The Science of Vegan Cosmetic Testing
The vegan cosmetics and personal care products market is rapidly emerging as a vital sector addressing the growing demand for ethical and sustainable beauty products. It was estimated in 2024 to be worth £8.7 billion and projected to be worth £17.5 billion by 2030.
As consumers become more conscious of the environmental and ethical implications of their choices, vegan cosmetics offer a cruelty-free and eco-friendly alternative ensuring products are free from animal derived ingredients. Of course, despite being manufactured without these ingredients and using plant-derived or synthetic alternatives, vegan cosmetics as with standard cosmetics are subject to mandatory testing to ensure their safety and shelf life. Vegan cosmetics often use higher risk materials and have less preservatives to choose from. Therefore they can represent a higher risk of microbial contamination and preventing such issues by appropriate and regular testing is of great importance to the manufacturer.
A microbiological culture medium supports the in vitro growth of microorganisms by aiding growth, selection, survival and division of microbial cells. It must produce precise and reproducible microbiological test results.
The main components of such a medium are:
- Nutrients e.g. proteins, peptides, amino acids.
- Energy source e.g. carbohydrates.
- Essential metals and minerals, e.g. calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphates, sulphates and trace elements.
- Buffering agents e.g. phosphates, acetates.
- Indicators e.g. phenol red, bromocresol purple.
- Selective agents e.g. chemicals, antimicrobials.
- Gelling agent ( in the case of solid media), usually agar.
- Water.
Standard microbiological culture media and confirmatory test reagents used in cosmetic testing usually contain ingredients that have been used in microbiology for many decades and have proved to be efficacious in producing reliable results.
Such substances include:
- Pancreatic bovine enzymatic products e.g. tryptones and peptones.
- Milk-derived proteins e.g. casein.
- Mouse antibodies.
- Rabbit plasma.
- Bovine or Equine foetal serum.
Vegan Culture Media
There are companies that produce culture media that use vegan alternative replacements for many of the above substances that are animal - derived, these include sugars from potatoes, plant peptones and enzymes from sources such as. Cowpea, lentils, split peas, chickpeas, soy protein and mung beans. Many of these vegan media are registered with The Vegan Society's Trademark so that companies and laboratories who use them can issue a stamp of approval without having to be physically audited by The Vegan Society.
For a cosmetic to be totally vegan the methods used in the microbiological analysis of them also need to be vegan.
Laboratories carrying out vegan testing need to have separate work areas and workflow arrangements to prevent cross contamination from standard procedures, culture media, reagents and consumables.
This article is written and discussed by our microbiological expert at Southern Microbiological Services – A Tentamus Company, Steve Wilde.