Water-free products that contribute to daily maintenance without impacting on routine or sacrificing efficacy are gaining traction.
In this article, Mariana Yamamoto, Skincare Products and Marketing Manager at Chemyunion, describes how to make a sebum-control powder based on its new Peptid4 S-Control ingredient.
Driven by the need for more sustainable and affordable beauty, a new wave of waterless products is developing and gaining prominence among consumers.
According to the UN, by 2025, two thirds of the planet’s population will live in a condition of water scarcity. Solid beauty concepts that remove water or ask consumers to add water at home appeal to people concerned about their environmental footprint; 13% of UK consumers and 15% of French consumers are interested in dry-use products, while solid beauty represents 1% of total US skin care sales (NPD Group).
With the increase in demand for solid formats, the category is becoming more sophisticated, gaining convenience and maintaining high efficacy to meet the demand of the ‘skintellectual’ consumer, who seeks to understand product labelling and demands product performance.
A 2022 study found that shoppers across Europe and the US ranked ‘efficacy’ as the most important type of information when making a beauty product purchase, with ‘sustainability’ at number four.
In addition, improved product design and packaging formats are allaying concerns about ease-of-use and hygiene, and helping consumers switch from liquid products.
In a shift quickly spotted by Pinterest, multi-step beauty routines have been replaced with streamlined versions, a pattern driven by mindful consumption and a quest for more intention.
Products that contribute to the daily maintenance of beauty without impacting on routine and without sacrificing efficacy are generating a perception of value amid the current cost-of-living crisis.
Today it is possible to develop formulations with different formats: bar, pill, or powder, which not only meet the convenience of practical, easy and mess-free use, but are also functional thanks to easy-to-incorporate actives.
A good example is a translucent powder formula that mattifies instantly to reveal natural looking skin, which is practical to use before an important event like a meeting, a presentation or even a date.
The active that carries out this effect is Peptid4 S-Control, a new tripeptide that controls the skin’s oiliness to reduce excessive shine with an immediate and long lasting effect, and which minimises the size of pores.
It is an easy-to-apply active ingredient in different types of formulations, from tonics, serums or solids and powders.
Peptid4 S-Control was developed to control oily skin for people of all ages.
It acts as an alternative mechanism to 5a-reductase enzyme inhibition, the traditional process used by the vast majority of products for this purpose.
Instead, it blocks the melanocortin 5 receptor, specifically present in sebocytes and responsible for significantly triggering sebum production.
While ingredients that act through the traditional pathway are more effective on younger skin, between puberty and 30 years old – the age group in which testosterone production is at its peak – Peptid4 S-Control acts on a new mechanism of action that is little explored and not controlled by this hormone, making it effective for all ages.
Due to the properties of this new tripetide, translucent mattifying powders can be part of a daily one-step skin care maintenance routine to control oiliness throughout the day.
Peptid4 S-Control is the result of in silico screening test performed from more than 300,000 candidate molecules to arrive at the most potent and safest structure, proven in in vitro and in vivo tests with immediate and long lasting results.
