With consumers demanding better performance and aesthetics from their cosmetics and personal products—and more green ingredients too— there’s greater pressure on cosmetic formulators to create products that deliver on both fronts—and do so at faster rate than ever before

Enter combinatorial approaches to formulation, say experts in high-throughput formulation.

Speaking at the HBA Global “Functional Green Ingredients and Rapid Formulations” session on Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Robert Lochhead, director of The School of Polymers & High Performance Materials at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), discussed how combinatorial approaches broaden the scope for formulators and lower the time for development.

The high throughput approach, he said, will transform the art and science of formulation, making it possible to screen and optimize new compositions and new materials at rates up to 1000 times faster than current conventional techniques.

“Materials are changing under your feet, and if you don’t change things, you aren’t going to move forward,” said Lochhead, who also is director of the Institute for Formulation Science at USM.