Snail Slime and Korean Flowers Are the Latest in Skin-Care Booms
- Clariant opting for joint ventures rather than M&A for inputs
- Asia has emerged as top market for latest ingredients
Snails are seen at Louis-Marie Guedon's snail farm in Champagnolles, in the west-central region of Charente-Maritime, on April 9, 2013. Guedon has developed a technique for harvesting the slime and plans to turn it into an industrial-scale snail mucus extraction system to harvest 15 tonnes of the ugh-factor ingredient next year. Louis-Marie Guedon says the mucus secreted by snails are full of collagen, glycolic acid, antibiotics and other compounds that regenerate skin cells and heal cuts. Guedon believes it could presage a cosmetic revolution and has developed a secret technique to harvest the slime. He sells 25 million baby snails a year to snail farmers in France and abroad from a breeding stock of 650,000 garden snails known by their scientific names, Helix Aspersa Minima and Helix Aspersa Maxima.AFP PHOTO / XAVIER LEOTY (Photo credit should read Leoty Xavier/AFP/Getty Images)
Photographer: AFP/AFP/Getty ImagesCroda International Plc and Clariant AG are among Europe’s top suppliers of cosmetic ingredients that are turning to snail slime and Korean flowers to tap Asia’s hefty appetite for the latest skin-care products combating wrinkles and ageing.
With Asia emerging as the top market for adopting exotic ingredients, suppliers of so-called cosmetic actives are racing to strike up joint ventures with suppliers. Clariant’s partnership agreed last year with South Korea’s Biospectrum Inc. will give the Swiss chemicals maker a foothold in countries like China with a raft of new products containing Korean botantical extracts, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Jany said by phone.