In this episode, I spoke with Damien Perriman, Senior Vice President, Specialty Chemicals at Genomatica. In our conversation, we broke down the word ‘sustainability’, including what it means and how we can apply metrics for greener materials, current popular ‘natural’ and ‘eco’ certifications, challenges when trying to certify a product or material as ‘green’, whether ‘natural’ is synonymous with ‘sustainable’, challenges Genomatica has experienced with certifications, and more.

In this episode, I had the opportunity to speak with Deanna Utroske, editor at Cosmetics Design North America, now for the second time for this podcast. In our conversation, we talked about trends from 2018, especially in the ‘green’ space, what you can expect to be popular this 2019, advice few new beauty brands entering the industry this year, and lots more. Overall take home from the conversation, green beauty is here to stay.

We’ve been off for the holidays, but excited to get back into the swing of things, kicking off 2019 with my interview with Dr. Pratish Gawand from a Toronto based bio-tech startup called Adra Bio. In our conversation together, we talked about the raw ingredients Adra Bio produces and how they do it, why Pratish decided to hone in on those ingredients to be produced via biotech, sustainability in raw materials and how biotech can make certain ingredients viable and sustainable into the future, and lots mor

In this episode, I spoke with Dr Vik Pandit and Christian Euler, PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, both from Phycus Biotechnologies Inc, an ingredient manufacturer startup based in Toronto. In this conversation, we talked about biotech for cosmetics, including what that means, how it can sustain many ingredients into the future and potentially make them better, the work they’re doing producing naturally derived glycolic acid, and lots more.

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Chad Joshi CEO of Advonex International, an Ontario based ingredient manufacturer who’s been doing incredible work innovating in the sustainable emollient and wax space. In our conversation, we talked about the work Advonex is doing, limitations of natural cold pressed oils as a mineral oil replacement, supply chain value adding innovations offering better alternatives, sustainability, and lots more.

In this episode, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Rene Van Acker, Dean of the Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph. Sustainable agriculture is anything but a simple conversation, but Rene was the perfect person to take us through the topic. In this conversation, we talked about what ‘sustainable’ means, how we can apply sustainability principles to agriculture, farming practices, weed management, and lots more.

In this episode, I spoke with Miriam Vereldzis, now for the third time on our podcast. This episode was a q&a - we received your questions on social media and answered them! Topics included why aren’t all fragrant ingredients listed on labels, our thoughts on ‘therapeutic’ and ‘food’ grade essential oils, things to look for when sourcing essential oils, global supply, sustainability and lot’s more.

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Michael Fevola, Vice President of Global R&D at INOLEX. In this episode, we talked about what polymers are, the many uses of polymers in cosmetics, polymer examples, innovation and lot’s more. Since polymers are so heavily used, having an understanding of what they are will go along way to developing your skills as a formulator and understanding your beauty products.

In this episode, I spoke with Miriam Vareldzis, now for the second time on this podcast, founder at Palette Naturals® and 40notes Perfume, with about 20 years of experience in the fragrance industry. There is so much to cover regarding fragrancing, so we decided to break out conversation up into three parts. In this conversation, we focused more on the natural raw materials - for example, what are essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, how are they used, and what should we know about these materials?

This episode featured a conversation with Dr. Dan Derr, responsible for business development for NatSurFact BioSurfactants, a company that produces microbial rhamnolipid-based natural surfactant options. In our conversation together, we talked about bio-based and natural surfactant options, some of the pros and cons of working with these materials, rhamnolipid-based surfactants, and lot’s more.