09 JUN | The Green Beauty Congress and its commitment to natural cosmetics

The Green Beauty Congress celebrates its fourth edition dedicated to the sea and marine cosmetics. The natural cosmetics forum is co-organized by Beauty Cluster and Mentactiva and was sponsored by the CAAE certifying entity and the companies Distributies, Imago, Inquiaroma, Lehvoss and Provital.

Great reception among professionals in the sector and lovers of natural cosmetics on June 8 at the Green Beauty Congress, a natural cosmetics forum that was held this year to coincide with World Oceans Day.

It has a strong social commitment and has created a crowdfunding campaign in collaboration with Imago and Provital to raise funds for cleaning the seabed, which will be dedicated entirely to The Ocean CleanUp. The campaign will be active until the end of June and whoever wishes to send their donation can do so through the Congress page and follow this initiative through the official accounts @beautycluster_official and @mentactiva.

The main objective of the Green Beauty Congress is to publicize the latest trends and innovations in the field of natural cosmetics and share success stories within the industry. In addition to awarding the prize to the winning formula of the Formulation Challenge, which on this occasion was sponsored by the Biogründl company.

What topics were discussed during the Green Beauty Congress?

  1. The water footprint and its application to packaging. Waterless or anhydrous cosmetics is one of the current trends within the beauty sector and, currently, there are already many brands that are formulating and developing natural cosmetics with attractive products with high added value for the final consumer. One of them is Mínima Organics, a Spanish project that is committed to circular economy dental hygiene. Regarding packaging, Josep Mª Bosch, CEO of Milimetrica-Encajabio, confirmed the current situation and spoke of new trends, highlighting grass paper (hay) as a sustainable alternative, since to make 1 ton only 1 liter of water compared to the 10,000 liters used to make FSC-certified paper.
  2. Nature as teacher. One of the most inspiring talks was that of Óscar Expósito, CEO, CSO and Co-founder of Vytrus Biotech, who addressed the health of skin and hair from the principles of ecology, since they learn from nature since they work with plants. And it is that the principles of ecology dictate that when we evaluate an ecosystem we have to look at all those that make up the whole: the plants, the land or the organisms that inhabit it, since everything is interconnected. In this way, these principles of ecology can be effectively applied in a holistic and interconnected way to the treatment of the skin and the capillary system through biotechnology.

  3. 360º green solutions. At the Green Beauty Congress there was time to talk about solutions such as reducing the carbon footprint through responsible care, and Clara Vigo, Global Product Manager at Provital, spoke specifically about this. Only in this way can a completely sustainable beauty be achieved. Within the companies’ strategy, sustainability must be present, as well as initiatives based on the circular economy, industrial symbiosis and the supply of Km0. Many cosmetics are already adapted to this new reality and Anna Callao, technical director of Inquiaroma spoke about it. With the aim, for example, of reducing the water footprint and providing sustainable benefits to the skin, Inquiaroma proposes 100% natural powdered ingredients or biotechnological fermentation cosmetic ingredients in order to minimize the consequences that climate change is having on the cosmetics industry.
     
  4. Certifications and natural regulations. Daniel Subirana, Cosmetic Product Manager at CAAE spoke about the existing certificates for organic, natural, vegan and Cruelty Free cosmetic products so demanded by consumers. Micaela Brotons, Founder of Inside Cosmetics Lab, reviewed the different criteria of some certifiers and spoke about the Ecolabel label, its application in natural cosmetics and how it differs from ISO 16128. As an example, Mónica Amorós, director of sustainability at Endemic Biotech spoke about the evolution of ECOTECH organic cosmetics.

  5. Natural active ingredients that take care of us. There was time to talk about the development of natural active ingredients for protection against UV rays and hair color. Natural active ingredients can also be effective, since they have industry quality controls and efficacy tests and technological applications, which ensure the maximum potential of these ingredients in the final product.

     
  6. The Green Beauty consumer. The Alpha and Beta generations are the consumers of the future and towards whom future Beauty solutions must be focused. Mayte Expósito, director of strategic marketing at Imago, Olga Díez, CEO of The Onion Inside and Katty Huerta, Senior Analyst at The Onion Inside showed an X-ray of these new generations and thus find out what place beauty will occupy in their future scenarios. In addition, the criteria used by some marketplaces, such as Perfume’s Club, when choosing the brands for their catalog were discussed, a choice strongly supported by green values. Despite this, the final decision in online shopping is always supported by the experience of a sustainable purchase with great social involvement, something that makes it alive, real and very satisfying. Gerardo Cañellas, founder of Perfume’s Club told us about it.

  7. Finally, the Formulation Challenge, already a classic at the Green Beauty Congress, was sponsored on this occasion by the company Biogründl. Medeea Gavrilescu, Quality Assurance and Teresa Sánchez, Regulatory Affairs Assistant at Biogründl, revealed the benefits of the active ingredient in this challenge, marine collagen. And, give way to Carmen Sánchez who presented the 3 finalist formulas and also revealed the winner of this 2022 edition; Enrique Hevia.