Cosmetic Manufacturing Equipment

Cosmetic processing refers to the manufacturing workflows used to produce personal care, beauty, and physical aesthetic products from raw materials. Examples of cosmetic products include makeup, perfume, hair dye, nail polish, and moisturizer. Tangential products that serve a hygienic or body accessorizing function are often considered to be cosmetics as well, such as facial cleaner, teeth whitening solution, skincare products, and deodorant.

In general, cosmetic processing consists of ingredient preparation, mixing/blending, thermal treatment, stabilization, and quality control verification prior to downstream packaging steps. Since cosmetic products vary by their physical properties, additional advanced processes are often involved, such as distillation for fine fragrances, filtration for natural oils, and cutting/grinding/milling for plant-based ingredient extraction.

Here are just a few key examples of cosmetic manufacturing processes that Lodige has designed systems for:

• Powder Blending: combining multiple dry powder ingredients together to make a stable blend as used in face and body powders. 
• Emulsification: heavy-duty mixing used to fuse oil-based and water-based liquids together, such as for facial creams and hair conditioners. 
• Granulation: another form of mixing in which a liquid binding agent is added into a dry powder mix, forming larger, free-flowing, low-dust granules, such as for high-grade facial foundations and bath salts.
• High-Shear Mixing: used to mix difficult powder-and-liquid formulations together to create high-viscosity, textured, infused, and homogeneous products such as organic creams, pigments, color bases, lipsticks, and eyeliners. 
• Drying: dehydration processing used to reduce final moisture content, stabilize mixes, normalize color and texture profiles, and add flowability into sticky products. 
• Thermal Processing (Heating/Cooling): heat treatment of products to stabilize and normalize products, alter product properties for subsequent processes (EG preheating prior to mixing), and sterilize products for consumer safety.

Yes, cosmetic processing systems are regulated by multiple entities, each targeting different elements of the system. In most cases, cosmetic processing equipment falls under a minimum of three separate entities – one for consumer safety, one for employee safety, and one for technical performance. The most common regulatory entities involved with cosmetic process equipment are listed below, varying by locale, industry, and product type:

• FDA (United States Food & Drug Administration)
• FDA MoCRA (the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022)
• cGMPs (FDA Current Good Manufacturing Practices)
• BPE (Bioprocessing Equipment standards by ASME)
• 3A (Hygienic standards for Food Contact Equipment)
• EHEDG (EU Hygienic standards for Sanitary Applications)
• ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials)
• ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
• NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency – Class/Div/Group Ratings)
• NEC (National Electric Code)
• ATEX (European Explosive Atmosphere Equipment Standards)
• UL (Underwriter’s Laboratory)
• ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
• ISO (International Organization for Standardization)
• IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission)
• CE / EN (Conformité Européenne, or European Technical Conformance)
• OSHA (U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
• Multiple additional regional and industry-specific standards

Lodige has had the privilege of helping cosmetic processors with a wide range of operational improvements and new production capabilities, with these four challenges tending to come up most often: 

• Long mix times due to poor mixing action and dose control
• Poor cleanability resulting in long sanitation cycles
• Low quality blends with clumps, stratification, separation, and inconsistent viscosities
• Batch-to-batch carryover due to harborage and non-sanitary equipment features (which also directly risks contamination, spoilage, and microorganism growth)