Cosmetic Business 2024: Provital showcases “ecosystem ingredient” in skin care for the first time

07 Jun 2024 --- Provital presents its new active ingredient for cosmetics, Shiloxome, made from endophytes, at Cosmetic Business in Munich, Germany. On the trade show floor, Personal Care Insights speaks to Hagen Döring, Provital’s area sales manager, about how it adopted pharmaceutical technology for the first time in the beauty industry. 

Endophytes are symbiotic microorganisms that live inside plants, promoting beneficial effects on their growth and development. 

“Endophytes have never been used for the production of cosmetic ingredients before, it was used in the pharmaceutical industry before when a company in the US developed a pharmaceutical product to treat breast cancer,” explains Döring. 

The company uses plant endophytes as a “sustainable and effective” source to produce new natural active ingredients. Its goal is to maintain biodiversity and prevent using the current “huge” plant biomass needed to achieve active compounds for cosmetic purposes.

Sustainable sourcing
Döring explains that the endophytes used to treat breast cancer were so successful that people “celebrated it as a big blockbuster.” However, to supply the ingredients, five trees would need to be cut down to treat a single patient.

Shiloxome’s before and after results.“That is not at all sustainable. So they researched further where this active substance came from inside the tree and discovered those endophytes producing the substance they were looking for,” he says.

The pharmaceutical company then isolated the endophytes from the tree and brought them to the lab, where the endophytes started producing the active substance they were looking for.

“We are using the same technology now to produce active ingredients for cosmetics, and we have launched the first one, which is Shiloxome,” continues Döring.

Provital touts that Shiloxome is the “first ecosystem ingredient ever developed through Triplobiome Technology” — a biotechnological protective solution that “goes beyond” barrier care with a comprehensive whole-lipidome analysis. 

Shiloxome is an anti-pollution and overall skin restructuring active that supplies the skin with a preventive and corrective well-aging effect on epidermal and dermal cells.

Döring explains that plants have microbiomes, and endophytes play an essential role. They produce substances the plants need to grow better and defend themselves against heat, drought and more. Preserving the skin microbiome is a current trend in skin care.

We have already isolated seven or eight different strains of other endophytes. So, we will continue to launch new ingredients based on endophytes. It’s a very sustainable process as it is lab-grown, so you don’t need much water or space to grow the plants or fertilizers. So it’s a very sustainable way,” Döring concludes.

By providing these sustainable ingredients, Provital’s goal is the complete “greenization” of the cosmetics industry. 

By Sabine Waldeck with live reporting from Anita Sharma at Cosmetic Business 2024