The cosmetic industry has evolved and grown considerably in the last 20 years. With it also its consumers, at first mainly interested in what the cosmetic products could do for them, then also moving towards how they represented their values and beliefs. In this article I will share how I see the evolution of cosmetic preservation from my professional experience in the industry.*
The age of innocence
In the beginning, preservation was a discreet affair within the industry: formulators chose from a positive list of preservatives, or Annex V, which also determined their maximum concentration of use, while consumers probably did not know what they even were or how to pronounce their name. The preservatives, being of synthetic origin, had a consistent chemical composition and also a known mode of action. They were and are low cost and supported by extensive toxicity data.
The age of controversy
The age of innocen
