Ingredients + Specialties from Univar Solutions: Clean home care and personal care converge
12 Feb 2026 | Ingredients + Specialties from Univar Solutions
Kristen Mauch, application development specialist for Home Care and Industrial Cleaning at Univar Solutions, discusses how brands are under increasing pressure to deliver cleaning products that are powerful, fast-acting, and aligned with rigorous sustainability expectations. Performance with Purpose, a new formulation kit from Ingredients + Specialties at Univar Solutions, is designed to prove that high-efficacy cleaning and responsible ingredient selection can coexist without compromise. Mauch also highlights how aspects of the beauty industry are increasingly seeping into the home care category.
This is Sabina Waldeck for Personal Care Insights.
Joining me today is Kristen Mock, application development specialist for home care and industrial cleaning at Univar Solutions.
Welcome, Kristen.
So let's jump right into the interview.
Ahead of the American Cleaning Institute meeting, Univar has launched two new prototype concept kits for home care, dish and laundry solutions, and performance with purpose.
Can you walk me through the main stand standout points from each?
Yeah, yep, so, in today's market, we all know, consumers are demanding more from their products, right?
More personalization, more efficacy, more ethical sourcing, and just overall more transparency in their ingredients.
There's no longer really a distinction between cleanliness and -being, right?
Cleaning is an act of self-care now, and so, these kits are really wellness-driven cleaning products.
Sustainability, we all know, is reshaping the laundry and dish space.
And so, in the dish and laundry kit, we're looking towards greener ingredients like enzymes, for example, to boost performance.
And then in performance with purpose, we're really leaning into probiotic cleaning, and that longer-lasting cleaning claim that consumers are looking for.
And both of these kits also have some innovative formats, which is a growing trend we, we see as brands are starting to explore ways to reduce their plastic packaging, reduce their water usage, and overall just offer a more convenient product, right?
And, so we hope with these kits that our customers will find inspiration for their next innovative product that meets the market need.
And how is the home care industry evolving right now, particularly let's say in dish and laundry, as you mentioned, moving more into self-care and things like that, and what trends do you think are having the biggest impact on formulation?
Yeah, so, we are seeing brands that have been, more traditionally focused on the beauty and personal care space, start to explore home care products, right?
Dish and laundry are kind of naturally complementary spaces for a personal care brand.
And it's an easy jump to make, you know, if you're already buying a surfactant, for like a hand soap or a shampoo or something, a dish soap or a laundry detergent is just a little bit different of a formulation, right?
So, I will say though, with this evolution, a lot of home care launches are starting to incorporate personal care elements, like, like a personalized fragrance, skincare ingredient, that type of thing, that are atypical of the home care space.
For example, you, you might have seen there are a few fragrance houses that have launched cleaning products, mostly laundry, with their scents, which makes sense cause if you're, you know, putting your scent on your skin, and you also wanna kind of boost it with your clothes, right?
Or you might have seen some, there are some celebrity-founded cleaning brands out on the market.
And those are aiming for, you know, a more premium tier of cleaning, where aesthetics are also very important.
It has to like look nice on the shelf and all.
So products like that have been interesting to follow.
But at the end of the day, consumers do still expect performance, right?
So, finding a way to balance those more premium ingredients with cleaning efficacy and cost, of course, has been a challenge that we've been excited to help our customers navigate.
Yeah, and speaking of like challenges and some of the ones that you are mentioning, what are some of these key challenges that you're aiming to solve with the dish and laundry sector within the dish and laundry sector with your solutions?
Yeah, so, we've seen consumer preference shift to be more eco-friendly, more sustainable, right?
With that shift though, their expectation around performance remains the same, the product has to work, right?
And it needs to be convenient to use.
Consumers are living busier lives than ever, and they want cleaning that could be done quickly and that will last.
So, with these kits, we looked to incorporate thoughtful ingredients that would support these needs.
So enzymes, for example, those are gonna enable a shorter and a colder wash cycle in laundry.
So, that'll save consumers time, energy, and money.
And then microbes are going to provide that long-lasting cleaning effect, that will save consumers from having to clean again so soon.
Who wants to clean their bathroom more than they have to, right?
So, we hope to address the need for eco-friendly ingredients, with effective and easy to use products.
And you mentioned sustainability in the beginning of that answer.
So, how has the rise of eco-conscious and clean label products influenced the way the brands and or Univar approach dish and laundry solutions?
Yeah, it's, it's definitely something that's top of mind for us as we create our formulations, and we see it from the brands that we work with as.
Consumers are becoming more educated about cleaning ingredients, and they're definitely more likely to try a product that aligns with their values in that sense.
Clean Talk is a huge platform.
Last year, I think I saw it had garnered like 150 billion views.
So, clearly, folks are interested in learning more about what they're bringing into their homes, and making more conscious decisions in that area.
I will say though that green means something different to everyone, right?
So sometimes your focus is on, bio-based raw materials.
Sometimes it's in the end-use application like a cold water detergent.
Or sometimes it's in the product format, like if you're wanting to make a tablet or a sheet that is gonna use less water during, you know, production and during shipping, and also less plastic, like a lot of those alternative format products are in cardboard packaging, which is more easily recyclable.
So a lot of different ways you can consider sustainability, But part of the performance with Purpose campaign is going to be a, a blog series around this that will hopefully elaborate on the many sustainable claims that are available in the market.
There's a ton of green language out there, so we hope to help our customers untangle that.
But overall, yes, green is definitely criteria that we look to include in our formulations in some capacity.
And our very talented chemists at the, Houston Solution Center are always up for that challenge.
And that is all for me, but do you have anything else that you'd like to add?
Yeah, one last point I wanted to make is, just with the performance with Purpose campaign, there will be a nice self-service tool on our website that will allow you to select different areas of the, the room that you'd like to clean and see the corresponding, formulations and the ingredients that go in them.
So please go find that.
I, I believe it's launching here in March.
But, overall, our ingredients and specialties team is always creating new innovation formulas like these, and we have access to a great portfolio of, products and suppliers.
So, we're happy to take on projects like this.
And if you are attending ACI, I know it's probably almost over now, but, if you are attending ACI or any of the other upcoming cleaning shows this year, please find myself or one of my colleagues and make sure to connect.
And Kristen, thank you so much for joining Personal Care Insights.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Happy to be here.
