Factors To Consider When Developing Products For Skin Health

With so much choice in the skincare space, customers aren’t interested in slathering just any product on their face. They’re looking for transparent ingredient lists, personalized products for their skin issues and formulas that promote skin health, not simply fleeting beauty benefits.

For brands looking to create those formulas, Beauty Independent tapped three experts in skincare product development—Manon Pilon, founder of Derme&Co., Tracy Italiano, director of training and education at Derme&Co., and Peter Clarkson, co-founder of the new skincare brand Protéger—for last Friday’s In Conversation webinar sponsored by Europelab to discuss why it’s important to be informed about the physiology of skin, devising skincare products for skin concerns, and mixing and matching ingredients.

Understanding Skin Physiology

Before formulating products of any kind, Pilon underscored brands must have a basic understanding of how the skin works. She said that understanding will help founders and developers to view skin health in its proper context. She outlined the basic anatomy of skin, which includes three layers: the hypodermis, dermis and epidermis. The epidermis is the layer beauty brands should focus on, and 95% of skincare products developed around the world address it. The epidermis serves as a barrier against water, ultraviolet rays and foreign particles.

When it comes to the development process, brands should think about developing products able to penetrate the epidermis, advised Pilon. “A lot of skincare company manufacturers basically create products that just lubricate the skin and make it feel good, but the reality is, if you want to make a difference, we want to be able to get within the skin without causing any damage,” she said. “That’s key.”

To maximize the efficacy of products and ingredients, differences in skin type and environmental factors have to be taken into account. Pilon explained that skin types—e.g., dry, oily, sensitive and acne-prone—are influenced by a combination of genetics and lifestyle. Genetics affect the color of the skin, its thickness and the propensity to sunburn. Lifestyle and environmental factors encompass everything from the extent of pollution where someone lives to diet and grooming habits. The various factors determine why two people can have divergent outcomes from the same product.

Pilon gave an example of identical twins living in different altitudes with similar skincare routines. “The one that lived in a higher altitude ended up being very wrinkled and had a lot of hyperpigmentation,” she says. “Temperature, humidity, how much wind and, of course, UV exposure along with pollution and allergens will affect your overall skin health.”

The skin’s role is protection, and Pilon noted that its unique function should be valued in product development. “Good products need to respect the full integrity of the skin cells,” she said. “When you do some testing, please take all of this into consideration because lifestyle and genes also have an impact. We have 50% of the role I always say as skincare company formulators and the consumer has a very big part as well.”

Italiano agreed that having a fundamental understanding of the skin is a boon to a skincare business in the long run. She said, “A company today that focuses on skin health will have longevity more so than any company that’s just looking to jump on the trendy bandwagons.”

Focusing on Skin Concerns and Common Ingredients 

Italiano recommended brand founders focus on specific skin concerns with their products. The focus whittles down the ingredients needed. “Depending on the brand that you’re creating, the type of formulations, there’s going to be key products, key formulas and key ingredients that will all come together,” she said. “So, it’s really about combining the right ingredients to the customer profile or to the market that we’re targeting.”

She listed off a few common skin concerns and popular ingredients used to tackle them. For dryness, which Italiano said can occur for genetic or lifestyle reasons, she pointed to hyaluronic acid, aloe vera, glycerin and fatty acids like evening primrose oil and argan oil as popular ingredients. Italiano said, “Really comprehensive anti-aging and dryness products will always include a good central fatty acid as its base.”

Pigmentation issues are typically addressed with ingredients like lactic and glycolic acid, vitamin C and red seaweed. “We want to exfoliate those dead skin cells to lift the pigments that are there, but a more comprehensive approach for hyperpigmentation will be to include ingredients like red seaweed as an example that actually rebalances the melanocytes,” said Italiano. “So, it actually is controlling and slowing and regulating the production of melanin, which I think is really important for clients that are always battling with that little bit of post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation or even UV aging.”

Ingredients like caper bud, arnica and baobab work to reduce redness, inflammation, itchiness, burning sensations and general discomfort. Oily skin, which is mostly genetic, can be taken on with bentonite clay, AHAs, BHAs and PHAs for regulating oil production and mattifying the skin. Italiano highlighted salicylic acid as particularly advantageous for exfoliation.

Italiano identified wrinkles and skin laxity as accounting for one of the biggest product development categories. In terms of ingredients for them, she suggested vitamin C, particularly ascorbyl glucoside, vitamin E, rosehip and bakuchiol, which is touted as a gentle alternative to retinol. “We want to help to refine the grain of the skin and bring in those wonderful ingredients that are going to bring in that three-dimensional re-volumizing effect by stimulating collagen and elastin,” said Italiano. She added, “I think that all of us are looking to slow down that aging process, but, as we saw earlier, it really is twofold. It’s not only what we use on the surface skin, but our lifestyle that will definitely have an impact there.”

For brands and product developers, Italiano emphasized starting simple, zeroing in on skin concerns and grasping the ingredients that work best are the secret sauce to building a collection. She said, “Giving clients great results will really help to build that trust from your brand, and you’ll be able to expand into other areas with much more ease.”

Mixing and Matching Ingredients

Italiano stressed the manners in which ingredients work together synergistically in a formula are critical. “We know that, for instance, vitamin C requires other substances to be activated properly,” she said. “So, there’s some really interesting correlations between how we bring these ingredients together as well that maximize their performance and their bioavailability.”

In some cases, Italiano said synthetic ingredients are required. “We’re always looking for advanced sources of natural ingredients, but there will be times where synthetics will either be very comparable, easier to source or just less expensive,” she said. “They do have their role and certain formulas will need to have a combination of both, and understanding the health of the skin and the physiology of the skin will allow us to mix and match in a much more efficacious way to avoid side effects and provide additional benefits.”

Ingredient concentration is critical, too. More isn’t always better. “We’ve noticed that certain active ingredients are actually better absorbed and more biocompatible in lower concentrations,” said Italiano. “So, it’s not always the super-sized formulations that are always the best.”

The less-is-best argument can also apply to the length of an ingredient list. Rather than pursue a loaded ingredient list, Clarkson said Protéger is interested in select powerhouse ingredients instead. He singled out that the vitamin C it uses “is helping with the fine lines and wrinkles in that it’s stimulating the collagen and it’s plumping the skin that way, but it’s also addressing the pigmentation, and it’s also doing things to help smooth out texture irregularities. So, it’s accomplishing all of those things just in that one ingredient, which helps us to keep the list shorter.”

Picking An Informed Lab 

An adept lab can assist a brand in figuring out details like the right ingredient pairings and effective ingredient percentages for certain skin conditions. “For something like pigmentation, a good laboratory really understands what acid at what percent in pH should ideally be used for each skin type and also each prototype,” said Italiano. “So, even though we hear, ‘Oh, kojic acid is great for hyperpigmentation,’ it can actually be very sensitizing if it’s not buffered and combined properly.’”

An adept lab should be able to direct brands to formulations right for various product types as well. “A good laboratory, a good formulator will guide you toward whether ingredients are better in the nighttime treatment or in a daytime treatment, in a serum or in a cream,” said Italiano. In addition to founders being informed about the skin, Pilon cautioned it’s vital for them to team up with partners that are well-informed about the skin because they “could have long-term impacts and affect you and your brand.”

When Clarkson approached Europelab with the idea for Protéger, he knew the hero ingredients he wanted, but didn’t know what would happen if they were combined. He elaborated, “While I knew that vitamin C was something that I wanted, while I knew that green coffee seed extract was something that I wanted, while I knew that I wanted the highest quality hyaluronic acid, I had no understanding at all about, if I were to mix these things together, was the bottle going to explode? Were they going to negate one another? That was where the expertise of the lab was really important.”

During the development process, he had weekly phone calls with Europelab. He asked questions about the process and picked the brains of the company’s employees. “You want to make sure you’re choosing everyone carefully and appropriately, and that they are experts in their fields and can give you and convey their advice in the best way possible,” he counseled. “And, lastly, make sure they’re dependable.”