Today the beauty and health industry is a rapidly growing market. The health and beauty industry is continuously driven to reinvent itself. International fashion and trends drive the sector and force the industry to create ever new, attractive and more caring products. This shortens product innovation cycles. Successful cosmetic products in the market convince consumers by their care factor, their sensitivity, by quality ingredients and by their branding. Therefore, pharmaceutical and beauty companies invest much of their funds in research and development to upgrade their products such as spa items, hair and health beauty items or decorating cosmetics like makeup.

 

Laboratories in the health and beauty sector develop new products and research new ingredients for beauty and health products. The reason is obvious: Human skin is very much stressed by aggressive UV light and environmental pollution. Heated air in winter or poor nutrition stress our skin, the biggest organ of the human body, even more. There are more than 2,600 ingredients for cosmetics which are known to cause allergies and health problems. There is also a quite extensive list of more than 1,200 cosmetics ingredients which are harmful and forbidden for usage in products for health and beauty. Research shows that every 10th user of cosmetics faces skin problems due to the usage. Often the allergic reaction does not appear immediately, but after a couple of weeks or months and makes its diagnosis and detection therefore rather difficult. Lots of allergies are caused by fragrances. Of course, it is important that cream soaks in quickly, shower gel smells pleasantly and shampoo cleans our hair. However, especially skin, hair and body care products have to be sensitive.

 

Beauty and healthy living are not excluding themselves when consumers think about what they want, need and check upon purchase that the product does not contain chemical and artificial ingredients – especially when bought for the use of baby and kids skin. The most important question is: How can a consumer know which ingredients are harmful? There is an international directory of cosmetics ingredients (the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) which lists and defines these substances. European legislation is rather strict – this is of utmost importance for people who suffer from allergies and are extremely dependent on honest declarations of ingredients. A careful approach to the use of new cosmetics is to abide by the recommendations on the packaging.