Future-ready but traditional: COSSMA

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In these turbulent times, the skin is also exposed to stressful factors: increased cleaning and disinfection of the hands, but also irritation from wearing masks in everyday life. There is a longing for old, quieter times. Well-known and proven active ingredients further improve care of the skin and give the user a good feeling.

Times of uncertainty due to climate change, global pandemics, political and professional insecurity as well as increasing social isolation, lead to longing for comfort in our own homes. Nostalgia has traditionally emerged from troubled times and immersion in childhood memories or cooking family recipes are some of the reassuring activities that bring us back to simpler times.

Self-care has become predominant in every purchasing decision, and mental wellness management has taken a higher position in people’s priorities. Wellness has been redefined. Mental and physical well-being are at the forefront of people’s concerns and beauty care has an important role to play. Studies show that in the recent months more than ever, people have used beauty and personal care activities to reduce anxiety.

Renew traditional ingredients

As comforting as they are, traditions however have to be brought up to speed to answer to modern needs for scientifically proven efficacy and lower environmental impact. The shift towards more sustainability has not slowed down in the past months, indeed the collective mind has found a renewed conscience regarding resources and consumerism. Reinventing old beauty regime classics, Clariant Active Ingredients has developed a new concept called “RetroFuture”. The concept aims at inspiring by presenting three new classics derived from a desirable past.

The newly launched formulations are cross-generational and address the pressing need for total well-being with improved textures, new modes of applications and future-forward active ingredients. An upgraded face serum¹ with a transparent jelly texture is applied with a brush and massaged into the face for a deep feeling of relaxation. The combination of active ingredients, including a circadian rhythm resynchronizer⁵, soothes stressed skin and gives it a pleasant feeling afterwards. The hand mask² is a format twist built on the performances of classical hand creams. Caring for stressed and damaged skin overexposed to cleansing solutions, its rich and natural base includes a soothing and strengthening combination of active ingredients while bringing much needed moisturisation without stickiness.

And finally, the skin oil³ was inspired by the traditional use of natural oils in beauty rituals across the world. Supporting thin skin efforts, it brings strength to the most delicate areas of the face, especially the eye and lip contours that are currently exposed to physical stress due to the friction of protective masks. It contains a trilogy of actives built around the recharging and relaxing properties of an extract of Luffa cylindrica⁴ to ensure daily resilience to life itself.

figure 1: Maximal respiration, spare respiration capacity and ATP production levels of mitochondria in NDHF from a 44 years old woman in basal conditions (grey), exposed to a chemical stress (red) or exposed to a chemical stress with an 18-hours treatment of the extract of Luffa cylindrica. figures: Clariant Active Ingredients

Re-energise and protect stressed skin

Emotional stressors, like physical ones, demand high amounts of energy from the cells to maintain homeostasis and ensure proper functioning of the biological mechanisms required to adapt to this stress. They are also involved in ROS overproduction and impairment of the cellular antioxidant mechanism, leading to harmful effects. To boost cellular respiration and ATP production while protecting the cells against oxidative stress a special extract is used. This extract from the roots of Luffa cylindrica was obtained thanks to the Plant Milking technology, a process allowing direct access to the roots via aeroponic cultivation. This makes it possible to stimulate the production of bryonolic acid, a secondary metabolitespecific to these plant’s roots. Bryonolic acid is known for its anti inflammatory and antioxidant activities, therefore an extract rich in this molecule is a good candidate to protect cells against the deleterious effects of stress.

To demonstrate the supportive effect in the production of energy in stressed conditions, we exposed normal human dermal fibroblasts pretreated or not with the luffa cylindrica extract at 1% to a chemical stress. Using the Seahorse technology, it was able to determine maximal respiration, spare capacity, and ATP production. As expected, the chemical stress impaired mitochondrial respiration as shown by the dramatic decrease of maximal respiration parameter (-93%), spare capacity parameter (-96%) and ATP production (-100%).

In contrast, when cells are exposed to the same stress but pre-treated with the luffa cylindrica extract, the mitochondrial respiration is preserved and even boosted, thus revealing the strong protective effect of the active ingredient, as shown in figure 1. In addition, to demonstrate this protective effect, 0.5% of the extract was topically applied on a 3D reconstructed human epidermis model. The result was a stimulation of the antioxidant intrinsic defence cellular mechanism at the transcription level. Indeed, mRNA transcripts coding for two enzymes belonging to the intrinsic anti-oxidative system, glutathione peroxidase 2 and peroxiredoxin-2, were significantly upregulated as their expression was increased by 1.33-fold and 1.20-fold respectively. A proteomic analysis performed on a human skin explant model pretreated topically at 1% confirmed these transcriptional results. Thanks to its protective and energy boosting activities, the extract can improve the skin quality of stressed women, as demonstrated in a clinical study enrolling 20 working women who described themselves as stressed and presented a lack of skin firmness and elasticity. Twice daily a formulation containing 1% extract was applied to half the face and a placebo was applied on the other half. After 62 days, skin firmness, tonicity and elasticity were all significantly improved by respectively 20%, 21% and 27%.

igure 2: Protein expression of three circadian genes (Bmal-1, Per-2 and Cry-1) before and after blue light exposure, with and without application of the ingredient based on Lespedeza capitata. figures: Clariant Active Ingredients

Resynchronise stressed skin

With the recent health crisis, mental stress has increased in the population. This mental stress can strongly impact the circadian rhythm by causing lack of sleep. In addition, it was shown that we’ve spent more time in front of screens during this period, thus increasing our exposition to blue-light radiations, known to be oxidative stressors and circadian rhythm disruptors. To help the skin cells resynchronise their circadian rhythm and improve their biological functions, the company developed an active ingredient from Lespedeza capitata⁵, a plant grownand harvested in South Korea where it is used for its medicinal properties. Containing two key glycosylated flavonoids directly involved in circadian clock maintenance – carlinoside and isoschaftoside – the active emulates the ability to resynchronise the circadian cycle within the skin cells, to regulate rhythm-dependent biological functions such as aquaporin-3 and Nrf2 pathway detoxification efficacy.

The protective effect against circadian rhythm’s disruption by blue light was demonstrated by a unique synchronised skin explant model. A skin explant taken from a 43-year-old Caucasian woman was exposed to dexamethasone to synchronise the cells. Then, this explant was exposed to blue light for four hours to induce stress and dysregulate the cells’ circadian rhythm. As expected, protein expression of Bmal-1, Per-2 and Cry-1 were altered. But when the active ingredient at 1% was applied both before and after blue light exposure, these proteins were expressed at the expected time, with the right amplitude and phase rhythmicity (figure 2). On the same explant model, we also demonstrated that the rhythmic oscillations of biological functions such as aquaporin-3 and Nrf2 pathway were maintained even after exposure to blue light. Thanks to its capacity to resynchronise the circadian rhythm, the new active can improve the overall quality of stressed skin, as demonstrated by a clinical trial enrolling 17 women with a dysregulated circadian rhythm (night-workers). After they applied a cream containing 3% active ingredient twice daily on one half-face and a placebo to the other half for 28 days, their skin complexion was improved by 17% after 1 week and 35% after four weeks. More than 85% of the volunteers found their complexion rested and fresh, for a recovered well-being.

Conclusion

The use of skin and body care can be a way to reduce anxiety in this stressful

period, by practicing self-care and concentrating on well-being. By bringing new beauty care routines, the “RetroFuture” concept offers new classic formulations featuring active ingredients inspired from a desirable past and made to re energise and resynchronize stressed skin.