In-cosmetics Global 2026: Melt&Marble presents “designer lipid” for skin nourishment
17 Apr 2026 | Melt&Marble
At In-cosmetics Global, Thomas Cresswell, the chief business officer of Melt&Marble, discussed Marble7, the company’s ingredient designed to mimic human skin sebum. The "three-in-one" bioactive lipid offers control over composition and end function. According to Cresswell, the ingredient opens the door to a “whole universe of designer lipids,” enabling tailored applications across a variety of formulations and applications. The company is already working with its first customer, who is set to launch a product featuring Marble7 in the coming months.
This is Ella J Dual for Personal Care Insight at In Cosmetics Global 2026.
I'm joined by Thomas Cresswell, the CBO of Melt and Marble.
Hello, Thomas.
Hello, great to meet you.
Great to meet you too.
So you're presenting Marble 7.
How does this precision fermented lipid improve formulation performance or skin benefits compared with conventional oils and fats?
That is a great question, and Marble 7 has been designed for the first time to be mimicking human skin sebum when it comes to its underlying composition.
But not only that, due to our technology to create these designer lipids, we can control not only the composition of lipids and fats.
But actually the end functionality of those snippets and fats.
So what that means in practice is we can control things like the melting performance or even the whippability or emulsification of these ingredients, and what that unlocks is a whole new world of sensory performance in the end formulations, but also introducing specific bioactive fatty acids that can deliver targeted benefits for skin, hair, and other application areas.
OK.
And how does your precision fermented platform enable tailoring of fatty acid profiles and lipid structures to address trends like sustainability, sensory experience, or bioactive functionality in?
Another great question, and this is really the core of our technology, and what we do at Mountain Marble is we create what we call designer fats and lipids, and by that it means We're able to control not only the fatty acid composition, we can control the chain length of those fatty acids.
We can control the saturation and even how they assemble to form fully structured triglycerides.
And what that means for us is we can create this whole universe of designer lipids with very targeted profiles addressing different benefits or different end applications.
Now all of that being said, of course, To develop very targeted or specific new lipids or fats, there is an R&D cycle behind that.
But we're also able to use, for example, our first ingredient, marble 7, and still change some of the compositional features to make it more liquid or more solid to address a range of applications within that space.
But technically with our platform we can reduce any kind of fat, lipids, or related.
And given recent funding and strategic backing from players like Bayersdorf, how are you partnering with formulators or brands to accelerate co-development and validation of performance claims?
Another great question.
And here we're really at that stage now where we're pre-commercial, but we're launching imminently.
And with the backing of Bayersdorf, of course we have naturally.
Ongoing discussions with them on how they can introduce some of our ingredients into their portfolio both in new product development but also into existing product formulations.
And right now we're partnering with a lot of different brands in the ecosystem who are also doing testing and new product development using Marvel 7, and we even have our first customer who is launching their first product using this in the next few months.
Of that we are also now finalizing various agreements with distributors to bring our products to markets all around the world.
And my final question is, what key market trends do you see driving demand for designer fats and personal care, and how should formulators be preparing for these shifts?
Another great question.
And here there's a lot of trends which are playing into what we are doing here at.
Marble and to give you the high level summary, first of all, there is a shift towards more clean label formulations, so ingredients with shorter ingredient lists, and with marble 7, for example, being a 3 in one bioactive lipid, it's actually able to replace multiple ingredients in a formula, not only the traditional emollients or oils, but also bioactives, maybe even emulsifiers and other structuring.
Or thickening agent, so we're able to provide an ingredient that can make clean label products.
It's also very sustainable from a production method.
We're using biotech and fermentation, which are also hot trends in the market right now.
So we really see that we're at this really nice point where we're addressing multiple trends with the technology platform that we have.
Thank you very much, Thomas.
