EP182. Upcycling - the infinite loop of beauty

A big part of the future for sustainability in the cosmetics industry involves upcycled ingredients. When you think about it, it makes so much sense to reuse ingredients that would otherwise be classified as waste and then incorporate them into our beauty products. Now, we've covered our definition of circular beauty previously here on this podcast, episode 66, in case you want to go and listen to it again. And one element that's really important for circularity is to keep resources in a loop as long as possible. Now, that's achievable when it comes to beauty packaging, but how does that work when it comes to ingredients that are grown or synthesized and then used in formulations that are applied to our body or leftover beauty products that are then flushed down the drain? The answer, of course, is upcycled ingredients. Now, while we can't yet keep our cosmetic ingredients in an infinite loop like we could hypothetically do with cosmetic packaging, we can, however, give leftover waste another purpose before it reaches the end of its life. Now, last week here on the podcast, I interviewed Jeff Chapin, the CEO of CarbonWave, which is a fascinating ingredients manufacturer in the US who use sargassum seaweed, which is generally viewed as nuisance or waste, to create innovative cosmetic ingredients such as emulsifiers. And they produce a whole range of other consumer products as well. So in this week's episode, we're going to look at three different upcycling techniques and I'm going to tell you a bit about what's happening in the beauty industry when it comes to reusing waste. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmeyer, chartered environmentalist, biologist and CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. I host the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and these are my green beauty opinions in which I share my takeaways from the podcast interview we released last week, as well as setting you a challenge to make the green beauty sector a better place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest opinions, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So let's have a look at three fascinating techniques used when upcycling cosmetic ingredients. I've also tried to find examples of beauty brands or ingredient suppliers that are actually using these techniques so we can all be inspired together by the really cool work that's going on in the beauty industry. So the first technique I want to talk to you about is that of extraction and purification. I think this is probably also the technique we'll all be most familiar with because I think many of us have heard the stories of using waste coffee grounds in formulations, for instance. I also interviewed Anna Brightman of Upcircle Beauty here on the podcast back in episode 59 when she talked about the way that they've saved literally hundreds of tons of waste coffee grands since launching their really inspiring and very entrepreneurial beauty brand. Please do go back and listen to that episode because Anna and her company are super inspirational. So extraction starts by collecting leftover materials, which could be anything from spent coffee grounds to fruit peels. Anna from Upcircle told me how they do collect coffee grounds, but also chai tea spices, and in her interview she even mentioned how she was planning to collect waste flowers from the local flower market, for instance. These leftovers are then processed through a whole variety of different methods to extract their useful chemical compounds for cosmetics. Extraction techniques can include steam distillation, cold pressing, solvent extraction, many different examples. The extracted compounds are then purified to ensure that they're safe and effective for use in cosmetics. This is a really clever way of upcycling ingredients for beauty products, although I do need to add that properly drying coffee grounds and other wet used ingredients will always be a challenge. The second technique I want to share with you is that of fermentation. Now, fermented skincare is a hot topic in beauty. In fact, we've even just taught a whole mini course on this in our continuing professional development membership site for formulators, the lab at Formula Botanica. And in the context of upcycling, fermentation involves transforming raw waste materials into upcycled ingredients by adding specific microorganisms to those materials, such as bacteria, yeast, fungi, and these microorganisms then break down the waste material, and in the process of doing so, they break down complex molecules into simpler ones, sometimes also enhancing the nutrient content of ingredients or even producing new beneficial chemical compounds. This process can take anywhere from a few hours to several days, depending on the type of microorganism and the conditions of fermentation. So the chemical compounds that this process of fermentation yields are then further extracted and purified and added into our amazing formulations. And there are some ties with biotech here too, which is also achieved through fermentation. In fact, I've done a couple of interviews on Biotech Beauty here on the podcast previously. So please do go back and listen to episodes 121 as well as 131 in which I interviewed biotech experts to learn more. It was really fascinating to hear about a future where synthetic biology or biotechnology could potentially even grow our cosmetics for us. So ingredients that are produced through fermentation are called bioferments. And the great news for those of us who are interested in upcycling, and I know you are, is that the raw materials used for fermentation can be agro food waste. For instance, there's an ingredient manufacturer in the US called Genomatica who use fermentation to convert sugars from agricultural waste into bio based butylene glycol, which is an ingredient commonly used in skincare products for its moisturizing properties. What a cool way to use waste materials, right? Really innovative. So the third and final technique for upcycling that I want to share with you is that of bioconversion, which is also known as biotransformation, which I must admit has a lot of similarities with fermentation, but it isn't completely the same. So bioconversion uses a wide range of different biological agents, which can include bacteria and fungi, just like fermentation, but it can also include enzymes, so it doesn't exclusively rely on microorganisms like fermentation does, and it converts raw materials into different substances. Now, this whole process of bioconversion can include fermentation, as I said, which I suppose then makes it a subset of bioconversion. So there are many similarities, but it's mainly about taking a waste stream and breaking it down to create new compounds. The industry sometimes refers to this as white biotechnology, which I need to go and look into a bit more. So more upcycling techniques will undoubtedly be discovered in the coming years. And as our waste streams grow in size, given our growing consumption and growing population size globally, we'll need to become more innovative anyway. But these were my three initial techniques for upcycling that I wanted to share with you. So extraction and purification, fermentation and bioconversion, which are already happening for cosmetics. So my challenge to you for this week is if you're a formulator, think about an upcycled ingredient that you could use in your formulations. And if you're a beauty shopper, go and find a brand that uses upcycled ingredients and see what you think. Let's see how much circularity we can bring to the beauty industry together. Thank you for listening to my green beauty opinions. Remember to visit the Formula botanica website@formulabatanicook.com to try out our free online formulation course. And if you haven't subscribed yet to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, please make sure you do so now in your favorite podcast app. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations I host, and I'll be back soon with my next episode.