Shaping the Future of Cosmetic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry—Trends in Obtaining Fine Chemicals from Natural Sources

Abstract

The pursuit of fine chemicals from natural sources is advancing rapidly, driven by a growing demand for safe, sustainable, and high-performance ingredients in cosmetic and pharmaceutical formulations. Emerging extraction and biotransformation technologies, including enzyme-assisted procedures, precision fermentation, and green solvent systems, are enabling the selective recovery of complex molecules with enhanced purity and stability. Simultaneously, AI-guided approaches to the discovery of bioactive compounds are accelerating the identification of multifunctional molecules exhibiting, for example, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant or microbiome-modulating activities. These developments not only expand the chemical diversity accessible to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors but also promote the adoption of circular bioeconomy frameworks. Together, they define a new generation of natural fine chemicals with strong potential for targeted therapeutic and cosmetic applications. Accordingly, this commentary focuses on emerging trends and key technological advances in the use of renewable, natural sources for the production of fine chemicals relevant to cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. It further highlights the critical roles of biotechnology, green chemistry, and digital innovation in shaping a more sustainable future for cosmetic and pharmaceutical chemistry.

1. Introduction

Modern cosmetic chemistry is undergoing a profound transformation driven by rapid progress in biotechnology, green chemistry, and biomass processing methods. These advancements are redefining the ways in which active substances, emulsifiers, surfactants, and polymers are designed and synthesized for cosmetic formulations. In response to increasing regulatory and societal expectations regarding product safety and environmental impact, research trends are clearly shifting toward sustainable, biodegradable, and non-toxic solutions.

One of the crucial aspects of this transformation is the progressive replacement of petrochemical feedstocks with renewable, biogenic sources of carbon, supported by advanced physical, chemical, and biochemical processes. This commentary elaborates on this perspective by highlighting key developments in renewable feedstock, their biotransformation, extraction strategies, innovative biomass conversion technologies, and digital tools facilitating the design of sustainable cosmetic and pharmaceutical ingredients.

2. Perspectives and Challenges

The development of fine chemicals in the sense of high-cost industrial products with well-defined purity and produced in small quantities faces several persistent challenges. It is strongly visible in the context of obtaining fine chemicals from natural sources for cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications, where strict purity control is required due to their direct interaction with biological systems. Therefore, advanced and multi-step purification techniques very often must be involved in order to obtain active ingredients, functional additives or even performance enhancers suitable for cosmetic or pharmaceutical products. Moreover, we have to be also aware that variability in plant composition, driven by geographic origin, seasonality, and cultivation practices, complicates standardization and quality control. In addition, conventional extraction and purification often require resource- and cost-intensive processes, while limited yields and complex matrices hinder scalability. Ensuring chemical stability, safety, and regulatory compliance further constrains the transition from laboratory discovery to commercial formulation, with economic feasibility representing a critical limiting factor.

At the same time, we observe that increasing expectations for sustainable production are pressuring the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries to reduce solvent usage, energy consumption, and waste generation. Consequently, future perspectives point toward bioconversion of renewable feedstock as a key strategy in sustainable bioprocessing. It offers quite convenient pathways to transform agricultural residues, lignocellulosic biomass, and other renewable materials into high-value active ingredients, understood as specific chemicals intentionally included in a product to produce a defined and intended cosmetic or pharmacological effect.

Similarly, advances in metabolomics, synthetic biology, and precision fermentation also hold considerable promise for obtaining high-value natural molecules with enhanced consistency and supply security. The concept of precision fermentation can be understood as a biotechnological process employing genetically engineered microorganisms to biosynthesize a predefined target molecule under controlled fermentation conditions. Therefore, it specifically brings many perspectives on obtaining molecules identical to a naturally occurring ones with desirable yield, purity, and reproducibility.

In addition, integrated green technologies, such as use of green solvents, supercritical fluids, pressurized water extraction, or biocatalysis, are emerging as effective means to improve process efficiency and environmental performance.

Machine-learning-assisted screening and process optimization may further accelerate the discovery and scalable production of bioactive compounds, defined as substances that exert an effect on living organisms, cells, or tissues by interacting with biological pathways or molecular targets.

Although these developments have the potential to significantly improve the availability, sustainability, and application of natural fine chemicals in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors, several challenges must be addressed before large-scale implementation is possible. These challenges include economic factors, such as production costs, scale-up feasibility, and capital investment in equipment, as well as regulatory requirements related to safety data. In addition, real-world scalability issues associated with the deployment of new technologies remain significant. Together, these factors can substantially slow the adoption of novel approaches for obtaining fine chemicals from natural sources. Overcoming these barriers requires standardization and robust economic analyses to clearly demonstrate competitiveness with conventional technologies. Furthermore, regulatory pathways must be clarified through the generation of comprehensive safety and performance data, including information on chronic exposure, impurity profiles, and long-term environmental behavior. Although current research increasingly acknowledges these obstacles, proactive and sustained engagement among researchers, industry stakeholders, and regulatory authorities remains essential for the development of technology-specific guidelines.

3. Bioconversion of Renewable Feedstocks: From Biomass to Active Ingredients

Bioconversion of renewable feedstocks, defined as a transformation of a pre-existing substrate into a structurally modified product using biological systems such as microorganisms, isolated enzymes, or cells, has emerged as a key strategy in sustainable bioprocessing. One of the most promising directions in contemporary cosmetic chemistry involves the use of fermentation-based approaches to transform lignocellulosic, lipid, or carbohydrate biomass, including agricultural and food processing residues, into fine chemicals with defined cosmetic functions [1,2]. Traditionally, numerous cosmetic ingredients, such as fatty alcohols, esters, glycerides, or nonionic surfactants, have been produced from petroleum-derived intermediates. Nevertheless, biotechnological processes employing microorganisms capable of converting plant-derived feedstocks into analogous yet more sustainable compounds are gaining increasing relevance [3]. Advances in pretreatment technologies that enhance biomass accessibility, particularly enzymatic hydrolysis, ionic-liquid processing, and consolidated bioprocessing, should also be emphasized [4,5].

Microbial platforms, including engineered strains of Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Corynebacterium glutamicum, Yarrowia lipolytica, and various filamentous fungi, have played a central role in converting biomass-derived substrates into pharmaceuticals, cosmeceuticals, flavors, and other bioactive compounds [6]. Significant progress in metabolic engineering has further expanded the biochemical capabilities of these organisms, enabling the transformation of hydroxycarboxylic acids to polyols as well as the production of structurally complex molecules such as terpenoids, alkaloids, polyketides and biosurfactants, e.g., rhamnolipids and sophorolipids, directly from renewable feedstocks [7,8,9]. These biosurfactants have attracted considerable interest in natural cosmetics due to their high biocompatibility, mild surface activity, and ability to form stable emulsions [10].

Recent innovations also highlight the potential of underexplored biological matrices as abundant reservoirs of novel bioactives for cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications. Marine microorganisms, for example, have yielded compounds like mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs), which exhibit strong UV-protective and antioxidant properties and are already being investigated for use in cosmetic formulations [11,12]. On the other hand, extremophile plants such as Rhodiola rosea produce specialized antioxidant metabolites that show promise for skincare and anti-inflammatory applications [13]. Endophytic fungi have also demonstrated remarkable biosynthetic capabilities, particularly species associated with Taxus and Artemisia, are capable of producing taxanes and artemisinin analogues, highlighting their potential as renewable sources of pharmaceutically relevant molecules [14,15].

4. Hybrid Chemical–Biochemical Biomass Conversion Technologies

Hybrid chemical–biochemical conversion routes that combine the selectivity of biological processes with the speed and controllability of chemical catalysis are gaining increasing attention among scientists and industry representatives. These integrated strategies represent an emerging approach for producing high-value cosmetic ingredients from renewable feedstocks with enhanced efficiency, selectivity, and sustainability.

Hybrid platforms typically couple thermochemical or catalytic pretreatments, namely acid hydrolysis or catalytic depolymerization, with downstream enzymatic or microbial transformations. The chemical pretreatment step generally produces intermediates enriched in fermentable sugars, phenolics, or lipid-derived precursors, while the subsequent biocatalytic stage enables highly selective conversion into targeted cosmetic actives [16,17].

In cosmetic applications, hybrid processing has proven particularly promising for the generation of bio-based antioxidants, emollients, humectants, and UV-protective compounds [18,19,20]. A representative example is the conversion of plant or algal lipids into dodecanoic and myristic acids, followed by chemical modification (e.g., epoxidation, esterification) to yield emollients with targeted rheological and sensory properties [21,22,23]. The integration of biocatalysis further enables oxidation, reduction, and condensation reactions to proceed under mild and energy-efficient conditions. Within the cosmetic field, such hybrid catalysis facilitates the synthesis of phenolic antioxidants and fragrance precursors with defined stereochemistry and high purity [24,25].

Overall, these combined conversion routes offer advantages in reaction specificity, reduced solvent demand, and lower carbon intensity compared with purely chemical methods, while outperforming fully biological pathways in processing speed and substrate flexibility. Consequently, hybrid biomass-conversion technologies should be regarded as key drivers in the development of next-generation, sustainable cosmetic ingredients.

However, the implementation of hybrid chemical–enzymatic transformations in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries is hindered mostly by economic and regulatory constraints. Limited industrial benchmarks create serious uncertainty for industrial investment, as hybrid systems usually increase costs due to process complexity, enzyme stability issues, and multistep optimization requirements. Furthermore, regulatory scrutiny often intensifies for such complex systems, since hybrid processes can lead to novel impurity profiles or reaction by-products that do not fit conventional chemical or biocatalytic expectations. Analytical methods and impurity characterization strategies must be validated thoroughly to satisfy regulatory quality standards for pharmaceutical or cosmetic actives. Published literature on these regulatory considerations remains insufficient and reflects a broader knowledge gap.

5. Green Solvents and Reaction Media in Cosmetic Chemistry

Solvent-based extraction of active cosmetic ingredients typically relies on polar and non-polar media with well-established procedures like maceration, Soxhlet, solid-phase extraction or ultrasound- or microwave-assisted techniques [26,27]. However, some traditional solvents, including n-hexane and methanol, may create several problems when not removed completely from the post-extraction mixture, as their presence in the final product is prohibited and regulated by the EU authorities (Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products) [28].

In contrast, supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂) extraction and pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE) represent powerful and complementary strategies for the sustainable and efficient recovery of fine chemicals from natural sources for pharmaceutical and cosmetic use. scCO₂ extraction, widely regarded as a green and selective technique, is commonly applied to isolate non-polar bioactive fine chemicals, such as terpenes, essential oils, and antioxidants, from plant matrices [29,30]. The tunable physicochemical properties of scCO₂, modulated by pressure and temperature, provide low viscosity, high diffusivity, and a near-ambient critical temperature, thereby reducing thermal degradation of labile compounds. Nevertheless, the intrinsic non-polarity of scCO₂ limits its capacity to extract polar metabolites, often requiring the addition of environmentally acceptable co-solvents like ethanol [31].

Pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE), also referred to as subcritical water extraction, represents a complementary green technique that employs water at elevated temperature and pressure to modulate its dielectric constant and solvating ability. This approach efficiently recovers moderately polar bioactives like phenolics, flavonoids, and tannins, from natural sources, often achieving yields superior to those obtained with conventional organic solvents [32,33]. PHWE is also amenable to industrial-scale implementation, offering reduced solvent toxicity and a lower environmental footprint. However, despite these environmental advantages, the high capital and operational costs of both supercritical CO₂ and pressurized hot water extraction remain notable limitations [34,35].

Nonetheless, the pillar of modern sustainable chemistry involves the development of green reaction media that enable extraction procedure under environmentally benign and safe conditions. Among these, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) and their natural analogues (NADES) have gained particular attention as promising alternatives to conventional organic solvents [36]. Composed typically of components such as choline, glycerol, organic acids, and sugars, DES and NADES exhibit remarkable solvating capacity for polyphenols, flavonoids, and other plant-derived metabolites. These solvents are thus highly suitable for the extraction of bioactive compounds with cosmetic potential, including anthocyanins, tannins, carotenoids, and phytosterols [37,38,39,40]. Furthermore, NADES are fully biodegradable and non-toxic, and many possess intrinsic moisturizing and soothing properties, allowing them to function not only as solvents but also as active components in cosmetic formulations [41].

However, we should be aware that industrial implementation of NADES in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors could be hindered by economic and regulatory constraints. Although NADES are often promoted as low-cost and sustainable, their high viscosity, limited mass transfer, and energy-consuming handling significantly complicate scaling-up and increase operational costs compared with conventional solvents. Moreover, the lack of robust economic assessments and limited industrial benchmarks for NADES-based processes create substantial uncertainty for industrial investment.

On the other hand, NADES may also face many challenges from a regulatory perspective. Despite being composed of generally recognized natural substances, a comprehensive toxicological and long-term exposure data are often missing. Also, potential NADES–microbiome interactions still remain unclear and require further extended studies in order to ensure the safe use in cosmetic products. Unfortunately, current regulatory frameworks for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals in the EU and US lack harmonized guidance on classification and approval pathways for NADES, which significantly complicates submission strategies.

6. Digital Tools in Cosmetic and Pharmaceutical Ingredient Design

A completely new dimension in sustainable ingredient design is offered by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). These approaches enable the prediction of chemical structure–property relationships and the pre-selection of candidate molecules with desired functionality [42,43,44]. Computational models based on quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSARs) and molecular simulations, such as molecular docking (MD) and density functional theory (DFT), allow the prediction of key parameters of cosmetic or pharmaceutical compounds prior to their synthesis and bring the potential to significantly reduce or even eliminate animal testing. These parameters include toxicity, photochemical stability, membrane permeability, and sensory characteristics of the prospective molecules [45,46,47].

Nevertheless, the limitations in the performance of the developed models are still present and the need to train them on larger and more diverse datasets should be highlighted. This requirement arises from the multitude of factors that must be considered when designing new cosmetic and pharmaceutical molecules and/or methodologies for their efficient acquisition from natural sources, for example, through biotechnological approaches.

7. Novel Approaches to Safety and Biodegradability Assessment

From both industrial and regulatory perspectives, reliable evaluation of biodegradability and ecological safety is of critical importance. Recent advances in microbial biosensors and three-dimensional cell culture models now allow for in vitro assessment of cosmetic ingredient effects on skin cells and microbiota, providing alternatives to animal testing [48,49].

Simultaneously, integrated life cycle assessment (LCA) frameworks are increasingly applied, combining chemical, energetic, and toxicological parameters to generate a comprehensive sustainability profile of products and processes. These models enable comprehensive evaluation of a compound’s environmental performance, from raw material sourcing through processing to ultimate environmental degradation [50,51].

The integration of AI-driven modeling with cheminformatics further facilitates the design of active molecules with optimized physicochemical and safety profiles. This approach aligns with the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) concept, promoting the development of effective, low-risk, and environmentally compatible chemical entities [52,53,54].

8. Conclusions

Cosmetic chemistry aimed at deriving fine chemicals from natural sources for potential applications in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries is entering an era in which technological innovation must coexist with environmental responsibility. The shift from petrochemical to biogenic carbon sources, the advancement of biocatalysis and computational design tools, as well as the implementation of green chemistry principles and life cycle assessment collectively establish the foundation for a sustainable cosmetic industry. We believe that challenges, particularly those related to efficiency, economic feasibility, and process scalability, should be perceived not as obstacles but rather as drivers of collaboration between academia and industry. Within this framework, rigorous fundamental research accompanied by high-quality scientific publications remain essential for validating novel materials, optimizing bioprocesses, and supporting the evidence-based evolution of regulatory frameworks.

As the field of obtaining fine chemicals from natural sources continues to evolve, this area of cosmetic and pharmaceutical chemistry is poised to assume a leadership role, demonstrating that innovation, safety, and sustainability can be achieved simultaneously through robust, scientifically grounded methodologies.