Sustainable Bathroom

These days, consumers are looking for solutions that are effective, good for the environment and affordable with the inflation rates spiking globally. On top of that, customers are stepping up their requirements when it comes to sustainability. Not only do they look for ingredients that are friendly to the environment, they are also changing their behaviors and starting to use new formats. We see waterless formats with solid bars, different packaging solutions that move away from the use of plastics and are re-fillable. Consumers are more willing to invest time to inform themselves, gather knowledge and are eager to understand the full value chain of their products.

Companies and suppliers understand these trends and are constantly innovating to deliver more sustainable solutions for the personal care industry. With the evolving customer requirements, it is essential to develop solutions that are multifunctional and meet the wide range of sustainability requirements. Nouryon’s ‘Elfan AT 84 (G)’ surfactant does exactly all that and, according to the company, is a solution for soap, bath and shower products.

Innovative Cleansing agent

It’s an easy to use sulphate-free anionic surfactant cleansing agent. It is supplied in powder form as well as non-dusty granules (G) for easy handling in manufacturing process. It provides better cleansing and foam build up than competitive benchmarks and similar cleansing performance to sulphated surfactants (SLS benchmark). Based on vegetable fatty acid and readily biodegradable, it has superior clarity over other sulphate-free cleansers due to its highly efficient synthesis and low residuals. The product is very effective even in hard water. Suitable for soap bars and is said to give excellent foam creaminess.

This product is an excellent ingredient to help formulate solid bar soaps. However, bar soaps are still associated with a negative consumer perspective around hygiene. According to Mintel data, 29% of Indian consumers think that traditional bar soap is not as hygienic as shower gel. However, bar soap has a relatively high pH and is not a hospitable environment for bacteria and other microbes. It is therefore important to help consumers with innovative formats such as practical travel organisers to carry their bar soaps on-the-go1, so they are able to use it whenever and wherever the want or need.

Mild solution

Consumers are also demanding more benefits from body care products than just the cleansing performance as one of the three key personal trends for 2023 is the medicalization of beauty according to the same Mintel. Formulators should therefore include other benefits in their solutions as well.

‘Elfan AT 84 (G)’ surfactant is said to be an ideal ingredient to formulate mild personal care cleansing solutions. One relevant application is mild shampoos and bath soaps for the baby care space. The baby care market is growing with more than 4% globally and is fueled by the increase in birth rates in developing countries, the rise in disposable income and growing concerns over skin allergies and diseases. Consumers are therefore looking for solutions that are natural with free-from claims, that focus on health and hygiene and are environmentally friendly. The most frequent claim in the Middle East and Africa region for baby care launches in 2021 was sensitive skin (55%).2 With Nouryon’s product it becomes possible to formulate mild solutions and we have launched different formulations for these over the last months.

Conclusion

All in all, a rapid change can be witnessed in the soap, bath and shower segment with excitingly evolving consumer needs for performance, sustainability and affordability. This makes it necessary to invent new possibilities to meet those needs and expectations.

References:

1 Mintel: The Future of Soap, Bath and Shower: 2022.

2 Mintel: A year of innovation in baby care, 2022