Compliant Solutions for Effective Development and Testing of Cosmetics and Personal Care Products
Be on Safe Side with the Safety of Your Cosmetics
Today, responsible consumer practices means personal care and beauty goes hand in hand with a good balance of science and nature.
Savvy consumers expect naturally derived, clean label, eco-friendly products to enhance their personal well-being. They also expect measurable effects based on science and technology.
Naturally, this means you want the reputation of your brand to be in the best hands when it comes to reliable and stable product quality, safety and efficacy that builds consumer trust. Whether researching and developing new technologies and test methods or managing contamination control by following established good manufacturing practices (GMPs), your standards are high.
You need to rely on a partner who can help with every challenge you face in research and development (R&D), process and quality control procedures and the guarantee of short reaction times and service with the highest level of competence. We are here to make consumer care simple. Isn't that beautiful?
Our Cosmetics and Personal Care support is applicable across a variety of applications, including:
- Microbiological testing for raw materials and finished goods
- Sample preparation analytical testing
- Particulate Matter Analysis
Applications for Cosmetics & Personal Care
The Best Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Start with High-Quality Ingredients
Today consumers want cosmetics and personal care products to be as safe and as natural as possible but also want them to do what they say they will do. As a scientist, you want to ensure that your cosmetics or personal care ingredients are stable, pure, safe, and effective. To do that you need sustainable, robust laboratory products and protocols that help you generate precise, reproducible, and traceable results, to ensure your ingredients meet required regulatory guidelines and product specifications, as well as provide product benefits that customers can see and feel.
Applications for Chemical Composition Analysis
Unwanted impurities in cosmetic and personal care ingredients can come from the environment or can be residual chemicals used or produced during manufacturing. You must sample your ingredients regularly to accurately monitor impurities as they could impact their shelf-life, worse still, they could make your ingredients unstable or produce toxic compounds which make them harmful to use.
What to test for:
- Pesticide residues
- Free fatty acids (should be <2 % to avoid rancidity)
- Phthalates
- Formaldehyde
- Tocopherols and other antioxidants
- Peroxide
We offer sustainable products including high quality balances which can integrate with user management software systems to generate traceable results, as well as precise pipettes, ultrapure water systems and a wide range of membranes for specific filtration applications. These smartly designed products help you efficiently prepare samples for precise, repeatable, cruelty-free testing methods to rapidly ensure the safety, stability and effectiveness of your cosmetics and personal care ingredients every time.
Tools for Sample Preparation for Impurity Testing
Cubis® II Ultra-Micro | Micro & High-capacity Micro Balances
Organic impurities can arise during the manufacturing process and/or storage of a product. Sample preparation is a key step used to identify these process-related impurities.
Cubis® II Premium ultra-micro | micro and high-capacity micro balances are ideal for sample preparation for analytical applications that require very small sample quantities (e.g., elemental analysis). Cubis® II ultra-micro | micro and high-capacity micro balances are the laboratory balances with fully customizable hardware, software, and connectivity. These design elements guarantee a higher degree of adaptability for different workflows, whilst the gesture sensors lower the probability of contamination and reduce human interference during measurement.
Additional features include:
- Modern user interfaces with ergonomic sample handling and easy process integration
- Pharmaceutical and GxP compliance (including data handling, data integrity and connectivity)
- High accuracy and precision
Best models in this application are the MCA2.7S, MCA10.6S, MCA36S, MCA66S or MCA116S.
Cubis® II Configurator: Your Custom Balance in 4 Easy Steps - Configure Now
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To maintain the stability and safety of your powdered cosmetic and personal care ingredients you must keep moisture levels low. Moisture in your raw materials and finished products can cause fungal contamination and if present in your finished cosmetic and personal care products they can for example cause activation of the ingredients before they are ready for consumer use. Checking the moisture content in your raw ingredients and finished goods to maintain it at less than 0.1% before packaging and shipment can keep them safe and effective.
What to test for:
Moisture determination of incoming raw materials
Moisture analysis of your finished products
We offer robust and reliable instrumentation - including precise moisture analyzers and balances which can integrate with user management systems to generate traceable results. This helps you accurately detect and document moisture quickly and easily in your raw materials and finished ingredients, ensuring they are stable and safe for use.
Tools for Moisture Determination
MA160 Moisture Analyzer
Understanding and maintaining the correct moisture content of a product is essential during manufacturing, as well as in research and development and testing laboratories. In a quality control environment, standard moisture testing approaches can be time-consuming, causing delays in production and in facilities that process a number of different kinds of samples, it can be challenging. By using a moisture analyzer you can overcome these bottlenecks and achieve results comparable to your standard method in minimal time.
The MA160 moisture analyzer is designed for quick and reliable moisture testing of a variety of samples, including liquids, pastes, and solids. It accommodates changing requirements by enabling you to use specific methods and efficiently manage all parameters.
Additional features include:
- Enhanced repeatability and balance
- A durable design that withstands heat and harsh environments
- Optimal weighing mechanism (no battery necessary)
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The types of particles in your cosmetic and personal care ingredients can affect formulation, the number of nanoparticles present, or even physical characteristics - such as the amount of gloss your pigments provide.
What to test for:
Average particle size
Size distribution
Shape
We offer a wide variety of products, including a selection of high-performance balances and filters to help you accurately and reproducibly test your samples for particulate matter, allowing your cosmetics and personal care ingredients to meet your customer’s demanding quality, performance, and safety expectations.
Tools for Particulate Matter Analysis
Cubis® II Ultra-Micro | Micro & High-capacity Micro Balances
Particulate matter is an amalgamation of different particles. These can be solid and/or liquid and be of various sizes (from a few nanometers to ~ 100 micrometers). The human or natural-made matter consists of components released directly from the source into the atmosphere (primary) and components that are formed in the atmosphere by chemical reactions (secondary). Particulate matter is a complex and significant health threat, therefore, monitoring and analysis is required for regulatory purposes.
Cubis® II ultra-micro | micro and high-capacity micro balances with specific sample holders for filters.
The Cubis® range of premium balances are designed for high performance weighing. Cubis® II ultra-micro and micro balance MCA2.7S and MCA10.6S can be used in combination with the respective QApp (a pre-installed customer-specific application package) and the draft shield F – a manual stainless steel draft shield designed for filter weighing –providing protection against drafts and electrostatic charges to achieve accurate weighing of filters. Cubis® II high-capacity micro balances are an alternative with outer and inner (recommended) glass draft shield and integrated licensable ionizer. The glasses are coated with a conductive layer to lead away electrostatic charges from the draft shield interior. The ionizer is used to eliminate remaining electrostatic charges on the filters and tools.
Addition features include:
- Configurable balance with different filter holders made of Titanium (50 mm, 75 mm and 90 mm for ultra-micro and micro balances or 75 mm and 150 mm for high-capacity micro balances)
- Proximity sensor for touch-free operation of high-capacity micro balances
- Manual or automatic inner draft shield for Cubis II MCA36S, MCA66S or MCA116S
Cubis® II Configurator: Your Custom Balance in 4 Easy Steps - Configure Now
Octet® BLI in Nanoparticle Research
The Octet® BLI platform can serve as an invaluable tool in nanoparticle (NP) development. It provides several measurable NP quality attributes, including binding affinity, kinetics and stability.
Octet®️ BLI systems do not utilize microfluidics. Samples get measured in microtiter plates and are non-destructive. This is in sharp contrast to surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor systems. A greater flexibility in samples types includes cell lysates or aggregation-prone formulations. The size of the analyte does not affect the measurement either. Hence Octet® BLI systems are an attractive solution for nanoparticles-based biological agent development.
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Knowing the density of your cosmetic and personal care ingredients helps you determine product purity and allows you to achieve consistency with your chemicals from batch to batch. Density measurements also enable production protocols such as determining fill volumes or making weight determinations based on sample volumes.
What to test for:
Density of solids
Density of liquids
Density with pycnometer
We have long-lasting products, including pycnometers and high-performance balances with software, for density applications which can integrate with user management systems to generate traceable results, helping you precisely and reproducibly calculate the density of your powdered or liquid ingredients. The results from your density measurements can assist you with a range of production applications – including determining accurate fill volumes for formulation and bottling.
Tools for Density Testing
Cubis® II analytical & semi-microbalance (Cubis II with Q-App) MCA (package with back-weighing program, QP2 package)
A pycnometer is used to determine the density of a paste or powder. The method relies on the use of a reference liquid with a known density (such as water). The density of the sample is calculated from the difference in weight due to the displacement of the reference liquid.
For density testing of solid samples, a density determination kit can be used. The solid sample is placed on a weighing pan to determine its weight in air, before being submersed in a test liquid. The density of the solid is then calculated and automatically corrected for influencing factors.
Additional features include:
- Ability to test the density of solids, liquids and pastes
- Density determination kit for semi-micro and analytical balances (YDK03MS) or precision balances (YDK04MS)
Cubis® II Configurator: Your Custom Balance in 4 Easy Steps - Configure Now
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Inorganic impurities in cosmetic and personal care ingredients can come from the environment if your ingredients are plant-based or can be produced during the manufacturing process. By performing a residue on ignition analysis, also known as a sulfated ash test, you can determine the content of inorganic impurities in your ingredient sample. If the amount of inorganic ingredients is too high, these could make your ingredients unsafe to use.
What to test for:
Pesticide residues
Production reagents
Inorganic salts
Heavy metals
For residue on ignition applications, we offer robust products including ashless filter papers and precision balances equipped with software which can easily integrate with user management systems to generate traceable results. These help you precisely and reproducibly calculate the percentage of inorganic impurities in your cosmetic and personal care ingredients to ensure they are safe for use.
Tools for Residue on Ignition
Cubis® II analytical & semi-microbalance (Cubis® II incl Q-App); QP2 package
Residue on ignition is an important analysis for ensuring that products are not only safe and effective, but consistent between batches and manufacturers. The residue on ignition test describes the method used to measure the quantity of residual substances that are not volatilized from a sample once it has been ignited in the presence of sulfuric acid. Samples are subjected to heat treatment in a drying oven under the influence of oxygen which destroys organic substances.
The loss of mass (i.e., loss on ignition) represents the organic portion of the sample while the residual ash (i.e., residue on ignition) represents the inorganic portion. The software application residue on ignition (QAPP209) helps users determine initial weight, back weight and residue on ignition in compliance with DIN EN ISO 3451-1, DIN 18128, DIN EN 12879, DIN 19684-3, DIN EN ISO 1172, DIN EN 1879, DIN 38409-2, DIN 38409-1, USP Chapter 42 <281> and European Pharmacopoeia (PhEur) chapter 2.4.14.
Additional features include:
- Software application Residue on ignition with guided workflow
- Elimination of electrostatic charges on samples and tools by built-in ionizer (draft shield version I) or external ionizer (accessory) possible
- Glass draft shield I, A, or U with conductive coating to lead away electrostatic charges from the draft shield interior
Cubis® II Configurator: Your Custom Balance in 4 Easy Steps - Configure Now
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You should be monitoring the quality of the water that goes into manufacturing your cosmetic and personal care ingredients, as well as the wastewater it produces. This is because good quality ingredients often start with good quality water and many substances in your wastewater from your cosmetic and personal care ingredient production can cause major damage to the environment if they enter waterways in high concentrations.
What to test for:
pH
Essential oils
Emulsifiers
Surfactants
Heavy metals
Microbial contamination
We have a wide range of easy-to-use lab tools including precise pipettes, specific filter papers, membranes and media for microbiological testing and robust pH meters to help you sample and analyze your process and wastewater to ensure it maintains its quality and safety profile test after test.
Tools for Process & Ground and Waste Water Analysis
Sartolab® P20 Pressure Filters
Water and wastewater analysis is key to ensuring quality control standards are met and upheld. Groundwater is a drinking water source and consequently must be monitored closely to confirm its suitability for consumption. Unfortunately, groundwater can become contaminated with heavy metals from landfill and industrial site wastewater. Continuous monitoring of the wastewater emerging from these sites enables the detection of potential contaminates that may be leached into the surrounding groundwater, compromising its quality and safety.
The Sartolab® P20 pressure filter is a unit which can be used for sterile filtration or clarification of media, solvent mixtures, and aqueous solutions. The filters can process batches up to 10 L at a time.
These pressure filters can help workflows to detect heavy metals heavy metals and chlorine in water.
Other benefits include:
- Highest flow rates with a large surface of filtration (20 cm²)
- Version available with a prefilter for particle-high-loaded solutions
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Accurately Measuring and Monitoring Product Quality
To ensure your cosmetic and personal care ingredients meet the highest stability, safety, and efficacy standards, you need to perform analytical testing on your incoming raw ingredients, during intermediate production steps, as well as before final release. This helps you determine the levels of chemicals you expect to be there, as well as undesired impurities and potentially toxic or hazardous compounds that may be present. Your analytical testing can be pass/fail or quantitative to guarantee the consistency of your chemicals from batch to batch so that they have the same texture, quality, and performance that your customers expect every time.
Applications for Analytical Testing
High levels of toxic or hazardous chemicals in your cosmetic and personal care products can make them unsafe for use. Good analytical results rely on good sample preparation. With user-friendly sampling methods and accurate analytical tools, you can detect and monitor the levels of these compounds in your ingredients to ensure these do not reach consumers.
What to test for:
- ICP-MS for heavy metal analysis
- HPLC/GC-MS for detecting preservatives
Great samples start with pure water and we provide robust water purification systems for producing ultrapure water for buffer and sample preparation. Clarification of samples is also an essential step prior to virtually all analytical techniques. With leachable and extractable free membrane clarification devices we ensure you will obtain the best analytical results. We also offer precise pipettes and balances with software which can integrate with user management systems to generate traceable results. This combination of trusted sample preparation tools helps you rapidly get the most accurate results from your analysis to deliver safe, stable cosmetics and personal care ingredients.
Sartorius Solutions for HPLC
HPLC Sample Preparation
High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a highly precise, reproducible, and specific analytical method. For optimal results, a sample must be dissolved in the correct solvent and free of particles to reduce interference and prevent blockage of the HPLC column. As a result, of this labor-intensive sample preparation step, the protocol is considerably time-consuming.
Using Sartorius’ products during sample preparation, you can overcome these challenges, save time, and increase the reproducibility of your results. Additional benefits include:
- Higher accuracy and sensitivity
- No blockage and or leachables
- Reduced background noise and false-positive peaks
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Often your cosmetic and personal care ingredients are going to be used in a liquid form, so you must test how stable and effective they are in solution to assure they will be safe and perform as your customers expect them to.
What to test for:
Color
Fragrance
pH
Viscosity
We provide easy-to-use water purification systems for producing ultrapure water on demand and specific membranes and filter papers for high quality aqueous sample preparation. We also offer precise pipettes and balances with software which can integrate with user management systems to generate traceable results. These trusted sample preparation tools help you to consistently produce reliable analytical results.
Tools to Support Wet Chemistry
Cubis® MSA dosing system
Reference samples, also known as standards, are used to determine the concentration of chemical compounds using highly sensitive quantitative analytical procedures. These standards have a defined concentration of one or several known compounds which must be as accurate as possible to prevent subsequent errors when determining unknown sample concentrations.
The Cubis® MSA dosing system simplifies workflows in the preparation of analytical standards. Using the special QApp software, the solvent volume is automatically corrected to the appropriate value, eliminating the need to reach the precise target weight. At the end of the procedure, the weight of the compound and solvent is used to calculate the verified concentration and volume of the standard prepared.
In addition to providing valid and flexible results, other features include:
- Integrated system with software application and automatic preparation of standards
- Standardized process (100% compliant with SOPs) with controlled and consistent workflows
- Automated processes that are cost- and time-efficient
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Managing Your Microbes
Ingredients for cosmetics and personal care are used in products that are applied directly to your customer’s skin, hair, eyes, or mouth so they need to be safe. Good process hygiene is therefore critical when producing and handling these ingredients. Part of that is knowing which microorganisms could be lurking in your water, production, and packaging areas to minimize contamination risks so you need products and protocols which allow you to accurately determine levels of microbes in your cosmetics and personal care ingredients to meet required regulatory guidelines such as USP <61>, USP <62> and USP <1111>.
Applications for Microbiological Testing
High quality ingredients often start with good quality water. Microbes in your process water can contaminate your cosmetic and personal care ingredients making them unstable or unsafe.
To monitor your process water, you must perform regular bioburden tests to evaluate microbial content to be able to react quickly if your water systems exhibit high levels of coliforms or other microbes are present.
What to test for:
- Total Aerobic Microbial Count (TAMC)
- Total Yeast and Mold Count (TYMC)
- Specified pathogenic bacteria including Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp.
We have high-quality products including membrane filtration devices, as well as media and label-free biosensor technologies for effective, and efficient detection of potential pathogenic or spoilage microorganisms in your process water. These enable you to generate accurate, reproducible results and help you meet regulatory requirements with your bioburden testing of cosmetic and personal care ingredients.
Tools for Membrane Filtration
Microsart® Manifold
Bioburden testing is used to measure levels of microbial contamination in a sample. Microbial contamination can cause incorrect results, unproductive workflows and ultimately results in poor product quality and stability. Therefore, quality control laboratories need to achieve accurate detection and quantification of microorganisms in liquid samples (such as those from water systems).
The Microsart® Manifold is an instrument for membrane filtration which provides reliable and reproductible results. This product allows the consumer to select the correct manifolds to suit the needs of individual microbiological testing workflows. For example, reusable or single use funnels/ filtration units and various sized manifolds.
Additional benefits include:
- 100% stainless steel for easy cleaning, full autoclavability without disassembly
- Low height for ergonomic working in laminar flow
- Quick connection adaptors for fast assembly of tubing and manifolds
Octet® Systems for Bacterial Pathogen & Endotoxin Detection
The high-throughput Octet® instruments provide a simple, quick and sensitive platform for the detection of E. coli and other bacterial contaminants label-free. The microfluidic-free sensor design makes it highly suitable for on-site real time detection of pathogens and other contaminants. In addition, the Sartorius Octet® N1 instrument is a miniaturized version of the Octet®, allowing for easy portability of the technology.
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Microbial contamination can be present in your raw materials or could be introduced during the production of your cosmetic and personal care ingredients. Serious microbial contamination can damage your customer confidence and consequently your brand and may have a financial impact on your company. Your ingredients are not expected to be totally free of all microorganisms, but they must be free of potential pathogens and the total number of microorganisms in your ingredients must be below specific limits for them to comply with regulations including USP <61>, USP <62> and USP <1111>.
What to test for:
- Total Aerobic Microbial Count (TAMC)
- Total Yeast and Mold Count (TYMC)
- Specified Microorganisms (as determined by route of entry)
Adhering to a strict, robust sampling plan with in-process controls along the entire production chain from raw materials through to finished ingredients you can easily detect unwanted microbes. We have a broad range of user-friendly products including both single-use and reusable filtration devices and media, as well as label-free biosensor technologies for efficient, accurate detection of potentially pathogenic or spoilage microorganisms to help you meet regulatory requirements with your microbial limits testing.
Tools for Microbial Limits Testing
Microsart® @filter
Microbial limit testing is designed to investigate the quantity and identification of microorganisms present on raw materials, in-process samples and finished products. These tests are needed to confirm the safety of a product or sample, specifically if quantitative limits of certain microorganisms are exceeded, for example Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus or Salmonella.
The Microsart® @filter combines a funnel, filter base and a gridded membrane filter in one unit. This filter unit can detect microorganisms in raw materials, in-process samples and final products across numerous industries including pharmaceutical, cosmetic and personal care. As per USP <61>, membrane filtration is a viable method for detection of microorganisms within your sample.
Key benefits include:
- Ready-to-use sterile filtration devices
- Reliable results as no liquid remains after filtration
- Transparent funnel material allows the filtration process to be visible
Octet® Systems in Formulations & Aggregation Studies
Octet® platforms give you the capability for multiple applications in one system. It enables critical functional stability studies, where the presence of aggregation can be monitored in tandem with more traditional binding analysis such as target binding, potentially saving some users the need for multiple technologies.
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Introducing microbes at any stage in your production and packaging process may cause changes in texture and fragrance, as well as oxidation, and spoilage leading to poor quality ingredients, which may be unsafe for use. Good process hygiene is critical when producing and handling ingredients for cosmetics and personal care use. Part of that is knowing which microorganisms are in the air in your production and packaging areas to minimize contamination risks.
What to test for:
- Test for airborne microorganisms at critical points in your production and packaging areas.
We provide you with suitable products including USP-approved filters and air monitoring systems which can capture even the smallest microbes. These help you accurately detect potentially pathogenic microorganisms and act quickly to remediate, remove high levels of contamination and to ensure your production and packaging areas are clean and safe.
Tools for Air Monitoring
MD8 Airport
Clean rooms and critical zones are essential for research and development in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, food and beverage, and microbiology settings. It is essential that these areas are kept free of any contaminants, such as airborne particles. The presence of these particles must be continuously monitored and kept to a minimum – this can be achieved with accurate and reliable air monitoring systems.
The MD8 Airscan and the portable AirPort MD8 air samplers are designed to detect airborne viruses and microorganisms. Sampling can be conducted isokinetically using the MD8 Airscan. MD8 air samplers, paired with the unique Gelatine Membrane Filters (GMF) and BACTairTM agar plates, facilitate routine monitoring of airborne microbes and viruses enabling timely detection of critical situations.
Key benefits include:
- Portable system which is battery-powered
- Sample volume and volume flow can be adjusted
- Easy to clean and comes in an ergonomic design
Data Analytics for Success in Manufacturing and R&D
Data analytics allows you to keep full control over your processes from raw material to finished product. Speed-up and make your incoming goods analysis even more accurate with multivariate data analysis (MVDA) to find sub-standard or adulterated materials right at the beginning. With information gained you can also finetune production steps to accommodate for slight variations in material properties. Real-time process control based on models created with MVDA will let you to detect and correct deviations from the ideal production process even before any operator notices that something is going wrong and so to avoid upsets and lost batches.
New product development bears several risks, apart from finding the right product that consumers expect or favor, speed to market and cost are also to be considered. Data analytics helps to find the right recipe, optimized towards all these factors, also providing best compromises in case of conflicting goals. In addition, it will help you scale up your production from lab via pilot to full production scale, minimizing disruption and quality problems caused through changes in volumes and other parameters.
In summary, we provide analytical software with regular updates which helps you accurately and rapidly analyze large data sets from your production and analytical lab tests, ensuring your cosmetics and personal care ingredients and final products are stable, safe, and effective, as well as comply with the required regulatory standards for cosmetics and personal care products.
Sartorius Solutions for Data Analytics
Developing Complex Formulations
When it comes to evaluating the chemical properties of a formulation process, data analytics streamlines the process. MODDE® Design of Experiments (DOE) software lets you select the most influential ingredients for a new formulation and to focus on these in product development. This allows you to predict the properties of untested formulations based on the properties tested, reducing the number of experiments you need to do to find the most promising product for your purposes, saving time and money.
Optimizing Sensitive Production Processes
SIMCA® Multivariate Data Analysis software provides a comprehensive toolbox for data mining, multivariate data analysis (MVDA) and modelling complex processes. You and your team can investigate sources of variability and adjust processes to maximise sustainability while maintaining quality e.g. by reducing waste and increasing yields.
Monitoring Processes in Real-time
Real-time batch process monitoring is one of the most effective ways to ensure your processes achieve optimum performance and meet their critical quality attributes. With SIMCA®-online you can easily visualize and interpret the behaviour of all your processes at a glance, giving you process intelligence to maximize productivity and improve product quality.
Seamless Integration of Our Lab Balance Into Data Management and Analytics Software
Integrating laboratory instruments into your IT environment is a crucial task when it comes to the digitalization of both R&D and QC laboratories to increase operational efficiency, data integrity and the use of data analytic tools.
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Service & Support
Peak Performance
To ensure your cosmetics and personal care ingredients are safe and comply with the required regulatory standards, you need to produce accurate test results. That means your laboratory equipment must perform at its best day after day for many years so will need servicing, calibration, and software updates to keep it in tip top condition.
There When You Need Us
We offer a global network of service and support, with trained experts and scientists to help you. This means we can assist you with servicing, calibration, technical questions, software updates and repairs as and when you need them, allowing you to minimize downtime and keep testing your cosmetics and personal care ingredients to ensure they are safe, stable, and effective.
