In-cosmetics Global 2026: Natix calls for return to basics with natural enzymes
13 May 2026 | Natix
Stefaan Vandaele, CEO at Natix, spoke about the company’s mission to standardize and extract high-quality molecules from nature. The company specializes in naturally derived enzymes and essential oils in niche markets like angelica oils and snail extracts for cosmetic applications. Vandaele shared his insights on the growing shift from petrochemicals to natural bioactives, emphasizing the importance of returning to traditional practices passed down through generations.
This is Ella J Dual for Personal Care Insights from In Cosmetics Global 2026, joined by Stefan van Daal, the CEO of Nex.
Hello Stefan, good afternoon.
So could you tell me a little bit about Nat please?
NTx is an international group based with the head office based in Belgium, Waterloo, and we are active in standardizing and extracting molecules from nature.
That's why our name comes from natural ingredients within its factory for improving human lives.
Maybe what I can add is that within that category we specialize really in some niche markets.
Some of them are natural enzymes, natural derived enzymes, plant derived enzymes like papa and bromelain, known, also animal derived enzymes more used in the pharmaceutical industry like pancreatin, pancreatic.
Trypsin.
So this is the enzyme category.
Besides that, we have an essential oil category with very niche market essential oils like Angelica, Valerian Lovich, and the third category is a very special one, is the snail extract, very known, of course, in cosmetic applications.
OK, thank you.
And you have a very focused catalog of 5 to 6 essential oils.
How do you decide on these ingredients?
As I said, we really look for bioactives, so it's not typical essential oils which are used in flavor and fragrances.
These ones are being used in flavor and fragrances as , of course, but all of them do have functional benefits as in cosmetical use as in health applications, and that's why we focus on them.
And within these categories we really need and we want to manage that from the source up to the final product, so we work with.
Farming in the Benelux area but also in Congo, in Indonesia and India where we really work on growing the planning of the plants, the extraction methodology, and the standardization so that we can guarantee over the years good harvest, bad harvest, a constant quality of product.
Fantastic.
And how do you balance scaling farmer grade ingredients that are naturally sourced while being Integrated vertical integration of course is key.
If you want to grow to pharmagrade molecules, bioactives.
It's very important that we manage the whole supply chain and that we can control the quality from.
My final question is, what kind of market potential do you see in bioactives?
We see a trend and a shift from petrochemical chemicals to more natural bioactives.
And especially the ones with really functional benefits are being looked for.
And of course now the know-how of our grandmothers, or the grandmothers of our grandmothers, science backed with the science of today and of course together with the artificial intelligence that helps us of course shorten research and development flows and helps us developing new applications within this cosmetical.
