Design of sustainable personal care products using plant oil-based polymers

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INTRODUCTION
The industry of personal care products is massive and has tremendous potential for growth, therefore, attracting huge business opportunities. Due to the increased concerns for human health and well-being, coupled with consumer awareness about the toxicity and side effects of some petroleum-based personal care ingredients, the increased demand for biobased personal care products has been continuously growing. Nowadays, various biomaterials (including proteins, vegetable oils, and carbohydrates) have been used widely in personal care applications and cosmetics. One of the biobased key ingredients commonly found in personal care products is plant oil which is commonly found in the form of triglyceride or a mixture of fatty acids, terpenes, etc. (1) The main function of plant oils in personal care formulations is to provide nourishing and moisturizing effects and serve as a conditioner to protect skin or hair from drying by forming a barrier on the surface. (2) Therefore, a range of widely available plant oils like olive, and castor oils is being added to the formulation to provide the desired properties to the specified product. Besides barrier properties, including plant oils in the formulation could also provide an emollient effect (3).
To introduce advanced properties and long-lasting effects to personal care products, producers are adding polymers that could provide fixation, water-resistivity, and skin conditioning properties. Polymers play a crucial role in hair styling products since they provide the desired styling to the end users. Among different polymers, polyvinyl pyrrolidone and its copolymers are widely used in hair styling and cosmetic products. (4) However, due to the rigid structure of this polymer and its possible toxic effects, researchers are looking for new alternatives. Recently, a library of plant oil-based monomers (POBMs) for free radical polymerization has been synthesized using the efficient and cost-effective one-step method of converting plant oils into acrylic monomers to be polymerized to produce latexes, viscosity modifiers, surfactants, binders, and other products that exhibit a wide range of properties (5-7). Overall, the production of personal care products using developed plant oil-based polymers has a promising future and can be further studied in detail with the aim of delivering high-performance greener cosmetic products to the customer.