It doesn't get any greener? Wrong thought!

The demand for natural cosmetics is rising steadily. In Germany, sales rose by 23% between 2017 and 2020 (Statista). Our subsi­diary Brügge­man­n­Al­cohol has also observed this trend. As a manu­­fac­turer of alcohol for the cosmetics industry, we recog­nize that aspects such as sustain­­ab­ility, health aware­­ness and trans­­par­ency are becoming increas­ingly important for consumers.

What distin­guishes natural cosmetics?

Natural cosmetics must consist, to a large extent, of herbal ingredi­ents and usually must not contain any synthetic or chem­ical compon­ents. The term organic cosmetics has also estab­l­ished itself within natural cosmetics – in this a high propor­­tion of the herbal ingredi­ents should come from organic farming.

The ingredi­ents that are used in natural or organic cosmetics must there­­fore be natural and/or organic certi­fied.

Green origins - which require­­ments should raw mater­­ials in natural and organic cosmetics meet?

An important component in (natural) cosmetics is alcohol. While synthetic alcohol was often used in cosmetic products in the past, today only agri­cul­tur­ally produced ethanol is used, as required by natural and organic cosmetics certi­fic­a­­tion bodies. Conven­­tional cosmetics manu­­fac­turers also frequently switch to the raw material of agri­cul­tural origin.

As a manu­­fac­turer of alcohol of agri­cul­tural origin, Brügge­­mann relies on the raw mater­­ials grain, sugar beet and pota­­toes, most of which come from Germany and to a lesser extent from neigh­­boring EU coun­­tries.

Also in Brügge­­mann’s range of products is alcohol from controlled organic cultiv­a­­tion. This is made from organic wheat or organic pota­­toes and is mainly used in natural cosmetics.

Preserving, dissolving and much more – Brügge­­mann‘s alcohol fulfills a number of important func­­tions in cosmetic products

To give you a general over­­view, we have listed the func­­tions here:

  • Preser­­va­­tion of the ingredi­ents so that the cosmetic product has a longer shelf life even after opening
  • The product becomes resistant to germs, the bacter­­i­cidal effect achieved by alcohol
  • Carrier for herbal ingredi­ents, for example to bring scents in perfume to the skin
  • Dissol­u­­tion of natural ingredi­ents in a mixture of alcohol and water

Organic certi­fied: Of course!

All alco­hols used by Brügge­­mann that are used in cosmetics meet the Pharma Europa criteria and the require­­ments of the Cosmetics Regu­la­­tion (EG) No. 1223/2009 and KosmetikV 2014.

Our BioPremium Ethanol, which consists of organ­ic­ally grown raw mater­­ials, is certi­fied on the basis of Article 29 Para­­graph 1 of Regu­la­­tion (EG) No. 834/2007 and Regu­la­­tion (EG) No. 889/2008 of the Council for Organic Agri­cul­ture.

All of our alco­hols that are used in cosmetics are currently being given the NATRUE label. The NATRUE label is the inter­­n­a­­tional natural cosmetics seal of the non-profit organ­­iz­a­­tion. Since there is currently no offi­­cial regu­latory defin­i­­tion for natural and organic cosmetics, an inter­­n­a­­tional standard and thus trans­­par­ency for consumers has been achieved with this label.

Do you also want your products to be greener? Contact us!

Are you inter­­ested in our range of ethanol for the cosmetics sector? Then get in touch with your personal contact, Miriam Rauch, or use our product finder to find the right quality for you!

 

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