EP67. Has the CBD skincare trend gone too far?

CBD or cannabidiol based beauty is everywhere. You can now get cbd, skincare, body care, hair care, makeup, perfume, toothpaste and bath products. And that's just the cosmetics that contain cbd. But do they all actually work or has the beauty industry gone slightly mad? So settle in for this episode in which I speak to Colleen Quinn of Lab Aroma to unpick the CBD craze in the beauty world, in which we also take a look at the Hottest new cannabinoid Delta 8 taking the industry by storm. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 175 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. So today's podcast interview is with Colleen Quinn, an award winning celebrated clinical aromatherapist, cosmetic chemist and researcher. Colleen specializes in cannabis research, formulations and education and is on a mission to inspire and empower you to become a confident plant enthusiast able to curate truly effective therapeutic plant remedies by understanding your plant science and backing it up with evidence. Colleen also runs labaroma, a plant chemistry based learning tool for the aromatherapy and herbal industry and has just launched her CBD beauty book. So who better to come and talk to me about the latest CBD trends in beauty?

So welcome to the podcast. Colleen, lovely to have you on.

Thank you so much. It's so weird to be on the other side of a podcast.

How are you doing today?

I'm good. I can't believe it's Wednesday and I cannot believe we're nearly in May. Time is just flying.

So today we're going to talk about cbd. We're going to talk about cannabinoids, we're going to talk about your area of specialty. So I thought maybe we could start at the top and talk about what are cannabinoids? Perfect.

Great question. So cannabinoids are one of those what we call phytochemical families. So if you work with aromatherapy or essential oils, you're aware of these kind of families because we talk about things like esters, monoterpenes, Sesquiterpinols. All of those families, cannabinoids, are just another phytochemical family that contain lots of different molecules like cbd, thc, cbn, cbg, and they're all individual phytochemicals. I think the reason why cannabinoids have never really been talked about until the cannabis movement took off or the hemp movement took off was because cannabinoids are very rarely found in any other plant. Incredibly rarely found. They're in kale, they're in cocoa, so dark chocolate. But they're not like esters that are scattered throughout most plants at some representation. So I think that's why as plant people and formulators, we've never really dealt with them until the hemp plant come along. The interesting thing about the hemp plant is that they are primarily made up of cannabinoids. And then there's some terpenes in there and occasionally the odd flavonoid and ester. But generally they're made up of cannabinoids, which is why we talk about them so much now.

So how many of them are there in total? Roughly.

So there's been 113 identified cannabinoids. Now that changes every couple of months. There's more identified. And what I would say is that there was what we would call major minor cannabinoids for a long time. So your majors were CBD and thc, and then your minors were cbg, cbm. And it was a really unfair and actually inaccurate classification because CBG is a much more important cannabinoid than any other cannabinoid. So we call CBG the mother cannabinoid because it is what cannabinoids are made from. Like, all cannabinoids start as CBG or cbga. So if you want to have a major, it's not CBD and thc, it's cbg. So that tenant distinguish or classification system has kind of been made redundant. But what I would say is that if you want to consider majors and minors now, the majors are the ones we know most about, but there are so many other ones that we know of, they've been identified. We don't really know their therapeutic property. We don't really totally know their molecular structure. And there's other ones that are identified that haven't even been named yet.

Wow. So this is really cutting edge stuff. And just for the listeners, what does CBG stand for? Or cbga?

So when, when there's an A after a cannabinoid, that means acid. So CBG is a cannabinoid. CBGA is the acidic form of that cannabinoid. So if you want to think about it like this, all your cannabinoids will start as an acidic molecule. Once they oxidize, they become the solid molecule. Now, that's not to say that the acidic molecules are not beneficial. They're incredibly beneficial. And now there's a real movement, especially in Northern California, to actually try to preserve those acidic molecules, which very difficult because as we know, once you have an acid and it oxidizes, touches air, then it just evaporates or, you know, it converts in some way or another. So people now juice raw hemp and raw cannabis because that's a great way to get the acids.

So what does CBG stand for then?

So CBG is what we call the mother cannabinoid, and it stands for cannabigral. So CBGA is the acidic cannabinoid, which is the precursor, and it stands for cannabigralic acid.

Thank you. Sorry for making you read all of those out. So then, looking at cannabinoids in the beauty industry, why should we care about them?

So there's two main reasons we should care about them, and these are the two. Not only are these so useful for skin care, but they're also the most supported claims we have on CBD and the cannabinoids, and that is that they're anti inflammatory and antioxidant, which is what we seek as formulators so much in the skincare we're making, especially, especially if we're making skin care for mature skins or we're dealing with skin irritation or skin sensitization. So anti inflammatory and antioxidant are the two main therapeutic properties that not only they're strongest in, but that they're most clinically supported in.

Yeah, okay, so that makes perfect sense. And obviously a lot of plants then contain antioxidants and anti inflammatory compounds. But from what you're saying, obviously CBD potentially and cannabinoids potentially have even more. So what do you then think is driving the big trend in CBD and beauty so?

Well, I think two things. I think there's an outward trend, I kind of call it the inward trend and the outward trend. So the outward trend is we all want to be working with something new and the new exciting ingredient and the new exciting area. And CBD's excitement and trend is absolutely validated. But most people are what I call the green train without actually knowing the inward trend. And the inward trend is the endocannabinoid system. So, and without getting too scientific about the whole thing, until we actually understand the endocannabinoid system and understand what those cannabinoids do and where that anti inflammatory and antioxidant effect has the greatest benefit in our body, we're making skincare products without actually knowing what's happening when those ingredients get into our skin. Okay. So the thing that I find so interesting is that there's this beautiful divide between brands that are working with cbd, doing it wonderfully, and educating on the endocannabinoid system so that we start to on understand why our body has such a strong anti inflammatory and antioxidant impact. And it's because the endocannabinoid system has been kicked into gear because it's being fed by the cannabinoids. And then there's other brands that are still making beautiful CBD brands and have either don't know or have chosen not to go down that scientific route. And that's your prerogative as a brand owner. You educate how you feel. It suits your brand and your mission, and that's perfect. But when you're doing it without that piece of education, you're relying on branding, you're not relying on science and skincare. Both of those words have existed and coexisted perfectly fine for a very long time. It just depends on your customer. What is your customer, who are they and what do they want to know? Is your customer the person who wants to use their skin care and feel empowered by knowing what it's doing to your skin, or do you just want to use the beautiful skincare brand that you know that works and you don't really care how it works? And I think that's where there's been this beautiful divide evolving within the skincare world, within cbd.

Oh, that's interesting. So there's quite a bit of pseudoscience then, by the sounds of things. Yeah. Okay, so what kind of, when you're a formulator, what kind of cannabinoids are available to you and how are they actually used when you're making skincare? Yep.

So it's a great question. So when this all started, CBD was the main cannabinoid that was available. Now that is not the case. Now you can easily get CBD to depending on where you live. Obviously there's a whole global regulation restriction around the plant, but you can, depending on where you live, you can get cbd, thc, cbn, cbg, and now cbc, all as individual isolated compounds. So you can buy those as isolated compounds and use them, and that's great. They tend to be water soluble, which is brilliant. But you could also then use hemp, which is the entire cannabinoid catalog of in one product, which is oil soluble, which makes a huge difference in our skincare formulations. So, and it depends if you're, let's say you're in the uk, for example, you can use hemp as long as your THC is below 0.2. Okay. And that's great. You get this beautiful array of cannabinoids. But if your only priority is cbd, you might be better using an isolate because you get higher concentrations, it's more affordable, and you don't have to run the risk of accidentally having too much THC in your product. People still are terrified of THC because it's a psychoactive cannabinoid. So even on skin care, people are afraid to use it. And that's fine. It's going to take a long time to educate people that, you know, hemp doesn't contain a level of THC that's going to get you impaired or intoxicated. But so a lot of people will choose isolate because it's a safer route to go down, especially in skincare. But the biggest reason for choosing CBD isolate is that you can affordably get a lot more of it into your skincare product than if you use the plant.

Okay, that makes perfect sense. It sounds like there are quite a few options available to formulators and obviously quite a few interesting ingredients out there that people can use. And of course, there's been an absolute proliferation of CBD brands come onto the market. And tying in with that, I wanted to ask you a question, actually, about the types of brands that are out there. I was reading an article the other day on Beauty Independent, actually, and it was asking all of these different CBD brand owners where they saw the market going. And I was really tickled by one particular brand owner who was sort of going, who was ranting a bit about the fact that people were making CBD hair care, CBD toothpaste, cbd, all sorts of things. You know, deodorants, there's probably CBD makeup, there's probably CBD perfume on the market. Can CBD actually work in all of these other formulations as well, like hair care, like toothpaste, like deodorants, etc.

So I love this conversation, and you and I have sort of talked about this to an extent in the past. My issue with cb, CBD literally being used everywhere. I've seen it in mascara. So it doesn't have a. When you're making a formulation, there has to be logic. Your ingredients have to be through rationale and logic behind your ingredient choices. And this is what I mean when I talk about people jumping on the green train, it's like, right, okay, it's trendy now let's see if we can make some money on this while it's trendy. The risk of that is that you damage the reputation of the plant. You damage every other brand that's trying to be authentic, chance at the market. But above all of that, and most importantly is the conservation of the plant. Now, hemp and cannabis is called weed for a reason. It will literally grow like a weed the minute you plant it, which is great. It's not going to make the red list at some point of being an endangered species. But she's still a plant and there's no reason for us to be wasteful of her. There's no reason to be using the cannabinoids in the plant where it is not rational, where it's not useful and where you're just trying to make some money. It's just the sustainability and the respect of the plant isn't being honored in a lot of ways. And we have this in loads of industries. We had this argan oil 10 years ago. When argan oil became the hair oil. It then appeared at everything that's died down. We're going to always get ingredients like this. I think the CBD popularity and the kind of the madness that's around the brands that are just maybe have lost their mind for a short period of time, I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon simply because there is money to be made in cbd. The one thing I would say is that my kind of, I've done this. I've walked into Waitrose and Tesco's and I go to their beauty shelves and I like. So I'm not even thinking about space and K and Harrods and all of those stores. I'm talking about our main mass market retailers. You can get hemp and CBD in every which way you might want it. But my question to consumers and brand owners is, is it useful in that format? Is it useful as a mascara? No, it's not serving any purpose. Is it going to help acne from an anti inflammatory point of view? Absolutely. So it's a validated ingredient. As a formulator, you have to make choices that are justifiable. You have to explain your choices. You know As a brand owner, you have to stand over those choices. Can you stand over putting CBD in a toothpaste? I would struggle too.

So let's talk about Delta 8 in particular, as this seems to be the next big thing in cbd. Obviously we had a chat before we recorded this podcast. You were telling me all about it. So we what is Delta 8 and how can we use it in skincare?

It's another cannabinoid and Delta 8 has been talked about in Canada and North America for probably about 24 to 18 months. But it's really starting to gain some traction in other parts of the world. Delta 8 is very, very similar to Delta 9 and Delta 9 is THC. So THC is beautiful from a medicinal point of view. It is very beneficial from a skin care point of view, but not very legal in the world.

So.

So we'll not go into why we would use it. Delta 8, however, has all of the therapeutic benefits of Delta 9, but it is not psychoactive. So you're not going to get impaired by using Delta 8. So Delta 8 is pain relieving, which is brilliant if you're working with things like, you know, acne, rosacea or muscular aches and pains, that kind of thing. It's anti inflammatory, it's antioxidant, but it also is very soothing. So not just being anti inflammatory has the ability to soothe skin and soothe. Soothe irritation brilliantly. So Delta 8 is definitely going to become a cosmetic ingredient that is new and trendy, but it's also highly effective. The problem we have is that it's not legalized. So Delta 8 is one of the cannabinoids that lives in the grey planet in that it's not illegal, but it's not legal. And then that from a brand owner point of view, a real challenge, because as a brand owner you have to make the decision, are you going to step into the gray and working with the cannabinoids, you do step into the gray to a huge extent as well. Are you going to step into the gray and work with it? Because therapeutically that's validated and you want to do that. But what happens then? If you invest a lot of money in formulation development, in packaging, and then let's say the government in your area does decide to make it illegal, then you're going to waste a lot of money, but you might make a lot of money in the meantime while they're trying to decide whether to legalize it. So that's the decision that has to.

Be made that makes perfect sense so let's talk a little bit about the legalities, then. I mean, how hard is it for a formulator to obtain different CBD compounds to formulate with? I know that some countries are quite happy for formulators to work with them and for skincare brands to use them, but it's not the case all over the world, is it?

No, absolutely not. And I know your audience remains global. So CBD is a lot easier to work with than any other cannabinoid. Even like cbg, which is the mother, it's easier to work with cbd. CBD has been in most parts of the world, tackled and defined. It's either defined as illegal, or countries like Afghanistan, for example, have identified that CBD and hemp are the exact same things. CBD and cannabis, the same thing. It's all illegal. Okay? So some countries just take the broad sweep and just say, it's all illegal. We're not acknowledging the individual compound, you're not dealing with it, okay? Or you'll be in prison if you do. Whereas countries like the UK have said, yes, CBD is fully legal. You're absolutely fine. You can use it from the hemp plant, you can use it from an isolate. Don't let THC creep in there at above 0.2% or above, and that's fine. Whereas in America, CBD is fully legal, Canada is completely legal. And in Canada, most skincare brands use it from hemp or cannabis because the plant is fully legal. So knowing your regulation, not only where you are based is really important, but where you intend to sell into. And I think that's something that people miss from a formulation point of view. You could be based in the UK where CBD is legal, but if you want to sell that into the Middle east or you want to sell it into areas in Australia or territories, in Australia, it's going to be illegal. And also you may not get it shipped. So shipping it is one thing. The oceans have not legalized cbd. So some couriers will not ship it over an ocean for you because it's not being defined. So those kind of things are really important.

Wow, that's fascinating. I haven't even thought about the oceans. The complexities of working with CBD, FedEx are.

One courier that I've just done their homework, I think, and they've just said, okay, look, we're going to work with this plant, we're going to ship it. There's going to be a lot of red tape, but we hold your hand through the process. So brands that I work with in the States that sell in the UK, FedEx is their partner, and FedEx does it really, really well. But that part, shipping partner is really important in any brand, especially if you do online sales, they become your husband or wife, but especially when you work with the cannabinoids, they become critically important.

Yeah. Wow. Fantastic to hear that there are couriers out there who are already looking at this, because obviously, you know, when you infuse CBD into literally everything, like drinks and toothpaste and mascara, I presume are a lot of consumer goods now that contain these compounds. So do you think CBD is here to stay for the beauty industry?

Yeah, I do. And I've said this from. I've got into this industry and people have scolded me in the past for saying it. I get scolded a bit less now. So maybe I'm right. It is. It's here to stay, but it's going to just become another ingredient in our kit. The popularity of CBD is going to plateau, and I see it plateauing already. Where we are going to, as formulators, look at our kit, and CBD is going to be one of our options. It is not going to be front and center all the time. And that, I think is right. It shouldn't. It is a beautiful compound. But I also want to work with things like yarrow because of the sabine compound in there. And I think that's the thing that we've all kind of got a bit carried away and forgotten. We can work with essential oils and we work with lots of other plants. We can even work with our carrots that have some beautiful omegas and essential fatty acids. But none of us have ever said, I want to take the sabine or the yarrow, and I only want to work with that, which is ultimately what we've done with cbd. We have dissected the plant, took one compound out and said, I'm isolating that, and that's what I'm using. We don't do that with other plants. So I think it'll all become a bit more logical and sensible in the future, and it'll become a beautiful option in our kit, but it will only be an option in our kit.

I love that point, actually, and that's so true. I mean, all of our formulators like to work on a whole plant basis. And then they go, right, you know, I'm going to infuse. Let's take chamomile for, as a very logical, easy example. You know, I'm going to infuse the whole plant in there. And I will use the hydrosol and I'll use an infused carrier oil and I'll use an essential oil. That way I get all the chemical compounds from the plant rather than just focusing on these isolates. And I suppose in some respects, the legalities surrounding CBD have forced us down this route with the hemp plant. So what advice do you have for CBD beauty entrepreneurs who want to use CPD in their business? You've already dropped a couple of little sort of bombs in there throughout the podcast, but what would you say to someone who's thinking about using CBD and starting a business around it?

Yeah, I know I sound a wee bit critical of CBD beauty brands. I'm not. I love them. I think forget it with the green tree. And I think it's definitely an ingredient and a product that you should absolutely work with. Not just because there's demand for it, but because it works. I think that's one of the other things that it works. Whereas when you're working with other plants, a lot of them, they need Maraid and they need that Entourage effect of other plants to be really effective. CBD doesn't. CBD is highly effective on its own. So my advice would be, well, I have a couple of pieces of the first one is be very authentic. So get spend time sitting in the decision to do this and if your backbone authentic reason to do it is because you know this ingredient is going to help your target market, then own that, write your story around that. Your branding and your messaging is so important and it has to be authentic. It doesn't have to be. CBD cured my acne. Now I want you to have it. It doesn't have to be that, you know, profound, but there has to be an authenticity because it will shine through. It's. I'm sure you've seen it, right? It's very obvious. The CBD brands that have come from a place of, you know, purpose, as opposed to CBD brands that come from a place of revenue. And we're in business, we have to make money. That is, you know, and we want to make money. That is the whole point. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's going to be very hard to cut through the noise and there's only going to be more and more noise in the CBD beauty space. It's going to be very hard for you as a marketer and a brand owner to cut through that noise if your story is not authentic and your reason and your mission isn't authentic and pure. So that's my first thing. The second thing is, does your target market care if don't do it just because it's good. If your target market doesn't want you to do it, if your focus groups aren't interested, if they would far other you stick to what you're doing. If you do, let's say you do ranges of infused caroids and that's beautiful. And you're going to start adding cbd. Does your customers care? Because working with CBD is not as easy as working with other plants. So you need to be committed to that journey. So just make sure your audience want it. And I obsess my customer. I torture them for answers. I run focus groups all the time because if they say no to you, that's the second best answer in the world. But there's no means you won't waste time and money building something that no one's going to buy.

Yeah, those are great pieces of advice. And I suppose they go for any beauty brand as well, really. I mean, be authentic. And, you know, we see that so so much that people just, they make something and they just start selling it without why they're selling it, why they chose those ingredients, what their formulation story is, what their personal story is, what their brand story is. And it goes exactly the same for cpd. So that's really great advice. Thank you very much and thank you so much for sharing that.

The only other thing I would say that makes CBD different is your supply chain. We all need good supply partners, but you really need a good CBD supply partner. And there's some brilliant companies out there selling isolates and plant. But if you're in a position to work with the plant, the close to source you can get, the better. So the close to the farm that is growing your plant, the better, or the extractor the better. Because the supply chain of CBD is very fickle and that's a disaster because if it's your core HERO ingredient and your supply chain falls apart, that's a massive production problem and a business growth problem. So I would say spend time and invest time finding the right partner and build a relationship with them.

What sort of countries are most of the CBD compounds? Where do they arise from? Where are most supplies based in the world?

So Canada, America and Spain.

Okay, yeah.

Israel still in supply, but I would say Canada. Most of Europe is finding their supply in Canada, but Spain's coming up very quick with some beautiful hemp plants, some beautiful cannabinoid profiles.

Okay, interesting. So obviously it's easier maybe for some North American and European entrepreneurs than others, but obviously hunt around and find good quality supplies. Obviously, as you've heard Colleen say, it's incredibly important. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. If anyone wants to find out more about you, about lab cannabis, about lab aroma, about all the work that you're doing. And I think you've got a book coming out as well if you want to tell us about that. Where can they find you?

So you can find me@labaroma.com that's probably the easiest place to find me my email supportabaroma.com so you can grab me there personally. And yes, the book comes out on the 8th July of of June, so might be around the time of the podcast. So it comes out the 8th of June. It's with Sicko, the publisher her brilliant and it's a CBD beauty book. So they approached me last year and just said they wanted to make a book that anyone could put into their hands, go into their kitchen and make ingredients. Now as a formulator, it was quite difficult because I'm so used to working with, you know, like you like a development kit. So now I had to start going to the green grocers and finding ingredients. So it was really weird to work with fruit and veg and you know, rosemary, herb as opposed to the essential oil and kind of making that all work. Now I do work with essential oils. I can't help myself. They're my babies. So it's, there's loads of essential oils in there, but every single ingredient has CBD oil that you can, you know, buy in your local Holland bar that you can add in its ingredients. So there's 35 recipes in there. So it's a pretty big book.

Awesome. Well, I can't wait to see it on the market. We will include the link with this podcast episode. I hope it does really well and it's been so lovely chatting to you today. Colleen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

My pleasure. Thank you so much.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast with Colleen Quinn and are feeling excited about the potential for CBD in your formulations. Make sure you come and tell us on our social channels what you thought of today's episode. And if you enjoyed our discussion, please do leave Green Beauty Conversations a five star review. The more people who rate the show, the more people who get to hear the important messages we're putting out into the world. Thank you for joining Colleen and I for this latest episode of Green beauty conversations. I really hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on itunes or Spotify and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, Clubhouse, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest or LinkedIn. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.

Sam.