Buenos Aires congress links innovation and responsibility

Held at the Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center in the Retiro district of Buenos Aires, the Congress offered delegates the opportunity to absorb the latest information from the industry’s leading authorities and R&D departments. At the opening ceremony on Monday September 20, César Fernández Tudela, president of the Argentine Association of Cosmetic Chemists stated that: “The AAQC and IFSCC have organised this event to show the astonishing advance of cosmetic science worldwide.” Also, during the ceremony, current president of the IFSCC, Gavin Greenoak, announced his retirement from the position and declared Dr Alberto Martin (president of the Organising Executive Committee, 26th IFSCC Congress) as his successor. The opening ceremony concluded with a highly entertaining display of traditional Argentine dancing, which of course included the obligatory tango.

Opening keynote lecture

Following the opening ceremony, the first Keynote Lecture was delivered by Robert Lochead, director of The School of Polymers & High Performance Materials, The University of Southern Mississippi. Entitled “Innovative formulation strategies to meet the cosmetic needs of an ecologically aware global community”, the lecture opened with Robert Lochead stating that cosmetics is one of the most innovative industries in the world, that innovation and invention are “sisters”, and also that the industry has a fine record of ecological responsibility. To illustrate this statement, he said that the cosmetics industry was one of the first to respond to the Montreal Protocol (an international treaty for protecting the ozone layer from harmful substances) and that rapid response to ecological issues brings with it a culture of innovation for the industry as a whole. An example of this is the removal of undesirable ingredients from cosmetic formulations over recent years. The lecture continued to discuss hurdles to innovation, such as the inability of formulators to adjust formula chassis, which would enable them to more fully investigate the potential of new ingredients. Robert Lochead said that generally formulators do not have the time to allow them to evaluate the performance of ingredients. The route around this problem, according to Robert Lochead, is through the use of high output formulation, which can achieve a massive increase in productivity (up to 1000 times faster) compared to conventional techniques, and as a result vastly increase the rate of innovation. The key areas that work together to create a high output process are: