Safe and natural, while also ultra-effective. That is what customers expect contemporary cosmetics to be. Yet, cosmetics’ increasingly complex content, whether it be water- or lipid-based, needs efficient preservation to perform as intended over the entire lifetime of a product while being also safe for our health.
Beauty products are at a risk of exposure to various microorganisms as early as at the production stage. Their daily handling during use also paves way for inadvertent bacterial and fungal contamination (think moulds for example). It is simply not possible to avoid that, hence the producer’s essential responsibility to secure personal care products against microbial growth that is potentially dangerous for the customers’ health.
The modern beauty industry has at its disposal multiple ways of stabilizing products more or less efficiently, and making them last. If it weren’t for preservatives, our beauty products would have to be stored in a fridge on a daily basis, and still they would not keep their properties for much longer than a month.
The standards that preservatives used in cosmetic industry have to meet to be both safe and effective are really high. They can neither have toxic properties, nor eradicate the skin’s natural bacterial flora. They must not cause allergy or skin irritation. On the other hand, they need to feature a broad anti-microbial spectrum, be readily soluble in water, effective at very low concentrations, integrate well with all the other product ingredients and be compatible with the product’s packaging. It is of little wonder, then, that few substances tick all these boxes, and producers conduct special preservation testing for each beauty product separately to ensure both its adequate protection and safety for the consumer.
With our customers’ precious health in mind, Arkana sticks to preservatives that are thoroughly tried and tested. The preservatives we use in a majority of our products are alternative to parabens, and verified as environmentally-friendly.
This group of natural ECOCERT-certified substances comprises benzoic acid, citric acid, dehydroacetic acid, sorbic acid, benzyl alcohol, sodium benzoate, and potassium sorbate.
Most of these compounds are also used for food preservation, with some of them being of natural origin. They are safe, do not irritate the skin, and feature a broad activity spectrum. In some of our cosmetics, we also resort to phenoxyethanol, that is naturally found in green tea. It is germicidal and hence popularly used for preservation of cosmetic formulations.
Safe, effective, biocompatible with the skin – Arkana beauty products are just that.
Do not hesitate to find out more about the products in our range. To choose from the wealth of products Arkana has to offer, visit us at: www.arkana.pl/en
