The alliance aims to capitalise on the R&D and formulation capabilities of National Starch and the manufacturing and packaging expertise of Acupac to create new products based on dissolvable films for the personal care market. Both companies are aiming to ensure the development of consumer products with a level of quality and efficacy that are consistent with customer brands currently on the market.
According to Penny Vanemon of National Starch Personal Care, the alliance to innovate a new array of consumer products: "Today, we are at the dawn of an era where we can respond to consumer demands for convenience, portability and targeted delivery in ways that we could not have imagined a decade ago.
"With dissolvable film technology, personal care products can go everywhere the consumer does - leaving the bottle at home. The technology offers the potential to expand the 'touch up' and 'during the day' categories and to provide an instant benefit to consumers. And throughout, it can deliver targeted, highly efficacious formulas wherever the consumer wants or needs it," she added.
Currently National Starch is one of the world's leaders in delivery system technology based on polymer science and has a number of patents surrounding the use of dissolvable films. This technology base is made relevant for the personal care industry using National Starch's experience in R&D and formulation work in both hair care and skin care applications.
At the recent SCC Supplier's Day 2005, held in New Jersey, 13 May, National Starch discussed its core technology platforms and a major knowledge platform in depth, relating more details about the development of the dissolvable films.
The films, based on patented National Starch polymers, could be used to open up entirely new categories of products, where effects can be targeted on specific areas of skin or hair with a higher concentration of actives than may otherwise be practical from a traditional formulation, National Starch claims.
Where once a personal care product may have been designed around the assumption that a consumer would use the product at a specific time of the day, such as the morning personal care regimen, now, the personal care industry can consider the whole day as an opportunity for consumers to apply films for products such as fragrance or face cleanser without having to carry a container,
The films allow the personal care industry to also consider the concentration of the active included within the film, particularly for products where the consumer requires an instant benefit, or where the actives are knowingly unstable. Additionally it leads to pre-measured single-unit doses of products, a situation that can allow formulators of products to adjust concentrations for a specific level of effect. Formulators and marketers have already started to take up on the new films, capitalizing on the opportunity to rethink about the way in which personal care products are made and sold, with the first products now starting to appear on US retailer shelves.