This week, Cosmetics Design caught up with Lamberto Anzalone, ROELMI HPC’s Area Manager here in the Americas region, and ROELMI HPC Marketing Manager Stefania Zanzottera to learn more about the company vision for a fully sustainable future, their latest ingredient launches, and how those ingredients can help brands and beauty makers here in the US formulate effective, environmentally friendly products.
ROELMI HPC is headquartered in Milan, Italy, has ingredient manufacturing facilities in that country and in China, and offices in some 5 countries around the world, including here in the US, in Hoboken, New Jersey.
“In the US,” says Anzalone, “we found an experienced market ready for change and looking for new trends.” And he emphasizes that this readiness for innovation is just as “true of indie brands” as it is of the “multinationals, leading the market.”
“Our choice [to do business in the US] has been repaid,” he tells Cosmetics Design, noting that ROELMI HPC has seen “double digit growth” in the region.
He credits this success, in part, to the company’s forward-thinking approach to ingredient development and to their dedication to serve not only beauty makers but all the people who eventually come into contact with ROELMI ingredients. “ROELMI HPC takes care of customers and end users,” says Anzalone.
“Knowing our end consumer helps us to create the right ingredients,” he says, pointing out that the company launched its ÆCTive ingredient in the US in 2018 (at the NYSCC Annual Meeting and Technology Showcase in New York City). Paying attention to consumer behavior in the US meant that ROELMI HPC was on the leading edge of the microbiome beauty movement; and Anzalone tells this publication that the team was quite “proud to be ready with something for it in the US.”
The ROELMI HPC vision for a sustainable future
ROELMI HPC is a biotech venture; an ingredient maker serving both the cosmetics and personal care industry and the nutraceutical and food industry; and is a company dedicated to “improving quality of life,” Anzalone tells Cosmetics Design.
This company vision is as much about serving beauty makers and end consumers as it is about environmental preservation, safeguarding biodiversity, and choosing renewable resources. ROELMI HPC doesn’t just position itself as a sustainable business, the ingredient company measures financial and non-financial results—like renewable energy use, reduction of water consumption, and CO2 savings—at every turn to ensure that the company is a vital part of the circular economy, according to a presentation shared with Cosmetics Design. Anzalone calls it a “sustainable balance sheet.”
ROELMI HPC works with upcycled inputs, is careful not to use commodity ingredients or otherwise “compete with the food supply chain,” and aims to avoid waste wherever possible, says Anzalone. In fact, he says, the company has an entire division focused on growing the sustainably of the company.
Active and Functional ingredient highlights
ROELMI HPC leverages both biotechnology and extraction technology to develop ingredients. And like so many beauty ingredient suppliers, ROELMI HPC has a line of actives and a line of functionals.
The company’s newest launch in the functional range: BeauSens Air is a silicone alternative. The biodegradable emollient is based on an extract of non-GMO High Oleic Sunflower Seed Oil. And the company product page describes BeauSens Air as “an ultra-light and dry feel emollient, particularly suitable for face, body and hair care applications.”
In the US market, the Olifeel Line of ingredients are best sellers, according to Anzalone. Olifeel Pearls, Olifeel Skin, Olifeel Butter, and Olifeel SQ are made from the non-edible fractions of olives and bring an array of attributes to product formulations, respectively: gelling and texturizing; skin-feel enhancement; formula stability and slip; and Olifeel SQ, a 96% pure plant-derived Squalene, imparts sensorial effects as well as moisturizing benefits for skin and conditioning for hair.
The ROELMI HPC portfolio of actives is distinctive in that the team “tests efficacy on every production batch,” Stefania Zanzottera, Marketing Manager at ROELMI HPC, tells Cosmetics Design.
In the actives portfolio, CytoFruit Waters BIO99 extracted from sweet oranges, red oranges, lemons, kiwi, bergamot, clementine, grapefruit, or green mandarin are notable in that these ingredients (made from the waste stream of fruit juice production) add liquid to a formulation but don’t include water in their INCI names. This makes them appropriate for use in popular waterless products.
And there’s more to come from the team at ROELMI HPC. The company is at work to develop new ingredient technologies and is, in partnership with the Università del Piemonte Orientale, researching how preservatives in personal care products affect the human skin microbiome, according to Zanzottera.
