It wasn't the IFSCC's first visit to Australia but it was its first time in Melbourne as well as its first corroboree. SPC reports from the 20th conference of the International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists
This year’s IFSCC conference in Melbourne, Australia was a truly international event. A total of 482 delegates attended from 37 countries, with 72 attending the pre-conference workshops. Organised by the Australian steering committee, chaired by Nicholas Urquhart, the theme was A corroboree of Science & Beauty, corroborees being meetings held by Australian Aborigines involving song and dance and celebrating Aboriginal mythology and spirituality.
“Although the numbers were good day-to-day through the trade show and for the papers, from an overall full point of view they were somewhat disappointing, but understandable in light of the financial crisis, which has not been that noticeable locally,” commented Urquhart. “However this better local economic situation was not reflected in local numbers with only around 160 full Australian registrants but there was good international support in light of the global situation.”
Urquhart said there was largely positive feedback for both the scientific programme and the social events. “Overall it was a very enjoyable conference – well as much as an organising chairman can enjoy a conference; they always seem better when you are a delegate or a speaker,” he added.
This year also marked the 50th anniversary of the IFSCC – the International Federation of Societies of Cosmetic Chemists. The society was founded in September 1959 by eight founding societies: SRBCC (Belgium), DKKS (Denmark), SFC (France), DGK (Germany), SEQC (Spain) Swiss SCC (Switzerland), SCS (UK) and SCC (US). Today there are over 47 member societies with over 14,500 individual members worldwide.
The IFSCC’s first president, Mason G de Navarre is still honoured with the award in his name presented to a young scientist each year. This year the winner was Adrien Cousy from France for his paper on the difficult relationship between the sun and the skin that can be improved by cosmetics.
Before the start of the full conference programme, the IFSCC council met to discuss the business of the IFSCC and new activities and proposals. The council gladly accepted a new 47th member society, The Middle Eastern Society (MESSCC), which will join zone 2. The MESSCC comprises members from a few countries in that region including Iran and could potentially add members from others in the future. The science committee announced the institution of the Henry Maso Conference Award, in their effort to further differentiate conferences from congresses, to be awarded to a young scientist who presents their work at a conference to win expenses for attendance at the upcoming congress. The education committee then detailed the great success of the new Ecaterina Merica Education Program which provided full day seminars to resource challenged societies in all three regional zones.
Prior to the opening ceremony at the Melbourne Aquarium Kerry Cue, a popular local author and educator, delivered the keynote speech. Emphasising her chemistry background she underlined the importance of science and the value of going online to engage young people and get them involved. “Don’t forget – science really counts,” she said.
This year’s scientific sessions were based on the indigenous traditional notions of earth, air, fire and water, but given a modern Australian angle. So in conference terminology, Land looked at contributions to environmental sustainability, Fire examined skin protection and/or rejuvenation, Surf discussed scientific breakthroughs and Sky simply looked at what was possible.
Within these themes, two full days, or 24 scientific podium presentations, covered subjects as diverse as skin moisturiser design and a technology to restore hydrophobicity to damaged hair surfaces. Attendees were educated on the macromolecule intrusion into interlamellar spaces in clay platelets and stratum corneum supplemented by a light-hearted physical demonstration of the process by Robert Lochhead of the University of Southern Mississippi, US. Polymers for hair care and rheology control, inorganic sunscreens and sunscreen photstability, cell adhesion molecules of the skin’s barrier and anti-ageing strategies were among other technologies presented. Complementing this were over 60 technical posters and extensive commercial exhibit booths and displays. Future issues of SPC will discuss in more detail some of the papers presented.
The majority of exhibitors were Australian distributors representing many international suppliers of cosmetic ingredients. A number of exhibitors were also sponsoring the event, including Southern Cross Botanicals, a supplier of a wide range of botanical materials derived from native Australian plants, including organically processed materials and materials from sustainably managed plantations.
One presentation had to take the honours for best paper and this went to Kenji Shimizu for his work on reducing inflammatory processes by blocking dermal-epidermal cell cross talk by intracellular reactive oxygen species scavenging. The award was presented by Fujihiro Kanda, head of the awards committee, at the closing gala banquet.
Also presented at the banquet was the Lester Conrad Award, established to assist a member society in their cosmetic science education programmme. Monisha Mullick accepted the cheque for CHF8000 on behalf of the Indian Society.
Special mention went to Johann Wiechers as he completed an exceptionally long tenure on the IFSCC praesidium and he accepted a scroll for his huge contribution.
IFSCC president Xavier Romeau then handed over the presidential gavel to incoming president Gavin Greenoak who introduced the 2009-10 praesidium. Alberto Martin then extended an invitation to all delegates to attend the 26th IFSCC congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina next year (20-23 September). The theme will be Innovation & responsibility: cosmetics forever, and of course tango will also be on the agenda.
IFSCC 2009/10 PRAESIDIUM
President Gavin Greenoak (Australia)
Vice president Alberto Martin (Argentina)
Hon secretary Anne Hunt (France)
Treasurer Judi Beerling (UK)
Committee member No 3 Prof Vanchai Sirichana (Thailand)
Committee member No 2 Roy Gardiner (South Africa)
Committee member No 1 Jadir Nunes (Brazil)
Secretary general Lorna Weston (UK)
Committee chairs
Science committee Fujihiro Kanda (Japan)
Education committee Amy Wyatt (US)
Magazine committee Hartmut Schmidt-Lewerkuehne (Germany)
PR committee Art Georgalas (US)
KOSMET Task Force Silvia Boracchi (Italy)
Hon auditor Susan Hurst (UK)
Hon auditor Henri Sebag (France)
Imm past president Xavier Romeu (Spain)
Asst secretary general Gem Bektas (UK)