Return to Nature: the Beauty’s Industry’s new paradigm
Learning from cats, trees, fish fungus and more: How the Beauty industry re-approaches Nature
Nature is our ally. Finally, industries are beginning to understand and incorporating that truth more and more as companies take their cues increasingly from nature — mimicking how Nature does things.
After all, Nature is a giant interconnected, perfect living organism. The blueprint to life. The answer to solving problems.
Nature gives us unlimited free patents, from protecting ourselves from radiation to understanding colors without chemical pigments.
Plants and animals have been partners of human beings since the beginning of humankind. While the Industrial Revolution beginning 80 years ago severed humanity’ connection from Nature and replaced what was once a holy trinity of the good, the true and the beautiful with synthetic, cheap, chemical substitutes, the industry’s return to Nature in taking inspiration of how things are done is encouraging.
It inspires hope.
No doubt, biotech, machine learning and companies’ quest for more sustainable practices are drivers of the return-to-nature approach. In combination of a need for new innovation. But the game-changers are a set of changing principles anchored in a return to beauty as Nature intends it.
Today, change comes from asking the right questions: such as how can we create sensoriality for a cosmetic product by other means than polymers? Colors by other means than pigments? Biomimetics as a scientific discipline to understand how nature is developing those functions, and tap into the perfection of the intelligence of nature to apply that to products that are good for humanity and planet.
The intelligence of Creation used only four ingredients for billions of outcomes. A marvelous design encompassing supertechnologies, capabilities and functionalities far advanced from any human achievement. Nature is the blueprint of a master architecture of the great architect and knows how to solve challenges with few resources, no matter how adversarial the circumstances.
Beauty groundbreakers
Many beauty pioneers are increasingly tapping into this vast resource of design and functionality to get inspired: French L’Oréal Group uses biomimicry transversally, from a product level, to production to packaging to cleaning up soil. The latest inspirations in overview:
Cats for hygiene with less water:
L’Oreal learned that the structure of cats’ tongues and cats’ saliva create an enzymatic process breaking down dirt which could help clean with less use of water.
Crickets to study the resilience of materials:
L’Oréal also studies crickets. The loud musicians teach about resilience of materials. Crickets produce noise from mechanical stress. Thus, a perfect application of resilience of materials. As a side note, cricket noise spiritually — is a direct manifestation of sound and can actually help you tap into the creative energy quality of stability.
Trees to study how exposure to the Sun can happen without burning:
Excessive exposure of skin to Sun leaves traces and adds to aging. So, L’Oréal looks to trees to find ways of protecting from UV radiation. Why? Trees are constantly under the sun, yet don’t burn. L’Oreal concluded: trees don’t burn due to a coat of specific wax structures that reflect damaging rays.
Colors without pigments:
Nature is full of colors. Where better to turn to study colors without pigments. So, the group turned to blue morpho butterfly to study how the wings are created without pigment.
At close observation, one can observe that nature is created by color and sound. Resulting in specific structural organizations and specific designs that are linked to a particular function. This is what makes biomimetics a derivative of biomimicry, bionics, patterns and cybernetics a viable and much better approach to product innovations, going forward
Grasshoppers for understanding jumping higher than oneself:
Grasshoppers — and other insects — can jump multiple times higher than themselves, countless times per day. Mechanically, a protein, called resilin, acts like a spring in these insects with no energy loss. But not only. Spiritually, wing bearers are direct expressions of the air element; with a very close link to Source. Their energy is finely tuned into source energy: Insects move fast and are lightweight; like the elevated, limitless mind. A typical expression of the air element.
An Israeli beauty tech start-up, called Smart Resilient combines the strongest plant material, nanocellulose, with resilin considered to be the most resilient and elastic material in nature. Film-forming properties make it ideal for anti-aging skincare and hair-styling. The company develops the resilin through a bacteria fermentation process.
Pine cones to see how humidity can be locked out for hair care:
Mibelle Biochemistry researchers were inspired by how pine cones are closed in humid conditions but open in drier environments. So, they applied this as an active ingredient to hair care.
Fish mucus for sunscreen:
Mibelle also took inspiration from fish mucus, which acts as a sunscreen.
At this point, beauty tools have benefited from biomimetics, too. Estée Lauder for example created cosmetic applicators that mimic flower petals to help with a product’s laydown.
Biomimetics is not only applied as Nature-inspired innovation in product development. It also can pave the way to improved and more eco-friendly packaging.
L’Oréal is working with partners such as NovoBiome, on technology that helps clean soil by mirroring how fungus does that in the forest.
As part of its L’Oréal for the Future initiative which aims to have 95 percent of its formula ingredients biobased, derived from abundant minerals or from circular processes, L’Oreal has built an ecosystem of innovators to pave the way to reach that goal and apply it to its factories.
Conclusion:
Biomimetics is a discipline, consumers and researchers alike can get excited about. Not only does it take its cues from nature ensuring that design and functionality take us to new heights, better integrate into the ecosystem circle and bring out better products. — The creative power of nature as a guide for research and education - makes us a part of nature again. It can open tremendously new doors and help us adapt to new environmental circumstances. Since intelligence has been accompanying evolution of matter since its very beginnings reaching a peak in the human brain, there’s no better guide to help us move forward than the intelligence with which the world was created. Just tapping into small parts of it, will make it worthwhile.
