While consumer interest in personal care products featuring nanomaterials is on the rise, there’s a need for further research and assessment of the risks as well as, perhaps, more exacting regulatory guidelines.
New digs
KollagenX develops and acquires products for distribution to beauty professionals, salons and spas. And, the company is currently selling its skin care line to retail consumers on a mixed e-commerce / corporate website. KollagenX has strategically expanded its portfolio in recent years to include a collection of natural products.
Now, the company is opening a headquarters separate from its warehouse facility. These new offices will include a retail-style space for welcoming customers and guests. “A new location for small shipments of orders and visiting customers is needed to allow a more personal one on one visit,” explained the company in a media release about the new building.
The move suggests that demand for nanogold skin care is shifting toward the mass market. Though, “KollagenX will still have all bulk products stored and shipped from their existing 90,000 sf location in Chino Hills, CA.”
Risky business
The same properties that enable nano materials to penetrate human cells and deliver actives are the same properties that cause health and environmental concerns. Particles that are 250nm or smaller in any dimension can enter human cells.
“Nanogold particles are less than 30nm and adhere to each other by a bond existing between atoms (not a metallic bond)….The nano-gold particles are small enough to be ingested by our body and are with biological activities,” according to the KollagenX site.
Jaydee Hanson, a nanotech expert and policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment, recently spoke with Cosmetics Design about limiting the risk of nanomaterials to humans and the environment. “I would like to see the cosmetics industry develop strategies to keep nanomaterials that are of a size that can enter the human cells out of products” Hanson told Cosmetics Design.