Cosmeceuticals

In the last 15 years, the pharmaceutical, personal care, and food industries have converged, giving birth to new industry segments: cosmeceuticals, nutraceuticals, and nutricosmetics.

The cosmeceutical concept was created by Raymond Reed in 1961. During and after the late 1970s, Albert Kligman further popularized the term cosmoceutical. Commercially, cosmeceutical products did not begin to appear on the market in earnest until the 1990s, following the success of the growing nutraceuticals industry.

Cosmeceuticals are today defined by industry participants as “cosmetic products that claim to have medicinal or druglike/pharmaceutical benefits.

Innovation in Cosmeceutical Products
Focusing on specialty actives and delivery systems. A broad range of ingredients is being used within cosmeceutical products, including botanical actives, vitamins, marine ingredients, and proteins.

Botanicals

Botanical actives are widely used in cosmetic formulations and comprise a broad range of extract ingredients, including bioflavanoids, polyphenols, glucosides, lipids, and antioxidants.

Examples of Benefits

chamomile and fennel soothe the skin
green tea has anti-inflammatory properties
primrose moisturizes
grape seed and soy offer anti-aging and anti-wrinkle properties
snail extract; all of the above

Nutricosmetics

The nutricosmetics segment emerged after the success of the growing cosmoceuticals industry and the nutraceuticals industry, which is now in excess of $120 billion in sales.

The nutricosmetics market is still in the development stage. Definitions for nutricosmetic vary by region. Kline & Co. defines nutricosmetics as “ingestible products containing ingredients such as botanical actives, enzymes, proteins, and vitamins that offer antioxidant benefits and that are formulated and marketed specifically as beauty aids”.