Westfalia Fruit has begun supplying upcycled ground avocado seeds to beauty brand Dr. Craft as part of a range of cosmetics, replacing the now-banned plastic microbeads previously used.
Related: Inside Ingredients: Avocado
According Westfalia Fruit, avocado waste components including skins and stones have been used in low value anaerobic digestors but this inclusion, in beauty and cosmetics, opens up an alternative industry, in line with the company's commitment to protecting the environment.
Richard Blackburn, co-founder and director of Keracol and Dr. Craft, commented: “With a focus on green chemistry, our previous research looked at extracts from wine industry grape waste and citrus peels in a number of different products, but the more we studied avocados the more interesting and exciting it became.”
Johnathan Sutton, group safety and environmental executive at Westfalia Fruit, commented: “The project has involved several U.K. universities, including Leeds and Kingston, to verify and validate the use of avocado seeds. The extraction process is very complex, but with perseverance a perfect particle size and process was discovered to work within a cosmetic body scrub as the replacement for microbeads.”
Dr. Scrub plans to develop more products that contain the ingredient.
Ingredients: Exfoliating Body Polish with Grape Resveratrol and Avocado Seed: Water (aqua), Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Fruit Powder, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Stearic Acid, Glyceryl Stearate S/E, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Glycerin, Cetyl Alcohol, Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Kernel Oil, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Fruit Extract, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Benzyl Alcohol, Boswellia Neglecta (Frankincense) Oil, Citrus Nobilis (Mandarin) Peel Oil, Citrus Aurantium (Neroli) Flower Oil, Citric Acid, Phenoxyethanol, Xanthan Gum, Ethylhexylglycerin, Dehydroacetic Acid, Limonene, Linalool.
