This sustainable, wood-based hair conditioner may be pitch black and smell like peat, but its creators claim it could be the future of haircare after tests suggest it may work just as well as commercial products. Ěý

“We are using the power of nature,” says at Stockholm University in Sweden. “We combine a high level of science with old traditions… [to] get something really cool: simple, useful and quite effective.”

Pylypchuk and his colleagues used lignin, a polymer that is a central component of wood and bark, as the starting point for their bio-based conditioner. When extracted from wood, lignin naturally interacts with waterĚýwhile also acting as a surfactant, a key component of detergents. It also contains natural antioxidants, which help to preserve the conditioner, and provides UV protection, says Pylypchuk. “Lignin serves as a multifunctional platform in this context,” he says. “It protects against UV, it is moisturising.”

The researchers combined a lignin gel developed in their laboratory with coconut oil and water to make the end product. Team member , also at Stockholm University, claims it works almost as well as commercial conditioners. When used on samples of wetted bleached human hair and then washed out, it reduced the “drag” when combing the hair while it was still damp by 13 per cent, compared with the commercial product they tested, which reduced drag by 20 per cent.

One potential downside is that the current formulation of the conditioner is “pitch black” and smells like “cooked wood”, similar to peat, says Sipponen. That hasn’t deterred the researchers from contemplating commercialising it. They tested the formula on hair, towels and pig skin, and say it washes off without leaving stains. Even the smell is quite pleasant, says Pylypchuk. “I personally like it very much, and most of the people in our lab – maybe because they work with lignin – they liked it.” Ěý

Pylypchuk and Sipponen for the lignin gel and hope their conditioner can become a consumer product, offering people a more sustainable alternative to current products that rely on ingredients derived from fossil fuels. They say the next step is to see if it causes eye and skin irritation ahead of any trial on living hair.

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But US-based cosmetics researcherĚý,Ěýformerly at the Textile Research Institute Princeton, New Jersey, has doubts about how well the product would perform compared with commercial rivals. “I’ve been doing these experiments for 30 years, and a conventional conditioner product will lower the combing forces by 80 per cent, maybe even 90 per cent,” he says. Sipponen thinks variation in the testing methods and condition of the hair under analysis could explain why his team only found a 20 per cent reduction for the commercial conditioner.

The wood-based conditioner’s appearance and unusual smell may also put consumers off, says Evans. “The patent literature is absolutely chock-a-block with potential hair conditioner formulas that never went anywhere,” he says. “And the reason is because you don’t just need efficacy – for the consumer to buy it, what you really need as well is aesthetics.” Ěý

So, would a black, wood-smelling, eco-friendly conditioner be a hit with consumers? “Sounds like a bit of a non-starter,” says Evans.

Skincare that includes two types of newly discovered protein fragments could one day repair age-induced damage.

The proteins that form an elastic network in our skin become increasingly damaged with age due to rising inflammation levels in our body and exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Over time, the damage causes the skin to lose its elasticity and become wrinkled.

As the proteins degrade, they release small protein fragments called peptides . However, these are usually released at insufficient levels to even somewhat reverse the appearance of skin ageing, says at the University of Manchester, UK.

Previously, some researchers have made cosmetic products containing high levels of such peptides, but few of these peptides have been shown to repair skin damage in people.

In research presented at the American Academy of Dermatology conference in Louisiana on 18 March, Sherratt and his colleagues used an artificial intelligence to predict what peptides are produced when proteins are broken down in our skin. From this, they identified two peptides that they think occur naturally in our skin as a result of damage.

The researchers then applied these peptides to an area of skin on the forearms of eight Caucasian people, aged between 71 and 84. The treated areas were covered with a polymer patch that is known to improve the penetration of peptides into skin.

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After the participants had worn the patch for 12 days, the researchers collected a 3-millimetre-wide biopsy from the area where the peptides had been applied, as well as from other areas that had not been exposed to these peptides.

They found that the peptides substantially increased the levels of key protein structures called fibrillin-rich microfibrils, which are known to make skin more elastic, in the treated skin compared with other, untreated areas. The participants experienced no adverse effects from the treatment.

The researchers didn’t record whether this increase in protein levels correlated with a more youthful skin appearance, such as fewer wrinkles.

But according to at Walgreens Boots Alliance – a healthcare company that funded the study – in Nottingham, UK, the fibrillin-rich microfibrils rose to similar levels as those that occur naturally in people several years younger than the participants.

The researchers plan to test whether these increased protein levels reduce the appearance of wrinkles in upcoming trials that will include a larger number of participants of diverse ethnic backgrounds, says Bell.

Although the study supports the idea that skin peptides can repair some damage, further work is needed to assess how long the effects last, says at Integrative Skin Science and Research, a clinical trials unit in Sacramento, California.

Further work should also look into whether the apparent anti-ageing effects seen in forearm skin translate to facial skin, he says.

If made into a skincare product, such as with the Boots’ brand No7, you would probably need to apply the peptides every day to maintain any anti-ageing effect, says Bell.