HallStar develops ingredient to enhance water resistance in suncare products

US-based personal care ingredients supplier HallStar has developed the new Polycrylene S1 ingredient which helps personal care formulators meet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards for broad-spectrum claims and enhances the water resistance of sun care and daily wear products.

The new singlet-quenching photostabiliser has been developed to help formulators combine active ingredients that were once considered too photo-unstable to be effective.

Polycrylene S1 replaces the triplet-quenching portion of Polycrylene with a singlet-state quencher to offer a powerful photostabiliser that helps improve sunscreens and daily wear products with better UV protection.

The company said that Polycrylene S1, like Polycrylene, is also a film-forming polymer that works to improve the substantivity of sunscreen formulations.

HallStar president, chairman and CEO John Paro said that sun is a powerful adversary to many active ingredients as it makes UV filters, such as Avobenzone, lose effectiveness as soon as they are exposed.

"Innovative photostabilizers like Polycrylene S1 help skin and sun care formulators meet and exceed consumer requirements for better UVA and UVB protection in a product that’s easy to apply and a pleasure to wear," added Paro.

Sunscreens must have a critical wavelength of atleast 370 to earn the broad-spectrum designation, according to the FDA Final Rule issued in 2011.

However, this benchmark will not be feasible without the inclusion of a UVA filter such as Avobenzone.

The company said that these singlet-state quenchers such as Polycrylene S1 offer improved ways to prevent or slow UVA filter degradation to further ease tasks for formulators to achieve the broad-spectrum designation.