Consumers increasingly prioritise skin barrier protection, seeking products that prevent moisture loss, combat environmental stressors, and restore the skin’s natural defences.
Naturally, ceramides have become a popular ingredient as they help to restore the barrier, prevent moisture loss, and protect against environmental damage, making them ideal for maintaining healthy, hydrated, and resilient skin.
“Ceramides are a popular ingredient. With environmental issues, everyone wants to strengthen their skin barrier, reduce inflammation, and overall, achieve healthy skin,” said Dean Nie, business development manager, Croda China.
While ceramides are now synonymous with benefits such as skin barrier protection, skin soothing and moisturisation, Croda’s research has shown that it has more functions.
“While everyone knows its main benefits, such as skin barrier strengthening and moisturisation, our research actually shows that there’s much more that ceramides can do,” said Nie.
He elaborated that ceramides potentially have anti-ageing properties that can help lift the skin.
Nie highlighted that the company believes there was an opportunity to develop ceramide ingredients targeting hair and scalp care products.
“I think it’s trendy as we see the trend of skinification in hair care. You can see other actives for skin are gradually being used in hair care products,” said Nie.
A key acquisition
Nie added that the potential of ceramides in beauty and personal care is a key reason the company acquired Solus Biotech, a leading supplier of ceramides based in South Korea. In 2023.
The ingredients maker believes the demand for ceramides show no signs of slowing down as it aligns with many of the current trends in the market, such as multifunctional ingredients and ingredients that mimic the skin.
According to the company, the number of new personal care products containing ceramides has doubled over the last five years, mostly for skin care but increasingly for hair care as well.
“This is a strategic bullseye for Croda, consolidating our position as a global leader in supplying sustainable, natural actives for personal care across three critical technology platforms of peptides, ceramides and retinol,” said chief executive Steve Foots in a press statement.
“It significantly enhances our sustainable biotechnology capabilities and adds a North Asia manufacturing and innovation facility, providing a springboard to premium markets in Asia and beyond. I am especially excited about their brilliant technology, with Solus bringing rich IP and proprietary know-how that we will be able to deliver to customers globally.”
Nie added that the firm believed there was still a lot more to explore with ceramides.
“Because we own different kinds of technology platforms, we are looking for some synergistic benefits between ceramides and other actives, like peptides. We also have more to explore in terms of helping formulators as formulation issues have constrained the popularity of ceramides.”
