Botanical Extracts in Beauty. A 101 w/ Prof Monique Simmonds PhD

0:10Welcome back to the EcoWell podcast. This is a show about the science of cosmetics. My name's Jen and I'll be your host. Extracts and cosmetics are a lot more complex than I think many realize. From the sourcing to their production, quality control chemistry, and so much more. This episode will get into the weeds of botanical extracts and beauty. A request from my Patreon supporters, so glad I was able to make this conversation happen for you. Featuring none other than Prof. Monique Simmons, who's a world-leading expert on this topic and just phenomenally knowledgeable. Before the episode, thank you so much to my Patreon supporters for supporting my SciCom work, including this podcast.

0:55Thank you for helping me continue to create content like this. If you'd like to support my work on Patreon and it's accessible, you can find me at patreon.com slash the eco well. Other great ways to support this podcast is by subscribing to it on whatever platform you listen to it on, writing a review for the podcast if you haven't already, and sharing. With that, here's the episode.

1:22and so I am here with Prof Monique Simmons who is phenomenally knowledgeable about all things botanicals and beauty and today we're going to have a 101 conversation about a topic that was requested to me which is botanical extracts and I think like a lot of people think they know a little bit about it, but don't realize the vast complexity of this topic. So I think that this conversation will be a really good opportunity to dig in a little bit. And for groundwork, I figure I should start with the basics. So from your point of view, what is an extract?

2:07Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Okay. And in simple terms, you could say it's like making a cup of tea. You have the ground up tea material, you put hot water onto it. And of course, you get the equivalent of an infusion and the liquid, therefore, that you then drink is basically an extract. So the same for coffee, coffee grains, you add water and you make an extract. Of course, commercially, they can do that in very many different ways. So basically, we are talking really like an infusion based on plant material. And this leads really well to my next question. And as you're talking, I'm like, what about those powdered extracts?

2:59So can you give us a general 101 on the variability for how extracts are produced?

3:07Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Okay, so taking your tea example, let's say you filter and get rid of the tea leaves. You've still got the compounds that you've extracted. The ingredients are still now in the liquid. If you dried that, you would get a powder. and some companies will send you the powdered extract rather than sending the liquid extract because then you can do more things with it when you get it if it's a powder form. So you've got complexity with regards what is the solvent in case water you could use alcohol you could use a whole range of different materials to make the extract and they will vary in the ingredients they extract from the plants.

4:04You can also make extracts through distillation and then you have

4:12Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: material like essential oils which then can be put into extracts to be sent. So how you make the extract determines what the ingredients are going to be. Of course, you have to have the ingredients in the plant material to begin with. So let's just take that as standard. Then how you make that extract can really vary a lot. When a company is ordering an extract from a plant, let's say it's aloe, then they need to be requesting a particular type of extract. And a good company would supply that information. How do the different production slash extraction methods impact the quality of the final extract product?

5:04Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Okay, so this is where the quality of the material is important. Because if the quality of the material is poor, then you'll only be able to get a poor extract from it. So let's take the material as being good quality. Then in a way, you need to know what you're looking. What's the ingredients in that plant? What are the phenolics or the polysaccharides? What's the type of chemistry that you want to have in your extract that you're going to use in the beauty products. Then the company will optimize the extraction by using specific solvents to extract. And you can tell whether they've done that because you could ask for a fingerprint of the extracted material, the fingerprint being an indication of the ingredients in it, either compounds, or the company might be selling it as X percentage of phenolics or X percentage of rosemary acid.

6:20Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: So you'll know then that the extract is of the quality that you want. But sometimes people are just wanting to have an extract because they can then put extracts of say sandalwood or something like that on the back of pack and they really haven't evaluated what the quality of that material is and I'm afraid that often happens. What about where extracts are produced? So what's the picture like for the common extracts that are used in the personal care industry? And what should people know about the regional implications for extract production and extract end quality? And this is just such a giant question.

7:10Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: It's a huge question, this one. You could start off with a simple idea, is that some plants only grow in some parts of the world or have restricted, let's say, argan oil. The argan tree is mostly distributed in North Africa, let's say Morocco. And so you would expect the information that a supplier would have that it would be argan oil, possibly organically grown or something like that from Morocco. You won't always use that on the information on the end product, but the company making that product will know that it comes from Morocco. Now, it is important to know, and I think it's going to become increasingly important to know, and more people, more suppliers, now want to know the providence of the material.

8:14for reasons on quality, but also that often then links to a story behind that plant,

8:22Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: i.e. how it was traditionally used. Also, is that plant being extracted at the right time? So you take a mint plant that will flower. There is a difference in the quality of the extract extracts before and after flowering. Now, the growers will know that so that they will be harvesting at the right time to be able to provide that difference. So does the customer need to know? Well, maybe not if they're getting the quality material. One of the huge challenges we face nowadays is demand for extracts. And sometimes the demand is increasing, which in a way is good, but the supply might not be able to meet that demand.

9:22Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: And then you get substitutes or poorer quality material being supplied. The other factor that is becoming more important is the impact of climate change. For example, a lot of mint plants are grown in parts of India. It has become too hot for those plants, so they're not producing the menthol, etc., the active ingredients, to the level that they were before, because a plant is producing these things for their own protection. And therefore, if they're requiring them, because it's hotter, at an earlier stage, then you'll have to alter when you're harvesting that material. Because if you take when you normally harvest it, the yield will be low.

10:18Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: So your question is incredibly complex to be able to give a short answer, but it is important that the supplier of the extracts is taking into account where it comes from, when it is harvested. There's a key questions it needs to be asking the company that is supplying the extracts. Okay. So you gave us a broad overview. So then to lean into, I guess, just the adulteration front of we know why there is an issue like demand and supply. Are there examples you could give us of botanicals that are commonly used in beauty that this is a problem for in like what's the picture like? Well you've got an increasing issue is with something like shea butter so some of the companies have not got developed a close link with their supply company now shea butter the shea plant is often wild grown wild so it's not as if you have a plantation of the material.

11:38Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: If demand increases, then supply issues, especially if it's been sold on an open market. That's why many companies build a relationship with a specific area where they will have, so to speak, first right and refusal. So there's a link up. So the grower knows that it's going to have a client and that becomes very important. So that's just one. Other ones that we see, aloe is often adulterated. That could be adulteration with some common material, or it could be adulterated with things like sugars, which are in the natural one, but not in the sugars are increased. Or other ingredients could be added, which are naturally in the plant, but usually in a very low concentration.

12:31Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Others that we see are, you could say, some of the endangered species where the pressure is higher, things like sandalwood. But sometimes it's a common one, like your lavender. There are different forms of lavender. Often the English, and sometimes it used to be the French lavender, has got the quality you want. But what is happening, they're using possibly commercial hybrids that do not have the quality of the essential oils that the English, possibly the French lavender have. It depends on the situation where you could get adulteration, but unfortunately, adulteration is increasing. And then what's the picture like between if these extracts are coming from plants that have been cultivated versus wild sourced and how does that impact I guess it's it's complex and probably very variable depending on the extract or botanical that we're talking about but what should people know about that topic and then the implications for extracts that are used in the personal care sector?

13:49Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Nowadays, it's very good to have plant material from commercially grown, let's use the word sustainably grown. That could be commercially grown in large fields, et cetera, and so on. Or if it is wild harvested, there is a sustainability methodology that companies will use because there can be a difference between wild and cultivated material. In many cases, the growers would have selected varieties of the plants that mimic in their chemistry what a wild species would have. So there's a lot of emphasis on the grower selecting the right strain or cultivar of material. So in a way, if there's no information about whether it comes from commercial or whether it's sustainably harvested from the wild, people need to be a little bit unsure.

14:58And I don't know if this is a good example, but could you give us a reason, I guess, with an example of why people should be concerned when we're talking about something like licorice, the challenges of cultivation versus wild source. Licorice is so popular right now in beauty.

15:21Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Okay, that's interesting. Let's say there's more licorice eaten and used than there is grown. So yes, you have got a supply issue. I think this is where the suppliers, the makers of the extract, really need to be able to show to the beauty customers, let's say, who are making the products, that their material is coming from sustainable sources. I think the emphasis really is on them being able to supply. It might be the price has to go up to meet the demands, but it is a plant that can be commercially grown. So given enough time, which would be just a few years, then the growers should be able to increase the hectares that are being cultivated of their material they just but they need to have some time to be able to do that so there are ways of being able to deal with an increased demand of something like licorice which can be commercially grown another thing that is happening and you'll see quite a lot of this in say parts of asia they're using different forms of growing the plant material, i.e.

16:40Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: vertical farming, where they've taken the cultivation inside, or hydroponics and things like that, so they've got more control of their supply chain and the extraction process. But that usually works best for leaf material, whereas something like your licorice, you're dealing with the rhizomes. What's in the soil becomes more difficult. How does time of season impact the end extract and why? And I guess you've already talked about this a little bit. And are there implications related to this for cosmetic products incorporating extracts? If we take something that could be used, not always like turmeric, in a country, there's usually only one season.

17:33Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: And that is when the plant is really mature. You either take it then or it dies back. And earlier on, it's just not, you can't harvest any quality material. So something like that, you have not really got seasonality. You've got one time you need to be harvesting. Whereas with something like mint or lavender, maybe I keep with mint, the plant in theory could be harvested as soon as you've got really maturing leaves on the plant. You could be harvesting that and forgetting whether it is flowering or not. And that's what often happens in the past. But because now we know more about the role of the things that we have ingredients in for our use, for skin properties, etc., we know that they can vary.

18:32Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: The composition prior to flowering, the plant is investing in the chemistry on growth and therefore the production, coming up to the production of flowers. So the chemistry is kind of quite specific up to then. You take flowering, where after flowering, the plant can decrease the amount of energy it uses to produce the compounds that you have in flowers. The chemistry is different. And therefore, it's important at times for plants, for companies to test a pre and post flowering mint to make sure that they're getting the right balance of chemistry, because it varies. Because the plant has optimized its chemistry to fit in with its life cycle.

19:28Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: What we need to do is to fit in with its life cycle to help us. A topic that I've just been thinking about as you have been talking about the importance of certain constituents to give the things that we're looking for, like how do we know that these are the constituents that are going to do something? Is it a matter of we've just looked? Have we not potentially, in certain cases, looked at some of the other stuff? How do we know that these are constituents that will do something for us? Well, you could say some of it is historic. So you can go back to days of Cleopatra. You can go back to other historical kind of uses of plants.

20:13Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: What was used for beauty? And that's where you get information about aloe. Now, this is interesting because you get more information if the culture of that country is written. So you can go and evaluate what the Egyptians were doing, what was happening in parts of Syria, China and India, etc. Because they have a written, documented history of the use of their plants, which goes back thousands of years. whereas say South America the Americas have far more of a younger non-ridden it's an oral transition so you you do have kind of the folklore about it some of it has been passed on but we see that we are losing some because the link between nature and non-nature you could say is decreasing because people have moved from rural areas to towns.

21:13Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: They don't need to have that knowledge anymore. So you've got a really restricted knowledge about which plants can be used. And that drives some of the uses of the plants. But then you get the companies. Now, a company that is really looking for functionality in their product will be looking at a range of different assays, screening methods. Maybe it's a screening method to evaluate an antioxidant or a screening method that can help indicate whether it's a moisturizer or a screening method that could show whether it's anti-inflammatory or affects skin tone. You can test for all these things. So what often happens is they get an extract supplied by an extraction company and they test it so does this plant material so they haven't done anything other other than getting the extract and let's say it's yes it's active and let's say it's active against antioxidant so what they would do then is go to another stage where they take that extract And they can separate the different ingredients in that extract by a range of different methods.

22:37Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Sometimes they run it on a column. So as they put it onto the top of a column, if it runs down, it's got like gel-like substance that was resin that will separate the different compounds. And you can collect them as they come from the column. Or there are other liquid chromatography techniques are a little bit more sophisticated that you can use. Then you separate it into, maybe separate it just into six fractions of that extract, or it may be more. Then you get those fractions tested. And that will often then indicate what is the fraction that is most active. And that's when you can do the chemistry on that extract to determine what the ingredient is, what the compound is that is associated with activity.

23:30Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Now in a simple case that's what happens. Sometimes it's a little bit more complex because you've got more than one active compound and this is often why we want to have plants because they've actually packaged the ingredients into more than one active. So you need to have a few of those present to be able to give you your antioxidant and your moisturizing effect. So that's where companies invest in looking for quality extracts, because if they know what the actives are, they can go back to the company that's supplying them with the extracts and say, I want this extract to contain X, Y, Z, because those are the active ingredients.

24:21And now I know we're talking about like the analytical kind of side of the equation of activity for botanicals. Like, I guess like bigger picture, when we look at botanicals or extracts, whatever, doing things. I was just reminded by there was a large scale fraud case that underpinned a lot of the turmeric research. Perhaps you're familiar with Bharat Agarwal. I had a podcast about it with somebody who did a really good commentary about it. He's a research sleuth, Reese Richardson. in for my audience. Listen to that. It was really interesting. But I'm wondering, so like in that specific case, this person's research poisoned the well a little bit and then made it really difficult to rely on that whole body of knowledge that developed that was underpinned by some of his research.

25:25And I'm wondering if this is something that you've seen in the extract space and how reliable some of the evidence from your point of view is in terms of potential therapeutic benefits. Like we're putting these extracts and things to do things, but how confident are we that it's going to do things based off of the things that we know so far?

25:51Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: So how confident are you? I think again, many of the really good suppliers of extracts possibly will be able to provide you with the biological data that supports their potential use. And it could be that somebody else has done it. Most likely it should be because they'd have the expertise. And therefore, you've got maybe an independent report on that material. There is some good knowledge. Not all knowledge out there is bad. So as a scientist, when I am looking at papers, I would be looking for information about the right name for the plant within the paper. And have they got a fingerprint, a chemical fingerprint about the extract that they used in that plant material.

26:48Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: And it might be given now to a journal as supplementary information. And have they given a reference to the material? So maybe it's a commercial one. So haven't they given the name of their supplier? If it is one that they've made, have they got a voucher material of that? So if I'm looking for a scientific report, I would be looking for those elements in it to be able to say this is a quality paper on the let's say the botanical aspect of that work I don't feel it's always my expertise to be able to say the data that they obtained say on antioxidants is that robust as it should be because I think that's somebody who's an expert on that side but if I look at a paper I can definitely evaluate the level of scrutiny that they put into the plant material.

27:47Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: This is a real challenge. If they were, say, looking at therapeutic, it was a medicinal thing, they'll often be comparing it with a synthetic drug. And a synthetic drug, somebody who's selling it to you will have to be able to show that it is 99 % or 95 % pure. And it will have a special inky number that they can go back. So in a way, they're not expecting all the variability that you could have with a plant extract. If you have a scientist that's just used to testing synthetic material, they will not always use the level of robustness on evaluating, are they actually testing what they think they can?

28:34Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: And then that bad literature gets into the papers, and therefore you're undermined because somebody is using not very good science to be able to support the use of their paper. And that has happened. But even with that, turmeric is a fascinating example because there's a huge range of turmeric materials out there in food supplements, functional foods, nutraceuticals, etc. The level of the actives can vary a lot in that material. So if you know what the level is, you can know possibly what the dose should be. If you don't have that information, you've got no idea what the dose should be. And sometimes it's better to have, you could say, a low dose than a high dose, because if you have a high, you might get allergic response to something.

29:25So natural ingredients, super complicated.

29:28Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: It's super complex, but it's worth it if you can look at the quality. So if a company is going to go from moving from synthetics to natural, I think they do definitely need to get support with the botanical side, just making sure their material is of good quality. once they've done it a few times and they know that their supplier is providing them with good quality extracts and providing them with the level of information that I've been talking about then that really is going to improve the quality of material that's been used it justifies it because at the end of the day if we can increase the diversity of the plants we're using we're We're helping the planet.

30:17Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: We're increasing the use of biodiversity. If something has a use, then it will be conserved and it will also support local economies. What do you think about when it comes to the sustainability of extracts? You just pointed to it's good to have diversity to encourage sustainable sourcing and to support different communities, But then like on the flip side, something that I'm thinking about, I guess it really, it really depends on how it's being produced, but how that impacts the expansion of agriculture, which we know to be a significant impact to biodiversity and potentially climate change. I guess that depends.

31:04And then contending with scale. If you're serving the food industry or the cosmetics industry, the volume of botanicals from a single source that that may lead to. Oh, and especially contending with trends, because I feel like once something gets trendy, then everyone wants it.

31:27Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: But this is a big issue, because if it's synthetic, you just turn the handle, so to speak. You have to have, obviously, the material in to be able to synthesize it. But it's easier to, in theory, increase it or decrease it, depending on demand. Whereas nature is not quite as amenable as that. That is why I think there is an increased interest in looking at how you can grow material in different ways. Now, this is a challenge in itself because people will often want it just naturally grow which is understandable but you know if we're going to be feeding an increasing population and the demands for land for whatever use increase then the land available for growing the plants becomes challenged what has got the higher value you could say we really need to have it for food so this is where there are opportunities one is altering the methodology that possibly the plants have grown like vertical farming like hydroponics and there are other ways fermentation etc or how can we make better use of the plants that we are already using say in food and the examples of projects i've been involved in are things like grape seeds, apple seeds.

32:55Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: There's some waste products, say, from the avocado industry, from the nuts, et cetera, and so on, that are being discarded. Demand for some of these things increases. There's more material that can actually use these secondary products. There's real interest in the seeds from grapes. It doesn't help if you're growing seedless grapes, but otherwise the pomace that can be used that's basically the skins because that's often where the active ingredients are so it's maximizing the use of the byproducts from the food industry on the obviously plant and fungal side we could be doing more on that and i guess an example that i was thinking about it's just like underpinning a big part of the surfactants industry as we've moved away from petro is with palm kernel which i don't know if you'd be able to talk about that situation with that is that not it's actually not not my speciality i because there are so many other things working on palm oil i i mean it is a fascinating problem because where is the next palm oil there must be something else out there that has got a similar characteristic that could be used that would you know enable this thing to be to be tackled there's something special about palm oil there are other other oils like shea butter and others that do have some of the properties but not the diversity and then how do we avoid getting into another if we find it how do we avoid getting into another issue as the palm industry has found i find it very interesting like there's so many conversations about like oh we've got an easy switch from coconut and i i think for me looking at the efficiency of production for for palm in the scale of use and the way that we've kind of maximized to use like palm kernel and other parts coconut is also in a richly biodiverse it's sourced richly but less efficient requires more land requires more resources and and so it's so complicated yeah that's yeah coconut should definitely not be used as a replacement for palm i think the other area again this is where science can help because one of the the big issues with the palm industry one is obviously loss of land to monocultures of palm.

35:32And the fact that we really haven't been able

35:35Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: to restore that land, i.e. basically to get more palms growing or another material. I think that's where there's definitely research going on because if the damage is already done, how do you maximize the economic benefits of that land before going to deforest more areas? But as yet, it hasn't been totally cracked on that one but that that i think is a real emphasis not to mention the small holder farmers and local economies that have become so dependent on absolutely yes how do you get how you basically can restore so that they if they are got into a situation of sometimes you can understand because it's a form of income how can that income be sustained by being able to maybe do some form of into planting and other things that they could have economic benefits from the plants that they're growing, which is a greater diversity than just palm.

36:36Now, I know palm isn't your expertise, but there's something really interesting here with, like, obviously, we need to invest to do research to understand the options here. But right now, I'm aware of a number of studies that have looked into like the impacts of, well, firstly, public sentiment, but then how that has kind of diverted sourcing to like coconut, for example. There was an interesting study published a couple of years ago that looked at the public sentiment change after, I'm not sure if you remember that Iceland grocery ad with the orangutans. And then there was like a spike in public sentiment of very negative public perception about palm and we need to use coconut that had coconut and olive had overwhelmingly positive public public perceptions about that so people wanted to flippantly boycott yeah um and I guess my question is like the challenge and the complexity and getting the public on side to not just like boycott, but like lean in and invest.

37:52What do you think about that?

37:53Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: I think that that is a, it's all negative. How do you turn that total negativity into something that's a little bit more positive? And there is a potential solution and people's support for that could help us. It's not easy. I don't know what the right story is. Maybe it's a little bit more about showing what is happening in some areas where they were, say, deforested, not just recently, but a few years ago, and show how they are managing their material. and just the flow, flow of what's happening with the oil from the palms, but also what is now happening with the flow of money. The problem you have is if there's any indication that this has been sponsored by a cosmetic company in some way, that's as if all that work is tainted, it's negative.

38:54Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Whereas that company possibly is investing in it in a positive way, maybe a little bit selfish because it has a use for palm oil, therefore wants to make sure that their supply chain is maintained. And then that kind of really positive story is turned into a negative. and I don't know how you preach that, I was just talking about somebody else it was in Africa where somebody has found a nut that could possibly have the oil let's say, it wasn't palm but something similar how do you get any form of investment, how do you get buy-in without somebody saying that the west is exploiting it or the companies are exploiting it.

39:45Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: It's not easy. And then I guess just moving on, how do inkeys capture extracts? And for reference, if I have non-industry people listening, inkeys are those names that you see on the ingredient list. I have a whole podcast about inkey, what that all means with Mindy Goldstein, who is on the Inkey Nomenclature Committee from the PCPC. Anyways, So how do inkies capture extracts? And what's the kind of variability that can be behind one single inky? What should both formulators and finished product consumers know about this? Okay, so if you have got a plant material being used in your shampoo, then the key ingredients, And I must admit, I forgot to check the level it has to be in, over a certain level, but it's pretty low.

40:41Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Then the name of that should be on the inky. It should be therefore disclosed on the back of pack or somewhere on the point of sale. That information should allow a user to be able to have information about what the key ingredients are, including the botanics, in that product. So it also will highlight petroleum based on non-plant material that could also be in the product. Now, there are a few things that need to be addressed within INCI. One is you can often use a trivial name, say sandalwood, where actually it should be St. Albert Albert, which is the true sandalwood. because there are over 104 different species covered by the word sandalwood.

41:34Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: So you need to make sure in some cases it's got the right one being listed. The other thing is that I'm afraid taxonomists have a habit of changing the names, Latin names, which are often found on pack, as we increase our knowledge about plants and where plants sit in the flowering plant family. and it's important that some of those new names are incorporated especially if they get of common ingredients it's less of an issue they're not but if they are key ingredients that are used so that all information about that plant can be a challenge because within the inky system it It gives you a number that allows somebody to go and look in more detail at that particular plant material.

42:25Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Now, why it's important. It's important if you have allergies or something like that, that you will know. And also if you wanted to go look in more detail about where that plant material came from in that product. In my mind, if inkies are up to date, then they are a very good starting point for people to examine and possibly ask questions of that product for themselves, or if they're really concerned that it might contain something that's endangered. I think that is addressing part of your question, but maybe not fully. Yeah, I guess the big thing that I hope that people would know or take away, like just one extract, one inky disclosure can represent a lot of different things.

43:15Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Okay, so an inky disclosure gives you the name potentially of the plants that are used, but what part of the plants, when was it harvested, none of that is associated with an inky name. So it's just one step in the process of working out what is in your product. This is where transparency for data and sourcing and all that, whichever level you are at, whether you're the forhulator looking to ingredient suppliers or if you're the consumer of the finished product looking to purchase products. And like a important consideration that you had raised is like, if you've got an issue with certain ingredients, so that leads well to my next question is what about allergens in extracts?

44:11What should people know? And I guess kind of probably outside of what you'll be able to answer is like, there are new laws regionally in cosmetics for ingredient lists for disclosing specific allergens. So I guess that's something to know. And allergens are common in natural ingredients. And so if there's enough of it, it might be disclosed there. But that's kind of outside of what I'm asking you here. So like, what about allergens in extracts? What should people know?

44:44Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: If you know what you're allergic to, so that's the first thing. Do you know what plants, is it essential oils that you're allergic to or is actually a dermal reaction is respiratory or is it dermal so things like that that's different types of chemistry associated with allergic response so the inky number could indicate the plant you might already know therefore that you are allergic to that plant that's in a way all that the inky number can do at the moment But if it goes on to say that it contains fragrance, etc., then on the website of that company, it might give you more information about the fragrances.

45:30Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Are they natural fragrances or are they synthetic? within synthetic fragrances there are and this is again varies from country to country there are restrictions on certain chemicals being used in artificial fragrances in naturals there's knowledge about which are some of the key compounds limonene is one of them that people have an allergic dermal as well as a respiratory response to so again you can get some of that information from initially your your own knowledge about what you're allergic to but also from the website of some of the companies because they are keen to inform people about what is in the material to know whether there are allergic responses.

46:28Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Because if a brand experiences an increase in reported dermal incidence or respiratory, then they have to deal with it. And that can be withdrawal of products as well as expense. So more companies are paying attention to this. And I guess to expand this question a little bit, if you have anything to add relevant into this question that I got from my Patreon supporter, Nancy. So the question or common first thing question is, I'm also curious how brands manage if a botanical extract is going to be more triggering for sensitive skin, for example. I know that essential oils can be more irritating versus fragrance, and I suppose this varies.

47:16Is that a concern with botanical extracts

47:20Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: as well yes if a botanical extract or it's an essence of essential oils then the company that's either supplying it or the product maker will have often done a test to make sure it doesn't contain allergic any compound that is known to have allergic effects is indicated It's often very expensive for a company to supply or get into the market something that is going to have a high allergic response of potential users. Otherwise, again, if you know that you are allergic to citrus products, then you should be able, you just need to check on back of pack. The other aspect is if you're actually on some form of medication to deal with an allergic response, then usually the websites, the health websites, often provide a list of plants that interfere in some way with preparations.

48:31Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Interference can be in many, many different ways. It's complex. But to avoid material that contains these things. Some people are allergic to, they get respiratory problems with lavender. And they can find that information out. You know, what are the things that contain lavender type chemistry? There is information out there to be able to assist. Okay. And so Nancy has another question. We've been talking around this for a little while. Well, and I also had wrote down earlier, I said that I, oh, I had questions about this. I do remember I wrote it down on the document. So it's along the lines of what Nancy is asking here.

49:10So I'm wondering how ingredient manufacturers slash developers identify a botanical extract that may be of interest and then how they develop. And most importantly, and this is around what I was interested in, how they validate it works, if it works at all, but also how they validate my tack on that I wrote down, how they validate the quality and safety of this, considering the variability and the complexity. Are companies to test this stuff or do they just like trust their suppliers? Like what should the process be like for like auditing, checking, testing? obviously there's going to be a huge range of capacity that companies are able to do this depending if they're a small company perhaps there's opportunity to work with the third party source or whether they're a large company they probably still have to like i'm pretty sure

50:17Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: herbal essence was working with q to do some of this work so yeah the process of checking validating for this stuff what does that look like okay so it will vary greatly with the size of the company that is doing it whether that company has the capacity to do the biological testing and at what level so they often work with somebody else and it could be an academic at a university that is helping them do the evaluation the biological you say let's say the functionality aspect of the extract if they don't have the resources in-house, or they work with a supplier. There are companies, increasing number of companies, that under an NDA or some other agreement will supply the company with the data that they have acquired on the extract that they will be testing or supplying, which is often a good way, as long as the company feels that the testing is robust enough for them.

51:30Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Anyway, that's a starting point. It's not easy for a company to test for everything. And this is where, at times, they rely on their literature surveys to find out whether there has been reported any toxicity associated with that plant. And so you get kind of those involved in evaluating risk within a company before a product goes in market. Again, this would be done in more detail with a bigger company and possibly a smaller one, because the smaller one won't always have the resources, of doing these extensive trials. And sometimes those trials can result in the people within a company doing the evaluation saying, no, you can't use that.

52:19Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: There is a report on it having toxicity. Maybe it's only one report out of a long use of the plant, but that still can raise a risk, which then within the company that they need to deal with. One of the challenges that can happen is on the quality of the test that showed it was toxic because there is a great interest in anti-cancer compounds from plants. And if you look at our current anti-cancer drugs, 65 % of them come from plants. Therefore, often people are looking for plants for new anti-cancer. Therefore, they write papers on them and they'll often be testing something at a much, much higher concentration than you would ever use in a reality.

53:20Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: And therefore, let's say it's very high concentration, which could be something like 10 ,000 parts per million, which is very high. But that's in the paper and therefore it's been spotted as toxicity. Whereas if you were actually using it, you'd most likely be five parts per million. So it's a huge difference. And so therefore, you become defensive and say, well, you know, that paper shouldn't be taken into account. But all this takes time. And so, you know, one of the things on anti-cancer screening, we're saying that you really should be testing at realistic concentrations, because you're actually damaging the potential use of the plant for other things.

54:04Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: So that's just one example. Especially nowadays, there are different ways that a company that is wanting to do knows what the ingredients it's going to have and wants to make sure that they're safe. Definitely working with an extraction company can assist them do that. Where the issues are, if it's something that's not all that well known and not well reported, how do they get that background information that would be able to support use. That's not a clear path, easy path to manufacture. So often we're forced into using the plants we already know, because we've got the data on those plants. I'm reminded by a white paper that Procter and Gamble did it, I feel like it was 10 years ago, time flies.

54:58Maybe it wasn't that long. It was pre-COVID, I think. I think it was. But it was kind of like a call to action that the same kind of safety validation and care should be taken for natural ingredients compared to, I'm not even sure if you had a part of this working paper, perhaps you did. I think I did. The same kind of care should be taken for naturals as for synthetic and highlighting the complexity and challenges for natural ingredients. And I guess I have a tack on. So point and then question. Well, firstly, two questions. Would it be safe to say that it's potentially more at least complex but challenging to validate safety as we're talking about like immense complexity of this stuff to validate safety for natural ingredients compared to synthetics.

56:00And also, could you give us any points you'd want people to know from some of the insights of that white paper? Okay. So one, it is more complex to really evaluate safety

56:16Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: of a plant compared to one single synthetic that possibly you're going to decide whether to use it or not in a product. Yeah, you really are comparing apples and oranges here. What I think we were trying to do is that P &G were trying to do with that paper is just make people more aware of the complexities and the levels that good quality companies will be going to to ensure that they are getting quality materials and have a knowledge about what the ingredients are. And therefore, the need to work with a whole range of different disciplines to do this because they need to have botanists. They need to have people who've got an indication of the extraction methods, etc.

57:08Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: If they were just buying something, going on to Sigma or something like that and just ordering a chemical, right, they might be ordering five or six because they want to test them. But it's very different, you know, with plant material. And I think it was a very fascinating project that we've had over the years with P &G and others. It's just evaluating the diversity of challenges that there are with natural products or plant material. But it can be resolved. I think that was the key thing, asking the right questions and getting the supply companies to realize that if they can provide answers to these because they've got the work done, then a client will most likely take them on as making the extracts.

57:57Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: It's a tick box for good quality and functionally active. Is the increasing use of botanical extracts in categories like cosmetics a net good thing? What does this look like, especially when we're talking about sustainability? What does this all look like from extract to extract? Oh my gosh, big question. Extract to extract, region to region. What should people know? And I guess keeping on the palm example that I was thinking about earlier, Like the chemical sector is really good at using, I guess it's not waste anymore once it's been used, the palm kernel that may have otherwise been waste. They've created a whole industry around it and created economic value.

58:45And then when I'm thinking about the companies that are investing in there, and I think it might be because of like public pressure specific to cosmetics compared to other industries. I don't know why, but there's a lot of pressure from the public. There tends to be in a lot of these areas that are tenuous, like disproportionate, I find. I don't know if you'd agree, but in the Palms case, as an example, like disproportionate investment to do things better coming from the cosmetic sector. I guess there's a lot of examples outside of botanicals, like disproportionate investment in another topic that's been coming up a lot on my podcast is to move away from animal testing.

59:32Disproportionate investment from cosmetics because there's been so much public attention. I'll restate the question. So is increasing use of botanical extracts in categories like cosmetics a net good thing? And how does this vary?

59:47Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: So I'm interested in plants and I'm interested in the uses of plants. So you could say I'm a little bit biased so i think it's a good thing in a way it's going back you could say to natural which is going back to the traditional uses of plants they didn't kill themselves it's just knowing how to how to use the plants etc but if you go back to cleopatra so to speak she most likely wasn't taking all the drugs etc that you know somebody nowadays would be having to deal with their allergies and things like that so it's slightly different different world when the plant works people aren't stupid they don't they don't go back to something especially when they had a choice and go keep on going back and using it if there would be something that would cause them an allergy reaction negative reaction to it so having that knowledge about you know of the plants were used I think is important.

1:00:43Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: It also can support economies and it can, and this is where working out whether it's going to be commercially grown or it's going to have a wild harvesting, sustainable wild harvesting policy and criteria by which it is supplied, strictly monitored, then you can support people protect and look after nature. And I think we are now seeing the negativities of not doing that enough. I think the food industry does supply us with some of these kinds of examples that we're only using four or five now you know plants as our main food crops well that wasn't the case in the past and therefore if something happens with disease any of these plants they could knock out a whole kind of you know food system for us so therefore we need to make sure that we have got diversity in the plants that we're using, sustainably grown and supporting local communities to ensure that they are looking after the habitats.

1:02:05If we can get that all right and we have more of a balanced world, the future could be looking good.

1:02:13Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: The extremes that we're getting at the moment associated with climate change is often because we are the way that we have changed the use of our resources. And so, you know, I think there's enough evidence out there now to be able to say that we've got something that we need to alter to support those that look after our existing biodiversity to ensure that they get an income and it could be our cosmetic use. And we're, you know, we're not using anything that can potentially be harmful you know for example very effective surfactants that we used to use that do have a negative environmental effect but how how do we look to nature to come up with materials that are at all possible as effective that is also a scientific challenge not beyond us to be able to do that i guess a big challenge with the sustainability of all this in food and cosmetics and beyond is to meet the global demand with how society expects things to get to them and to be available to them always.

1:03:30And so in order to do that, especially if we're talking about like everyone wants it. Yeah. Like there's all these conversations about like, why should we get it and they can't, then we have to have scale. And so then there's this conversation about, okay, well then you have to produce things efficiently. And then there's economies of scale.

1:03:53Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Yeah, the reality. The efficiency, the eco-efficiency. I'm reminded by, oh, there was a paper that I, it was part of my, what is that called? Qualifying exams around. I I had to, in one of my thesis qualifying, I had to write two papers. One of them was around defining sustainability. And it's really about like efficiency is important, but we also need sufficiency. And so it's really challenging when we have the consumption demands. Consumption, I guess, is the issue. Yeah, because like our food, we want it all year. We want access to it all year. never mind it's actually it's more expensive to grow it all year and it's not naturally so therefore we put in artificial systems in place to be able to enable us to have it all year like like fruits etc how do we change that and the thing the conversation i've had with quite a few companies where we've identified something that could go into a cosmetic except there isn't a huge is you know could you have selective lines could it become you know something that is a feature or locally supplied so you can get this material but it's only been sold in, say, Brazil because the material comes from Brazil.

1:05:13Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: How do we alter the models that we're using? Because they might be the problem associated with sustainability. We want just like that and we want it, never mind whether we're in Washington or we're in London. And to avoid taking us on another hour, in this conversation to ask you more about this. I will wrap up with the final question that I ask all my podcast guests, which is, and you would know because you've been on my podcast at least a couple of times. Monique has also presented at at least one of my conferences. She's a wealth of knowledge. Go listen back to those conversations. They were all really, really good.

1:05:59I really, really enjoyed the presentation that she gave at the sustainability summit that I hosted years ago, whenever that was, it was a while, but really, really good. So final question.

1:06:12Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Do you have any final take-ons that you'd like to leave my audience with? And, or are there any points that you haven't had a chance to insert in the conversation yet that you'd like to leave with my listeners? I do hope that we can increase the diversity of plants that are being used in cosmetics that support plant diversity and therefore the planet and that those products are actually functional. They are saying what they say on the tin. I think that is it's so important. The other area that I think has got opportunities, because we've spoken mostly about botanicals, and that is the world of fungi.

1:07:04Prof Monique Simmonds PhD: Because fungi are currently used, not many of them, but are currently used in some cosmetics. You have more control of the supply chain within fungi because of their ability to be able to be grown so to speak commercially and not require land to be able to grow all of them by fermentation and other methods. They could be a future that is less challenging for us but despite that I just hope that we can keep a focus on plants and making sure that they are good quality and functional. Thanks again to Prof. Simmons for joining me for this episode. I hope you learned a lot and enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.

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