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Intellectual property trends in color cosmetics: recent patent activity in color cosmetics is summarized in this article. Trends toward natural-looking makeup, iridescence and transfer-resistance are evident.

Article Excerpt
THERE IS A PRONOUNCED effort to devise new ways to develop "no makeup" makeup; that is, makeup that hides blemishes but leaves skin looking natural. There is also a noticeable trend to produce and manipulate color formed by iridescence. Attempts continue to improve transfer resistance and effective gelling with lower polymer concentrations.

A great deal of recent patent activity has focused on "no makeup" makeup. These products attempt to hide imperfections while enhancing natural beauty rather than covering it with thick coats of matte makeup containing high contents of pigments such as iron oxides. The latter approach covered blemishes but did not disguise the fact that a woman's skin may have had a dull, drab appearance. Reducing pigment loads and adding moisturizers provide a more natural appearance but these systems do not address the issue of "natural" facial color. Soft focus particles and fractal particles of inorganic pigments obscure skin imperfections.

Recently there has been a flurry of activity to diffract, refract and reflect light to disguise skin imperfections. Much of this effort has been focused on composite particles, which are designed to overcome the challenge posed by packed inorganic pigment particles on the skin surface that become visible and look unnatural. Physical blends of elastomer particles and pigment have been proposed (1,2) but, according to P. Maitra et. al., they can phase-separate on the skin and the pigment particles tend to collect in pores and wrinkles. Unfortunately, particle concentration in blemishes emphasizes the flaws that the user is trying to hide. Adding nacres to conventional pigmented systems can produce shadows that enhance, rather than hide, the wrinkles. Nacres are platelets that are covered with closely packed particulate pigments. For example, Timiron nacres from Merck are mica coated with titanium dioxide, iron oxide or bismuth oxychloride.

Hiding Wrinkles and Blemishes

Avon researchers have tackled this challenge by embedding sub-micron pigment particles on silicone elastomer gels. (3) This can be achieved, for example, by applying substantial shear and compression to cyclopentasiloxane (and) [C.sub.30-45] alkyl cetearyl dimethicone copolymer (Velvisil 125 Silicone Copolymer Network from Momentive) and alkyl silane-treated Ti[O.sub.2] using a Hosakawa Micron Merchanofusion System. The refractive index of the embedded particles is greater than that of the elastomer gels and when the composite gels are applied over skin imperfections, the light falling on the gel is scattered backward and forward to effectively conceal the blemish.

Another approach is to reflect light away from blemishes. Thus, a blemish-hiding foundation is formulated with platelets of alumina treated with metal oxides combined with alumina platelets covered by titanium coated spherical silica. The foundation does not rely on heavy amounts of metal oxides and as a result, it closely matches the natural color of the underlying skin. The alumina platelets act as an optical barrier to conceal blemishes and the light transmitting spherical particles act as twoway mirrors to blur the appearance of lines, wrinkles, deformations and discolorations on the skin. (4)

Blemishes can be rendered translucent by glass beads coated with a polyamide or nylon layer. (5)...

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