New ingredients from seaweed for cosmetic applications

“Natural products”, “clean labelling”, “organic” – the cosmetic industry meets high demands from consumers and the trend is clear. Therefore, there is an interest in exploring the potential for developing new natural ingredients that works. The utilization potential of Nordic Saccharina latissima is enormous.

Brown alga contains a wide range of compounds with multi-functional properties, which the cosmetic industry can benefit from. Antioxidant compounds, such as polyphenolics, can provide the skin care product with antioxidants to reduce oxidative stress and ageing of the skin. Furthermore, antioxidants can increase the oxidative stability of the skin care product, and thereby, protect lipids from oxidizing and losing their functionality.

Other antioxidant compounds, polysaccharides, like laminarin, alginate and fucoidans, can also work as stabilizers in skin care formulations. Hence, there is huge potential in extracting these different compounds and apply them in skin care products. In an ongoing project, MAB4, the overall aim is to establish a sustainable production of ingredients derived from the brown alga Saccharina latissima.

One task is to evaluate these ingredients in skin care emulsions as antioxidants and/or as stabilizing agents. The outcome of this project will be well-documented effect of these ingredients. Next will be the work on how to get these approved as ingredients for cosmetic application. This will be discussed together with results from the on-going work.