” Natural fragrance is the extra advantage of skin care products!”, said by Dr.Xie
Interview Minute with Dr.Xie on China Cosmetics Review
A special interview on China Cosmetics Review(CCR): Instant fear when hearing fragrance?
Nowadays, people are paying more and more attention on the quality of their lives, with a stronger sense of pursuing the safety of natural products. Fragrance, considered to similar as preservative, is increasingly seen as an allergen by modern people. In fact, the industry of flavor and fragrance in China is a new industry, while there is not such kind of industry 50 years ago in China. However, the current market of flavor and fragrance is still dominated by chemical synthesis products, which is against people’s consumption style. To some degree, the domestic flavor and fragrance corporations have encountered huge challenge since established, the industry is no longer with a bright future. Therefore, for the development of flavor and fragrance corporations, they should focus not only on the manufacturing, but also the relevant products such as natural organic essential oil, skin care semi-finished products and etc.
As for the general direction of the development of the cosmetic industry, I believe it should mainly based on natural, safe, efficacy and healthy. The biggest advantage of aroma therapy is, that it is not only a method of beauty treatment, but, the most importantly, to teach people perform proactive management to their health and beauty through the deep understand to essential oil.
Essential oil should not be considered to be in the scope of cosmetic, in fact it is a misunderstanding in the regulations.
CCR: What opportunity and challenge do you think the cosmetic industry has been facing over the 25 years?
Dr.Xie: The cosmetic industry now is keeping expanding its scale and becoming international. In the current stage, the concept of MADE IN CHINA is gradually built deep in people’s mind. In Europe and America, especially in France, where the cosmetic industry is very developed, many cases that made in China appear. The product come to high-end, lead to a more and more detailed catalog of cosmetic. The type of cosmetic used to be cream, but now vary a lot. Cosmetic made in China also keep pursuing great quality, and develop to high-end products. Besides, with the variety of producing and marketing, people go online-shopping, direct selling and microbusiness, compare with the shopping mall they used to go. For the cosmetic companies, they are facing challenge on product, manufacturing and marketing. It is both challenge and opportunity. Another challenge is rapidity, to survive in the changing market, companies must keep making new products.
CCR: About the cosmetic industry you have seen, how about the great change over the 25 years?
Dr.Xie: Nowadays, the old brands keep alive and developing, while the new corporations rise, among these, there are more and more international companies, with the various kinds of products. Besides, natural products and essential-oil-based products are accepted and recommended by more and more consumers. As a company provides services, we have received many requirements from the customers to develop essential oil products. It shows that skin care treatment that combine aroma therapy and cosmetic is becoming more and more popular.
CCR: From your point of view, how about the future of the cosmetic market in China? What trend there will be?
Dr.Xie: First, the cosmetic market will be more standardized and international. Then it will divide into different direction depending on the age, skin type, social level and industries and there will be more customized product.
As for the general direction of the industry, I believe it is mainly focused on natural, safe, efficacy and healthy. Now the consumers pay more attention on natural ingredients, and we can also find that “no additives” has become a key word from the advertisement, it shows that the consumers are focusing on the natural product. However, most of the product in market, as I said, is not accurate enough in functions. The function of the cosmetic product will meet the demand of different type of consumers. What’s more important, the safety is becoming a major concern, including the safety of ingredients and usage. Cosmetic products are not only for beauty, but for health, this is the reason why aroma therapy is becoming more important to people.
CCR: Please talk something about the current situation and future trend of the flavor and fragrance industry.
Dr.Xie: With the current trend of the domestic policy and further restriction on the flavor and fragrance industry all over the world, more and more synthesis flavor can not be produced or used, this is huge restriction and challenge to the industry. Many corporations have to reduce the production or even shut down. I have ever seen a software, which scores the cosmetic products. The products without flavor and with natural ingredients are advantages in this software, the flavor I said here is synthetic flavor of course. It shows that the flavor and fragrance industry is no longer a developing industry, the flavors are considered to be unhealthy ingredients. This needs the company to innovate. No innovation, no future. As I said before, the research for fragrant activator and natural fragrance is also to adapt this evolution, to let the natural flavor be an advantage. Most of the synthetic flavor in market may release harmful substance during metabolism. Taking lemon flavor for example, the limonene exists in lemon and orange, is a kind of flavor that can be artificially synthesized. The previous opinion considered the synthetic limonene molecule is the same as the natural one. But with the research for aroma therapy, there is some efficacy difference between the natural limonene and chemical synthetic limonene. The synthetic limonene molecule can even be harmful when accumulating to a certain amount in body. So the natural flavor is safer.
CCR: Now the government classifies the essential oil to cosmetic product, but there seem to be an opinion that the aroma therapy is not equal to skin care product. What do you think of this?
Dr.Xie: As I mentioned, the efficacy of essential oil is not only skin care, but includes medical and mental treatment. The essential oil should not be considered to be in the scope of cosmetic, in fact it is a misunderstanding in the regulations. No matter from England or France speaking, it should not be classified as cosmetic. Skin care is only one of the efficacies of the essential oil, not the only efficacy. Aroma therapy is in fact a healthy product.
CCR: The most common product used in aroma therapy are essential oil and hydrolate, so what is the difference on character and efficacy between them?
Dr.Xie: By distillation, we extract the oil phase from the plant and flower, this is the essential oil. The hydrolate is the water phase component, which is secondary product. During the extraction, some of the effective fragrant component is kept in water phase, this is the hydrolate. Hydrolate is often added in toner and mask. There is functional compensation between essential oil and hydrolate. Besides, there is another product called basic oil, can be used as carrier to dilute the essential oil when kneading. Other basic oil like peony seed oil, can not only used for skin whitening and fixing, but also used as the oil phase in cream product.
Weixing Xie
French nationality Chinese
Expert and Educator in Aroma Therapy
Doctor of the Institute of Law in University of Montpellier, France
Former senior lecturer of the French department in Beijing Foreign Studies University, Skilled in French, German, English and Latin, with years of experience in foreign languages and social sciences. Now he is the chairman of the board and the general manager in Welfine (Beijing) Science & Technology Development Co.,Ltd, and the chairman of the board in Vitaroma (Beijing) Science & Technology Development Co.,Ltd. He also holds the position of secretary general in the aroma therapy association in Montpellier France.
Dr.Xie entered the field of flavor and aroma therapy in 1994. After working as a high ranking manager in the top flavor company over the years, he determinedly went back to China and create the Welfine, which with the concept of natural, healthy, safe and efficacy. Aiming to introduce the best essential oil into China, the Welfine is one of the earliest companies in China to develop organic essential oil as an important business unit. With his advanced thought and the forward-looking in market, Dr.Xie organized an united team, to deliver the top aroma products with high quality and high efficiency, with the managing concept of ”people based ” and ”innovation”.