Biotechnology is revolutionising the sustainable beauty space. There’s just one snag: it’s harder to wrap your head around than a tax return. Allow us to translate the trend
At first glance, nature and science might seem like unlikely bedfellows. And yet, in the world of biotechnology, they’re something of a match made in heaven. Like peanut butter and Marmite. Or tailored suits with trainers. They shouldn’t go together, but if the latest ‘clean technology’ is proving anything, it’s that perfect pairings are often born out of the unlikeliest of sources.
Yes, natural ingredients reinvented in a Petri dish are offering up superior benefits for your beauty routine – and, perhaps more importantly, the planet. No wonder, then, that beauty brands are jumping on the bio bandwagon. The process has been around for aeons (wine and cheese are forms of biotechnology), but growing consumer demand for sustainable beauty has led brands big and small to tap into the power of biotechnology. ‘In the beauty sector, companies are recognising that they can build on nature’s foundation, combining it with biotechnology to accelerate everything from new product development and product potency to reducing environmental impacts,’ confirms Kathryn Bishop, foresight editor at consultancy firm The Future Laboratory. But between sci-fi-sounding ingredients and claims of greenwashing, the bio buzz is leaving planet-conscious consumers mystified. While a recent study put the number of British consumers who want to make their beauty routines more sustainable at 75%, those same consumers also said they felt confused about where to begin. So can the words ‘efficacy’ and ‘eco-friendly’ truly coexist? And how does it work, anyway? To find out, WH asked those on the front line of beauty’s biotech revolution to explain it to us.
What is biotechnology?
‘At its simplest, biotechnology is technology based on biology and chemistry that is used to develop products that help improve people’s lives and the health of our planet,’ says Laura Minch, director of brand marketing at biotech skincare brand Biossance. An umbrella term that describes many different technologies and fields of research, it filters into everything from food (bread, for instance, is made from yeast – aliving organism) to popular skincare ingredients, such as hyaluronic acid and peptides. For years, skincare was either sourced unethically (more on this later) or relied upon finite resources, such as palm oil. Biotech, by contrast, is all about using technology to reinvent overconsumed or endangered ingredients as lab-grown actives; these become a biologically identical match to those that live in nature, offering the same (or more) benefits but without harming the environment.
Lab-g rown actives will step in for at-risk natural sources
