Trends and Opportunities of beauty and health in Asia

On the occasion of Chemico Inter Corporation Co., Ltd.’s 20th anniversary, the Chemico's alliances and business partners have given us the honor in expressing their visions and views on Asia’s beauty and health industry’s trends and opportunities.

Dr. Dominique Lutz, founder of HelioScreen France. HelioScreen is a specialist in the in-vitro evaluation of sun protection products.

The starting point of HelioScreen Asia

We have technology expertise and more than 15 yearsof experience in sun protection product evaluation. At thesame time, Chemico has a very strong marketing and salesteam. Chemico’s executives and I share the same attitude andperspective in business. As a result, we joined hands to setupHelioScreen Asia to offer comprehensive in-vitro SPF, in-vitroUVA-PF, critical wavelength, water resistance and photostability evaluation services for sun protection products. The laboratory in Bangkok, Thailand has the same standard as that in France, including all the tools and equipments, testing procedures and personnel which were trained by our team in France. As a result, HelioScreen Asia provides the best and most accurate in-vitro UV testing in Asia.Highlights of in-vitro UV testing

In-vitro testing performs analytical testing using HD6, a patented substrate of HelioScreen France. These substrate are the ones described in the ISO and COLIPA standards. We use robot to ensure precise measurements in addition to numerous procedures in the laboratory that are consistent with ISO 24443. This led to low variation in in-vitro testing, as well as reduced both time and money. This is opposed to in-vivo testing which is performed on human skin samples where it is dif cult to limit variation, is time consuming and bears high costs. An increasing number of well-known European manufactures have shifted to in-vitro UV testing. However, manufacturers in Asia have not yet given much importance to the evaluation of sun protection products, service providers in this area are thus quite minimal. Opening up a branch in Thailand, the rst in Asia, is thus a great business opportunity for us and will help facilitate producers. Looking ahead, we expect that the Thai branch will become the core evaluation center for sun protection products in Asia. The importance of standards and regulations of sun protection products

Sun protection products in every country within Europe have to meet the same set of standards and regulations, namely, clear speci cation of SPF and UVA-PF levels. On the other hand, each Asian country has its own set of regulations. Thailand does not have any regulations regarding the level of UVA-PF unless it must been controlled, meanwhile most consumers have no or incorrect knowledge on the subject. All relating parties, especially marketers should provide consumers with correct information, communicating to them the relationship between SPF and UVA-PF in order to add values to products that have been evaluated. I believe that in the near future, Asian countries will amend regulations to urge producers to determine accurate SPF and UVA-PF levels in accordance with international standards, in order to help consumers understand and unable them to easily select sun protection products. In addition, it would also help encourage producers to realize the need of in-vitro evaluation.