Hero Ingredients Are the Solution to Any Formulation
Chances are the term “hero ingredient” is familiar to any cosmetic chemist. It’s an often-heard phrase many brands use to market their next best thing, powered by their hero ingredient. What exactly is a hero ingredient? What makes them special? How can brands position their next product launch around one?
“The Product Developer’s Guide to the Clean Beauty Renaissance” provides three critical answers to help beauty and personal care formulators improve their next product launch. Not only does it cover how to define hero ingredients, but it also provides strategies for holistically defining clean and establishing supply chain transparency. Together, these strategies enable formulators to enter into the clean beauty renaissance wherein all of beauty becomes clean beauty — the key to consumer success.
How to Define “Hero Ingredients”
Hero ingredients replace many “sidekick” ingredients by offering the same benefits with a shorter INCI list. Heroes come to the rescue of consumer cries for streamlined, skinimalist routines. (If you have not already heard, skinimalism is a trend Byrdie thinks will take over the market). Here are three features to keep in mind for defining hero ingredients:
- Multiple benefits backed by scientific studies
- Ability to be used across categories and applications
- Always available with a stable, ethical supply chain
Hero ingredients truly do it all, much like a superhero would. The sustainable and ethical supply chain for hero ingredients makes an ideal solution for multiple sidekick ingredients that add bulk to the ingredient lists. The flexibility behind hero ingredients enables them to enhance any category and application.
Neossance™ Squalane Is a Sugarcane-Derived Skincare Hero
Neossance Squalane is the industry’s go-to emollient for the highest quality, best performing skincare. It fits the three criteria for hero ingredients and offers a wide range of benefits. It increases skin moisturization, improves barrier repair, reduces the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines, promotes a healthy skin microbiome, and efficiently delivers up to 40X more CBD faster than other oils. It is also the reason for success behind the latest CleanScreen™ Z60SF. Neossance Squalane’s feedstock is Bonsucro-certified sugarcane with an ethical, sustainable supply chain.

Neossance Hemisqualane Is the Haircare Hero Ingredient
Neossance Hemisqualane is the best natural, most sustainable replacement for silicones in personal care and cosmetics. In haircare, it offers the same benefits as traditional ingredients like amodimethicone, dimethicone, hydrolyzed keratin, and polyquaternium-55. Neossance Hemisqualane strengthens haircare formulations offering frizz reduction, damage reduction, advanced color retention, and strengthened thermal protection. Just like Neossance Squalane, Neossance Hemisqualane is also made from Bonsucro-certified sugarcane to establish a complete, ethical supply chain.
Continue the Clean Beauty Journey
Beauty and cosmetics product developers can embrace the future of clean with the right tools. “The Product Developer’s Guide to the Clean Beauty Renaissance” provides an in-depth guide for defining clean beauty, hero ingredients, and complete supply chain transparency as formulators. Each of these clear guidelines will inspire and frame successful product launches that resonate with consumers’ demands. Successful clean beauty product launches start with effective, sustainable ingredients.
Read more about clean beauty:
Farm-to-Formulation: How to Use Sugarcane-Derived Ingredients
Have you heard of Saccharum officinarum before? It’s better known as sugarcane, AKA the sustainable and ethical feedstock for all our ingredients. Our powerful yeast fermentation platform transforms sugarcane into sustainable Neossance™ Squalane [...]
Explore the Latest UV Protection Technology at the Society of Cosmetic Chemists’ Scientific Meeting & Showcase
Aprinnova Presents CleanScreen™ Z60SF: The Mineral UV Dispersion That Has It All The 75th Annual Society of Cosmetic Chemists’ Scientific Meeting & Showcase is the premier conference for cosmetic science education. On December [...]
The Hero Ingredient Neossance™ Hemisqualane’s Newest Benefit: Microbiome-Friendly
Consumers are increasingly looking for science-backed results in their beauty and personal care products. One of the key scientific features consumers seek is supporting the microbiome. The microbiome is particularly relevant for skin [...]
Three Ways Formulators Can Define “Hero Ingredients”
Hero Ingredients Are the Solution to Any Formulation Chances are the term “hero ingredient” is familiar to any cosmetic chemist. It’s an often-heard phrase many brands use to market their next best thing, [...]
The Top 4 Ways Formulators Can Holistically Define “Clean”
Product Developers Are Leading the Industry to the Future of Clean Clean beauty is not a buzzword or a marketing ploy. In reality, it is the future of our industry, reflecting what consumers [...]
How to Support the Burgeoning “Cloud Hair” Trend
Brands Should Select Ingredients to Harmonize with Consumers’ Individual Hair Journeys The beauty industry has historically lacked diversity — from inadequate shades of foundation to hair products mainly catered to type 1 and [...]