this post is sponsored by ROELMI•HPC
Walk any trade show floor, search any digital discovery platform, and you will find that no one in the cosmetic and personal care ingredient marketplace is not telling a sustainability story.
Indeed everyone should be. It is imperative that our industry today is focused on environmental sustainability. And it is important that companies put this focus into words and tell memorable stories that accurately describe not only the practices, and processes, and products they make but also the underlying beliefs that guide the company’s decision making.
“Our mission goes beyond the pursuit of high-quality products,” says ROELMI HPC CEO Rosella Malanchin, “We want to be an example of how industry can be a positive agent for change. Kintsugi teaches us that repair and continuous improvement are fundamental to sustainable growth.”
The Art of Kintsugi
In Japan, the time-honored art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer that’s dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum is known as Kintsugi.
Rather than throwing away damaged pottery—treating it as waste—a Kintsugi artist creates new value, transforming what would otherwise be seen as a flawed and useless object into something uniquely beautiful. This process not only restores the functionality of the object but also imbues it with a new identity, celebrating its history and journey.
At ROELMI HPC, “our philosophy is rooted in creating deeper connections, not only between our products and consumers but also between our company and the environment,” Elisa Altieri, Ph.D., Market Manager Personal Care, tells me.
“By transforming what many consider waste into valuable resources,” she says, “we’re reducing environmental impact and promoting a circular economy. This approach not only minimizes waste but also creates high-performance, sustainable products, aligning with our mission to respect the environment while meeting consumer needs for effective and safe cosmetics.”
In short, “the valorization of by-products is an act of connection,” explains Altieri, “where each piece tells a story of respect for the Earth.”
The Science of Sustainability
Following this philosophy, ROELMI HPC makes both functional and active ingredients for the cosmetic and personal care industry. The company headquarters is in Origgio, Lombardy, Italy.
ROELMI HPC partners with Italian businesses along the agri-food chain, recovering byproducts from the agricultural and industrial sectors, byproducts such as fruit peels, seeds, and process waters from juice production. “These materials, typically discarded as waste, are transformed through advanced extraction and processing technologies into valuable cosmetic ingredients,” says Altieri.
It’s an upcycling process that “not only reduces waste but also creates ingredients that enhance skin health and beauty, demonstrating a practical application of our sustainability ethos.”
At ROELMI HPC, residual process waters that go unused after juice production become ingredients like Ener-GY plus®, which is sometimes referred to as ‘your smiling skin energizer’. The basic premise here is that skin functions a bit differently (more optimally) when we smile and laugh. And this ingredient helps the skin get those benefits topically in multifunctional complexion product formulations, skin microbiota care, classical skincare, and other toiletries.
Comprised of glyceryl glucoside in an upcycled Mediterranean matrix and developed using enzymatic technology, Ener-GY plus® metabolically and energetically increases active mitochondria, thereby creating the conditions for metabolism and trophic cell processes.
In-vitro data shows a 54.9% increase in active mitochondria after 24 hours. And in-vivo study results demonstrate a 2.0% improvement in skin elasticity after 14 days and a 6.0% improvement after 28 days (at the recommended 1.0% dosage).
The biologically active ingredient is rich in fruit oligoelements; these are the essential minerals that were once in the soil of a lemon grove, then were taken in by the tree, passed into the fruits, and remain in the biologically active process water that ROELMI HPC uses to make Ener-GY plus® (INCI: Citrus Limon Fruit Extract, Glyceryl Glucoside, Glycerin, Potassium Sorbate).
The ingredient is just one example of how the team at ROELMI HPC appreciates the potential, finds the value, and realizes the beauty in a material sourced from nature that would otherwise be discarded as waste.
The rich emollient ester, EMotion Glow® is another such example. To develop this ingredient, the team at ROELMI HPC starts with traceable byproducts of the olive industry. These non-edible olive fractions are isolated and purified to develop an emollient with a higher film-forming effect and faster skin absorption. EMotion Glow® (INCI: Triolein, Glyceryl Dioleate) has a bright touch or skin feel, good spreadability and playtime, and skin nourishing effects. The ingredient not only brings enhanced aesthetics to skincare and color cosmetic formulations; but it is also quite compatible with other ingredients and as such brings stabilizing properties to formulations as well.
The natural oil-phase gelling agent or rheology modifier called Olifeel Pearls® is made from non-edible olive fruit byproducts too. This versatile ingredient can readily replace all synthetic and semi-synthetic gelling agents used in the oil phase of a formulation. The hemispheric Olifeel Pearls® are fully saturated triglycerides, odorless, solid, white in color, and have a melting point higher than skin temperature.
“Its C16-18 specific fatty acids composition [has a] 5°C to 10°C higher melting temperature than other aliphatic C16-18 saturated fatty acids. Indeed, they show a peculiar configuration, inferring a precise and repeatable conformation at the molecular level, promoting molecular interactions by hydrogen bridge bonds (i.e. especially strong dipole-dipole attractions),” according to materials the company shared. Olifeel Pearls provide both functional emollient benefits, and skincare anti-oxidation benefits.
The Technology of Transformation
Upcycling is something of a sustainability buzzword in beauty today. It’s a concept that is fairly easy to understand and a term that holds meaning for suppliers, brands, and end consumers.
The technologies that ROELMI HPC uses to transform materials once seen only as waste and to create new ingredients of value for our industry are more numerous and sophisticated than the term upcycling might suggest. The company works with biotechnology, green chemistry, efficient production processes, clean fractionation tech, and more.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit their cosmetic ingredient R&D labs in Novara, Italy, a short distance from their Origgio site. The labs are collocated with university research facilities, making knowledge sharing and collaborative projects common practice.
At the ROELMI HPC R&D labs, I was able to see firsthand how their team of biotechnologists are solving puzzles—identifying prospective raw materials left over from the agri-food sector and using precision fermentation to develop bioferments that deliver sought-after skincare, hair care, and complexion product benefits.
The team also showed me how they develop strain-specific metabolites, optimizing bacterial culture media to produce essential metabolites that when used in skincare product formulations, for instance, can improve barrier function.
This is ongoing work; and even as you read this, biotechnologists at ROELMI HPC are exploring the potential of new materials and assessing fermentation options. They’re working with an array of bacterial culture media and developing metabolites.
In this way, their work is similar to that of Japan’s Kintsugi artists. They are turning ostensibly damaged goods into something uniquely beautiful, finding the processes that will not only restore functionality to the materials but also imbue them with a new identity, celebrating their history and journey, and respecting the Earth.
“Businesses can contribute positively to the environment and society,” Altieri tells me. And in doing so the team at ROELMI HPC is helping our industry advance toward circularity and all the while serving as an example of how even a single ingredient supplier can be a positive agent for change.
this post is sponsored by ROELMI•HPC
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