Emerging technologies: Nanotechnology in the cosmetic and personal care products industry.

摘要

Nanotechnology is an emerging technology with broad scope in several fields of science and technology and has already proved its importance with its presence. The Cosmetics and Personal care products industry is among those many sectors where Nanotechnology has been applied. The cosmetic products are mainly driven by innovations, so that they can maintain their own presence with new claims always in the consumer market. A great number of cosmetic and personal care products like sunscreens, moisturizers, anti-aging creams, which use nanotechnology directly or indirectly have already been launched into the market. In these sectors there are a comparatively large number of products that use nanotechnology when compared to other sectors, which facilitates the study of the nanobased cosmetic and personal care markets, firms, and products. There were two sides of focus in the whole study, the brighter side, being the growing number of the products and potential market forecast of the nanobased cosmetic and the personal care products industry, and the darker side, with some serious concerns of health and safety because of the use of the nanomaterials. Both the aspects are addressed by using a variety of data sources, primary sources like trade publications, web sites, secondary sources of related literature and business directories.