‘Greening with silicones’ examined

On the other hand, the consumer will not accept products that fail to meet performance expectations. This results in a basic contradiction: how does one achieve the performance that one has come to expect, while having concern for the environment? This has been a problem for marketing over the last decade and will become a defining problem for our industry. One simplistic approach, favoured by some, is the complete banning of all materials that do not meet a specific definition of green. This approach, while simple, fails to consider the fact that successful products need to have the proper combination of consumer and environmental acceptability. Simply put, consumers will not wash their hair with simple soap despite it being green, because it lacks many other attributes demanded by the consumer. The other approach is to simply accept all products regardless of ingredients. The approach that appears to offer the best possibility is the so-called Hybrid Formulation Model. This approach1 compares the cosmetic formulation to the hybrid car and speculates that the optimised consumer product is one that will be as green as the category can be (the electric part), while using a minimal quantity of materials that are not green only in special instances where performance demands it (the gasoline portion). This approach results in a metric system, referred to as the Green Star System2, that allows one to consider both the environmental and performance aspects of the product. This concept encourages the use of minimal concentrations of raw materials that offer unique consumer benefit while keeping the green aspect uppermost in formulations. The result is a process as much as a product. The process is one of continuous re-evaluation of formulations ever increasing the green efficiency of raw materials.

Role of silicones

Silicones are found in cosmetic formulations primarily because they have a unique surface tension relative to both water (72 dynes/cm2) and oil (32 dynes/cm2). Silicone provides surface tensions in the 20 dynes/cm2 area. It is this surface tension reduction that leads to many of the desirable properties of silicones, such as: spreading; foaming of materials that cannot be foamed with fatty surfactants; creating invert emulsions; and elegant aesthetics. The Hybrid Formulation Model (HFM) approach results in an understanding that silicone raw materials offer a benefit demanded by consumers that can only be provided by raw materials that would traditionally be left out of formulations in the quest for greenness. Silicones are unique in a number of areas including the elegant aesthetics they contribute to a formulation. Initially, the concept that silicone compounds can contribute to the formulation of green products is confusing and somewhat contradictory. However, applying the Hybrid Formulation Model, silicone compounds should be selected to use the lowest possible concentration that provides the desired benefit. It is under this criterion that “Greening with silicones” is meaningful.