applications as a sustainable alternative to traditional silica. In addition, it offers an alternative to microplastics, which are being phased out of many cosmetic products.

This ingredient innovation has been led by Amyris, a leading synthetic biotechnology company in the Clean Health and Beauty markets and a top supplier of sustainable and natural ingredients, in partnership with the Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Escola Superior de Biotecnologia (“UCP”) in Porto/AICEP Consortium Project. In 2019, Grand View Research, Inc. projected that the color cosmetics market is expected to be valued at about $87 billion in retail value by 2025, with a CAGR of approximately 6%. According to an analysis of Mintel GNPD, more than 10% of new color cosmetic product launches over the last five years will contain silica.

Biosilica is available for sampling in August with commercial scale volumes expected to begin in 2021. According to Aprinnova, this will allow brands to participate in the circular economy based on the concept that materials and products are never wasted, but always reused or recycled.

The company states that the plant-derived silica has unique sphericity, high oil absorption, particle size, and oil/water absorption ratio.

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