Testing is a crucial step in the lifecycle of your skin care product. While safety testing verifies that your product will not harm the consumer, efficacy testing helps support your label claims.
Whether you are developing new products or entering new markets, you need to partner with a reliable skin care product testing lab to conduct all relevant safety and efficacy tests.
In this article, we will look at how a skin care product testing lab can help you ensure the efficacy of your skin care products and give your consumers confidence in your brand.
Do You Need a Skin Care Product Testing Lab for Efficacy Testing?
Even fifty years ago, some of the claims made by modern-day skin care product companies would sound unbelievable. Today, you can walk into a store and select from an array of boxes and bottles that promise anything from hydration and sun protection, to anti-aging, rejuvenation, and hair loss prevention.
However, whether your product claims are simple or bold, you need to substantiate them before putting any skin care product on the market. The process used to substantiate the claims is known as efficacy testing.
Efficacy testing uses a variety of techniques to provide evidentiary support for your skin care product’s claims. Such evidence will only be valid if the research methods behind it are sound. This means that efficacy tests must be conducted according to validated testing methods, by properly qualified staff, at testing facilities that are duly accredited and have certified quality management methods.
The requirements necessary to ensure proper scientific practices and high quality of research are rigorous. Therefore, if you need reliable efficacy testing for your skin care products, your only real options are to invest in creating and staffing a properly accredited in-house laboratory, or to work with a third-party skin care product testing lab.
How Is Efficacy Testing Conducted in Skin Care Product Testing Labs?
The choice of efficacy test depends on the skin care product and the claim being tested: meaning that different efficacy tests will be used to test hydration claims, hair loss prevention claims, etc.
For an example of efficacy testing, let’s consider a UV protection product–sunscreen. The first aspect of a sunscreen to be tested for efficacy is its SPF, or Sun Protection Factor. A product testing lab will apply the sunscreen to human skin (for in vivo testing) or a reconstructed skin model (for in vitro testing) and use solar simulators to expose the skin to UV radiation. They will then measure the response and calculate the actual SPF offered by the product.
Many sunscreens promise to be water resistant, a claim that can also be tested. Following the relevant guidelines of the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) or the European Cosmetic and Perfumery Association (COLIPA), a skin care product testing lab will conduct a 40- or 80-minute water resistance test. Such tests can also be conducted in vitro or in vivo.
By working with a professional skin care product testing lab, you can be confident that the results of efficacy testing are reliable, the evidence to support your product claims are sound, and the promise you make to your customers is true. That confidence is one of the cornerstones of your brand’s reputation and consumer loyalty.
Find a Skin Care Efficacy Testing Program to Suit Your Needs
At Bioalternatives, we are committed to developing effective in vitro alternative options to animal experimentation methods, by offering a full range of solutions for the development of active ingredients and cosmetic formulations.
We offer customized technical solutions to guide your product research and support the claims of your cosmetic products. Our selection of in vitro testing solutions can be used to characterize your cosmetic products’ active ingredients, demonstrate the efficacy of your formulations, and test the safety of your cosmetic products at an early stage (for R&D purposes only).
With extensive experience in cosmetic product testing and state-of-the-art facilities, we are pleased to offer you dedicated project management support and consulting for your R&D process.
Ready to discuss a testing and research program that will suit your business’s needs?