COSMOFACTORY

This transcript is automatically generated, and manually edited.
Deanna: [00:00:00] This episode is about a complete re-imagining of how cosmetic products are formulated and experienced. It's about stepping outside the beauty industry to discover raw materials and manufacturing equipment that make new product formats possible. It's about just-add-water beauty with sophisticated textures and outstanding sensorial attributes.
Deanna: It's about single dose and full size reconstitutable skincare, color, cosmetics, and much more. With me today on the Cosmo Factory podcast are Annamaria [00:01:00] Corti, R&D Cosmetic Formulation Chemist specializing in skincare at O-PAC and Orietta Riccaboni, Sales and Marketing Director at that same company. Welcome to you both.
Orietta: Thank you.
Annamaria: It's a pleasure to be here with you today.
Orietta: Thanks a lot for giving us this opportunity.
Deanna: Absolutely. I'm glad to have you. It was back in 2022 when I personally first got to experience the O-PAC beauty pills concept; and then at the Cosmopack trade fair in Italy earlier this year, Orietta, you showed me some of the latest beauty pill innovations from O-PAC. So for anyone listening who has not yet gotten to experience them, what are beauty pills?
Annamaria: Yes, beauty pills are a solid tablet for cosmetic application. So we are talking about pills that upon contact with water turns into an unexpected gel cream texture and they create the right amount of product for a single time use. The [00:02:00] dissolution happens in a very short time, from 20 seconds to one minute, depending on the tablet's dimension.
Annamaria: So I think that this is one of the surprising feature of beauty pills. And this is also patent pending technology called the fast disintegration system.
Deanna: Excellent. That's wonderful. And help me think about the starting point for this innovation. How did, how did you begin?
Orietta: Back in 2019, we started to look at the different market trends; and we saw that everything was focused on specific trends like planet responsibility, like back to basics, like freedom of being whatever you want whenever you are. So we are talking about nomadism, travel friendliness, about ageless, about genderless.
Orietta: And all these was always associated with the research in cosmetics, in beauty, with, special sensorialities. [00:03:00] And the key product that was representing at best these trends was the solid cosmetics category. However, what we saw is that the solid cosmetics category was very well represented in the personal care: soaps, shower gels, shampoos, but not at all in skincare. So we thought that there was a gap where we could try and develop something unique, a unique sensoriality, in a very trendy new products category, in skincare.
Deanna: Excellent. Thank you for that. And Annamaria, did you start with some sort of benchmark goals, maybe in terms of viscosity, or you mentioned the short timeframe that it takes to reconstitute the pills? What were your objectives when you, when you started developing this?
Annamaria: Yeah, we have um, many objectives. The first one is the time that the piece take to reconstitute the final [00:04:00] product. So we wanted to stay in less than one minute. And the other thing is the final texture. We saw on the market many products that, by adding water, obtain a serum texture; but we wanted to create a semisolid texture, so a gel cream—something that is more close to what we are used to in cosmetics.
Deanna: That's very helpful. And I believe that today you've formulated close to 15 different products in this format. Talk us through that collection. What are the various applications you've developed?
Annamaria: Yes, you're correct. We developed two different formats and 15 different applications. The smaller one, I have a diameter of seven millimeters. They weigh 120 milligrams; and they constitute around 1.3 milliliters [00:05:00] of finished product. But they also have a pre-cut so that you can choose to use one tablet for one or two applications, depending on the needs of the skin or your personal consumption habits.
Annamaria: The applications for this format include two mechanical scrubs, two hybrid products (a highlighter and a bronzer), and five gel creams with different claims starting from an anti-age moisturizing cream, and also a soothing, an energizing, and a brightening cream.
Annamaria: For this format, the method of use is really simple and easy to learn. You just have to put the pill in your hand, add 25 - 30 drops of water, wait 20 seconds, and it's done. The cream is ready to be applied on your face.
Annamaria: The other version, the bigger one, has a diameter of 12 millimeters. And the [00:06:00] applications include a face cleanser, three clay masks, an anti-age mask, and let's say a more playful and bubbly mask.
Deanna: Yeah.
Annamaria: In this case, the product reconstitute 5 milliliters of finished product. And for this reason, we propose these pills in a double chamber jar. So that the final consumer can use the inner part to reconstitute the final product. While the face cleanser can be used directly under running water in the sink.
Deanna: Okay. Okay. Wonderful. And we know that brands like to make things fit specifically for their consumer. I'd like to think about modifying the products that you've developed. How might a brand customize pills, maybe in terms of active ingredients, or color, or scent even?
Annamaria: Yes, they have many [00:07:00] possibilities. And you mentioned some of them. So in terms of formulation, they can change the color, the water soluble active ingredients, the fragrance, but also develop new applications. For example, now we are working on hair care products, and in particular on single-use shampoo tablets.
Annamaria: But I think that they can let their imagination run wild and play also with different shapes, such as a heart or star shaped tablet, and also with dimensions.
Deanna: That’s great. Thank you. And I know that O-PAC is not the only manufacturer, right? innovating reconstitutable beauty, but the textures of your products once they're hydrated is what really captured my attention when I first experienced Beauty Pills and then again when I learned about your latest products, as I mentioned this year at Cosmopack, it really is, it's perfectly enchanting.
Deanna: I think what you've [00:08:00] been able to develop in terms of texture it's very impressive. Still, I am going to ask if a brand could customize product texture in any way: Is that something you can adjust or is it fixed?
Annamaria: Well, this is the difficult part because the search of the right raw materials to create this texture took a very long time for different reasons. First of all, because raw ingredients, raw materials in powders forms are much less than the liquid ones. And the second reason is that for this application, the powders needs to be essentially water soluble in cold water, without for example the need of a stirrer.
Annamaria: And this is particular challenging for the radiology modifiers, so the one that gives the texture. Yes. So we [00:09:00] identified three rheology modifiers, as you said; and we try to combine them to obtain the right texture. Of course you can play with the amount of water. So if you add more or less water, you obtain a more serum or a more viscous product. And the texture, of course, changes consequently.
Deanna: Excellent. Thank you for that. You've mentioned there in your answer that powder raw materials are less common than liquid ingredients, which is certainly true, that the rheology modifiers are particularly important, and the detail of not stirring your products I think is very unique (as well) in this reconstitutable space.
Deanna: There are a lot of products I'm shown—I saw one recently at the Cosmopack event in North America, the Las Vegas edition, and someone was showing me to stir the product with a kitchen whisk. [00:10:00] It's not unusual to have to stir or shake these product formats. So I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit more about your ingredient discovery process.
Deanna: Where did you find these powder ingredients? Where did you, where did you look for them?
Annamaria: Well, we had a wide knowledge of raw materials used in the cosmetic field.
Deanna: Sure.
Annamaria: But this was not enough. We also had to look at other field, for example, pharmaceutical and the nutraceutical field because we had to also add the new raw materials such as the lubricant, the binder that we normally don't use in cosmetics.
Annamaria: So I think that one thing that really helped us to develop this product is the cooperation with our raw material suppliers. In particular I would like to mention, [00:11:00] uh, Meyer that really helped us to find the new materials, new ingredients, and really believed in our product as much as ourselves.
Deanna: Yeah, no, that that's wonderful. We'll talk a little bit more about supply chain partnerships later on in our conversation. I'd like to think a little bit about the machinery. I'm imagining as a manufacturer that this wasn't a format you were normally producing.
Deanna: Talk about how you got that capability.
Annamaria: Yes, you are perfectly right. In fact, this was another critical point, because powders need to be handled and processed differently. And of course, we need a tablet press to produce pills. And this equipment is something that normally a cosmetic company doesn't have, such as ourselves. And for this reason, an economic investment was [00:12:00] necessary from the beginning.
Annamaria: The first step was to purchase a simple handheld press just to verify the feasibility of the project. Then we moved on to a laboratory tablet press and then to a hydraulic single punch tablet press.
Deanna: Yeah.
Annamaria: And at each step, new challenges came up; and an adjustment of both the formula and the mixing and the production method was necessary.
Annamaria: Now, let's say that with our equipment, we are able to produce around 2,000 tablets per hour. But we also wanted to be ready for eventually larger production. And so we industrialize the product on a rotary tablet press, reaching the productivity of 15,000, uh, tablets per hour. And in this case, we have to thank [00:13:00] IMA Active that supported us in this industrialization product process.
Deanna: That's amazing. Thank you so much. In an earlier conversation you and I had, you talked about evaluating the powders after you identified them and then later in the process evaluating things like flowability and compressibility. Tell me more about that. I don't want to make any guesses.
Annamaria: Yes, these are parameters that are not normally important in cosmetic products; but when we talk about tablets, for sure, we have to validate the mix of powders also in terms of flowability and compressibility because of the manufacturing process and because of the hardness we want to reach as final product. And the evaluation in terms of compressibility [00:14:00] and flowability was not easy at the beginning; and this is something that we had to modify during the development. For example, as I mentioned before, with the handheld press we didn't consider the flowability of the powders. But then when we moved to the laboratory tablet press, we had to change the composition of the powder.
Annamaria: We had to eliminate oils and humectants because the flowability was too low.
Deanna: Sure. Oh, that's so interesting. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm curious; I know that the brands are probably the ones who will end up selecting the packaging, but I'm wondering if you can speak to the packaging options or limitations that you see for these products at this stage.
Orietta: I would say that primary packaging represented a bigger challenge since the beginning. Why? [00:15:00] Because on one hand, we tested the pills in basically any kind of material from paper to aluminum to plastic to glass, and they are compatible with everything. So, there are plenty of opportunities in terms of selection in terms of compatibility.
Orietta: At the same time, if we think about the possibilities of positioning the products on the shelves, also in that case, there are huge possibilities. You can think about magnetic makeup cases or seven days of pill holders, like in the pharmaceutical. Or you can think about jars with measuring caps, or you can think about the paper tubes, or again, you can think about the chewing gum cans.
Orietta: So really, the opportunities are endless. However, once again, the supply chain does not seem to be so much ready for all of these opportunities. And if you think that [00:16:00] standard packaging does not fit very well with beauty pills, why? Think about one pill as small as it is and think that if you take a 5 ml jar, you can put inside that small, tiny jar 30 to 35 beauty pills, which correspond to a 40 to 50 ml jar of a normal cream. So you can imagine that you need very, very small packaging. And [the] supply chain, unfortunately, is not yet ready for this. So product presentation on the shelf still represents the biggest challenge for our trade partners and for all of the brands that we have been discussing the project [with] so far.
Deanna: Yeah, no, that I appreciate your being very candid there. It's quite interesting. And I hadn't really considered the idea of the seven days a week pill format. But I can imagine as a skincare user myself that being kind of fun. It's almost…you can take pride in having done your skincare twice a day throughout the week. But you've both mentioned the importance of supply chain partnerships now. Orietta, you in your most recent reply, and Annamaria, you've pointed out your machinery partners and raw material suppliers as well. I'm wondering, based on your experience developing this product, what you might suggest that other supply side companies do to help manufacturers and innovators like yourself get ready for novel product formats.
Deanna: How can the industry prepare for this sort of change?
Orietta: From the packaging viewpoint, I think that it is crucial to create some partnerships. The same as Anna was mentioning for the raw materials and for the industrialization process. It is a strategic that, as we saw an opportunity in this kind of Galenic form, also the packaging producers do the same.
Orietta: And if we join [00:18:00] hands together, I think that we can come up with some ready-to-go product, which will only benefit end consumers and the trade partners.
Deanna: Yeah. Annamaria, do you have anything to add there?
Annamaria: I agree perfectly with Orietta. The solution we found from a formulation point of view and the industrialization was thanks to cooperation, collaboration, with other suppliers. So I think this is the way to go ahead.
Deanna: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. We've talked a lot about the single dose products. So if I were using a beauty pill cleanser, for example, I would add water to one pill and then have enough product to wash my face that one time. But I believe you're developing full size, rehydratable products as well. Deanna: Annamaria, can you tell us what you're working on there?
Annamaria: Yes, we extended our solid proposals; and we developed [00:19:00] also full size multidose products. Specifically, we have two formulations where the common starting point is the same of the beauty pills. So a solid, in this case a powder, that once in contact with water turns into a totally different texture.
Annamaria: The first product is a powder that turns into a real emulsion. And I'm talking about real emulsion because the powder itself contains 40 percent of oil and the finished product contains as much as 10 percent of oil because the dilution ratio is 1 to 3 with water. And, I think that this proposal is the right answer to our customer request, because they felt that the gel texture obtained with the beauty pills was not emollient enough. And this is true from a chemist’s [00:20:00] point of view, because the pills do not contain oils. So we wanted to find a solution; and I'm quite sure that this is a nice solution.
Deanna: … go ahead.
Annamaria: The second product is a powder to micellar water. You have four grams of a white powder that reconstitute 350 grams of a colored micellar water in less than three minutes. So in this case, you have to shake a little bit the final product. And in both cases, the powder to cream and the powder to micellar water, the powder is proposed in a refill sachet that combined with the reuse of the bottle or the jar, I think that contribute to reduce packaging and the impact on transport and distribution cost.
Deanna: Excellent. Yeah. That's, that's [00:21:00] helpful to think about. So if I'm correct, you've been working on the just-add-water innovations at O-PAC since about 2021. Is that true?
Annamaria: Yes, it is true. We started by the end of 2021; and then we proposed our first version in June 2022.
Deanna: Yeah. Excellent. I know, however, that O-PAC as a company has been manufacturing personal care products I believe since 1989. So I'm hoping you can tell us a bit about the company's history and previous specialty.
Orietta: Yeah, basically O-PAC was born 35 years ago; and we were born as a wet wipes manufacturer. And since the beginning, we distinguished ourselves because of our creative and innovative approach to products. Our payoff states created to innovate, and we wanted to stick to that. So during the years, we were the first ones to introduce [00:22:00] on the market unique products in wet wipes.
Orietta: We were the first ones to introduce the small, [mini] packs to be carried around with you. And in 2020, we patented a special formula able to suspend particles inside a lotion to be put on a tissue. In this way, we created a scrubbing wipe and a brightening white able to release pearls on the skin.
Orietta: And doing this, we managed to change the perception of the wipe from a normal commodity to a higher value, a higher value product, looking towards the skincare and makeup categories.
Deanna: Yeah. Interesting. Excellent. I'm so glad you mentioned makeup there because I would like to go back—we're going to talk more about this transition from wipes to pills in a second—but I do want to go back, Annamaria with you, and talk a little bit about the fact that you [00:23:00] have these reconstitutable color cosmetic products.
Deanna: I don't want to say you're the only ones because I haven't done extensive research there, but I can't think of anyone, any other company, that has showed me solid to liquid or creamy color cosmetic products. Can you talk about any unique steps that you needed to take to develop those?
Annamaria: Yes. So the first step to develop the pills was to find a base, a tablet base with no particular functionality. But then we tried to develop different applications as the one that I mentioned, and the two of them are hybrid products, so a bronzer and a highlighter. The characteristics of the pigments that we were looking at [was] that the [00:24:00] pigments need to be water soluble, or water dispersible at least.
Annamaria: So we had to find…that in contact with water were easily dispersible. And I think this is the reason why we just developed a hybrid product and not yet foundations.
Deanna: Yes.
Annamaria: And this is also because of the coverage. Because of the dilution ratio with water, you have to consider that you cannot obtain so much coverage.
Deanna: Sure, sure. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. And if you don't mind, I'd like to ask about another ingredient that you suggested in a conversation we had earlier, and that was the disintegrating agents, which I think are particularly relevant for the pill format, not so much the powder format.
Deanna: But you know, I'm not a chemist. [00:25:00] I often like to remind folks of that, even though I do get to speak a lot about cosmetic science and speak with experts like yourself. But that's not a common ingredient in cosmetic products. Am I correct?
Annamaria: Yes, you're perfectly correct. Yes. And as the name suggests, this is used to make the tablet dissolve immediately, when water is added. And this is one ingredient that we normally don't use in cosmetics; and we had to cooperate with our suppliers to find.
Deanna: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's so cool. Thank you. So we'll jump forward again. Orietta has just explained that the company had a specialty in wipes and interesting technologies there. And if I sort of draw the analogy, right? of a transition that your company is making from wipes to these pill or reconstitutable beauty product formats, your brand partners will need to make the same [00:26:00] transition.
Deanna: And we know that the end consumer is making this similar transition. It's just so interesting. I've mentioned the North America show in Las Vegas that I was at with Cosmoprof and Cosmopack, talking to brands and suppliers there. And I was shown more reconstitutable products, both from brands and suppliers, just-add-water product formats, really.
Deanna: It's definitely an emerging category. And I feel like everyone is determined to figure it out. But I wonder if you have any thoughts about helping educate the consumer or how folks are developing these new product use formats.
Orietta: That's the most difficult and crucial part in making sure that these kind of categories become widespread on the market. Definitely, we think that a big brand needs to start the project. So we think that [00:27:00] if some big brand is able to educate consumers can start and put on the market this kind of products everybody then will follow. And you're right when you say that it's like a transition. Also for us, it has been a transition; and when we decided to go from wipes to skincare, we applied the same motto: expect the unexpected. We wanted to surprise consumers. Cosmetics and beauty has always represented a safe haven asset for consumers able to resist any economic turmoils.
Orietta: And this means that beauty needs to be a pleasure and gratification. And in order to do so, we need to provide the constant innovation behind that. And these categories are representing an innovation from all viewpoints. [00:28:00] Even more important, not only for the players inside the supply chain, but also for the planet, because the products are moving towards eco friendliness more and more.
Deanna: That's interesting. I love what you're saying about the products, that of course they're practical, but they're also pleasurable. I think that's very accurate. And if I may just observe some of what I'm seeing in the consumer marketplace and even in the beauty brand space: we see a lot of concentrated laundry care products now. And there are (I don't know how common they are, but they show up in various retail shops from time to time) these dissolvable sheets of hand soap or skin cleansers that I think folks are using as travel items, right? to carry in their handbag or when they go on trips. And I've seen too, there's an interesting brand in the shampoo space called Everest.
Deanna: Their product is not solid. It's concentrated. It comes in an aluminum squeeze tube. And they recently had remarkable success with a pivot in their marketing approach. And it sort of parallels what we see with ingredient suppliers, right? trying to innovate in the sustainable ingredient space.
Deanna: What Everest did is in some ways sort of stop focusing on the fact that their product was a concentrated format, stop focusing on almost the environmental sustainability story, which is incredibly compelling and important, but pivot to talk about the product benefits, right? and really highlight why and how it's fabulous for your hair and perhaps better than some products in more conventional formats. And again, I see that a lot in the ingredient space, right? We see sustainable ingredients coming to market. And usually the folks innovating those very much want the sustainability story to be the [00:30:00] demand generator, right? that folks will buy sustainability. But often for reasons of costs and…they have existing partnerships. They have an ingredient supply chain in place. It's not necessarily compelling until they can see an improved benefit or a new claim they can offer to their customer.
Deanna: So I was very curious to see that news about Everest recently, and then how closely the consumer experience is mirroring the ingredient experience there. But I'm sure there is growing enthusiasm among consumers for this sort of product format. And certainly there is an appetite, right? for sustainable products.
Deanna: Certain demographics of consumers are very engaged with buying sustainable products and are looking for that. You've mentioned both the formats that you've created in terms of sachets and pills significantly reduced packaging, transportation weight, those sorts of details are very important.
Deanna: And I imagine [00:31:00] everyone listening just now is already brainstorming ideas about how they might package, or market, or do consumer education around the beauty pills concept.
Deanna: Before we finish up, I just want to give you each a chance to add anything further about this innovation and what the experience has been like.
Orietta: I would say from a marketing viewpoint, from a commercial viewpoint, it is day by day challenging to see how we can offer something different [to] the consumers and how we can cooperate with the trade partners in order to make this possible. Really it's like being in front of an exciting new frontier that all we want to jump towards and through.
Orietta: And I totally agree with you what you were discussing before about the shampoo. I think that we need four elements to be successful: so sustainability for sure, pleasure/ [00:32:00] gratification, performance—because the skincare is performance—and handiness—products need to be very easy and practical to be used.
Orietta: Otherwise, consumers get afraid about them. So if we get to these four elements, I think that this new category will be successful from all the points.
Deanna: Yeah. How about from you Annamaria? Are you, are you excited about seeing this technology in the marketplace?
Annamaria: Yes, of course. And I see that things are moving, that new ingredients are coming up, and so, and also new products with new performance are coming up. So I'm positive to say that solid cosmetics in general is in its early days; and it has a bright future. I adore it.
Deanna: Yeah, excellent. Well, Annamaria, Orietta, this was a very thought provoking interview. I thank you both for joining me today on the Cosmo Factory podcast.
Annamaria: Thank you.