NEW PRESERVATIVES FOR TODAY's COSMETICS

Worst news is to realize that your wife's facial cream is not properly preserved and has a foul odor......or that a moisturizer cream has contaminated intensive care patients in a Barcelona's Hospital in Spain. Many new trends for the GREEN drive have put many chemists to work in big Chemical corporations. Traditional preservatives like Formaldehyde donors, Parabens and Isothiazolones have been put aside to give way to natural preservatives, which unfortunately are still not completely defined and not necessarily safe nor effective. Some companies are moving to preservative-free formulations by using actives of a particular class that have known antimicrobial activity like Lactylates or using some ionic surfactants and thickeners that require much less preservatives.
The new trend that seams to be working are the blends that still include Parabens that are believed to be the safest yet in terms of toxicological and use tests. These include products like Clariant's Nipaguard POB, phenoxy ethanol and piroctone olamine and benzoic acid and a second one POM, that combines the two first components with methyl paraben. Lonza's counterpart are Optiphen BSP and BSB which are also aromatics. For a complete report see www.happi.com may2008.