Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the cosmetics industry: how to improve the environmental performance of products

30/04/2026

 In our 25 years working alongside companies in the cosmetics and detergency sectors, we have often seen the same situation: there is a willingness to make products more sustainable, but it is not always clear where to start. Useful initiatives are adopted, from the use of recycled materials to the installation of photovoltaic systems, all of which move in the right direction, but in many cases they are not part of a strategy built on solid data.

 This is precisely the point: without a clear understanding of environmental impacts, there is a risk of acting on secondary aspects while overlooking the most relevant critical issues and improvement opportunities. In other words, action is taken, but not always where it truly matters.

 This is where Life Cycle Assessment, or LCA, comes into play. It is a methodology that makes it possible to assess the environmental impacts of a product throughout all stages of its life cycle, from the choice of raw materials to production, from use to end of life. It is a structured study, but precisely for this reason it provides in-depth knowledge of the product, the processes and the supply chain.

 At Chimica HTS, we use LCA not only to measure environmental impacts, but also to transform data into useful insights for business decision-making. When we work on these projects, we often see that a well-designed study helps identify more clearly where to intervene in order to truly improve the environmental performance of a product. Below are some concrete examples of how LCA can support cosmetics companies in better understanding the environmental profile of their products and making more effective decisions.

Identifying environmental hotspots to act where it truly matters

 One of the most useful contributions of LCA is its ability to identify environmental hotspots, allowing companies to focus time, resources and investments where improvement can be truly significant.

 In many cosmetic products, a relevant share of the environmental impact is concentrated in the raw material extraction phase.¹ Some specific ingredients may have a disproportionate influence on the environmental profile of the formula. An interesting case emerges from the study by Rudolf et al. (2024), in which the use of gold nanoparticles in a cosmetic cream accounts for 60.7% of the product’s climate change potential.²

 In the case of rinse-off products, such as shampoos and cleansers, the use phase can have a significant weight: the consumer’s hot water consumption may represent between 50% and 75% of the product’s total carbon footprint.³

 In other cases, the production phase can become decisive. In the production of cosmetic emulsions, for example, heating and cooling can account for up to 95% of the total energy used during the manufacturing phase.⁴ Some comparative studies also show that switching from a hot emulsification process to a “hot-cold” configuration can reduce thermal energy consumption by between 82% and 86%.⁵ ⁶

Packaging ecodesign: beyond the simple choice of material

 In the cosmetics sector, packaging is often the first element that consumers associate with the sustainability of a product. However, LCA shows that its environmental performance does not depend only on the choice of material, but on a set of design factors that must be assessed as a whole.

 Scientific research shows that dematerialization, meaning a reduction in packaging weight, and the use of post-consumer recycled material, or PCR, are the most effective strategies. The study by Vassallo et al. (2024) shows that the use of 100% recycled materials can lead to an impact reduction of between 42% and 60%.⁷

 The type of primary packaging is also a factor to be assessed. In a comparative study of different dispensing systems, Rathore et al. (2023) showed how airless pumps can be more sustainable than traditional dip-tube systems, as they drastically reduce the amount of lotion residue left unused in the bottle.⁸

Debunking myths with data

 One of the most interesting contributions of LCA is its ability to challenge some widely held beliefs in the sector. One of the most common is that concepts such as “natural” or “circular” automatically mean “more sustainable”. In reality, this is not always the case. Below are two very concrete examples.

 In a comparative analysis of different natural and synthetic antioxidants, Pagels et al. (2022) showed that green tea extract can, in some cases, have a higher impact than ingredients such as algae or synthetic vitamin C, precisely because of the weight of the agricultural phase in the life cycle. These studies highlight the need to improve the environmental profile of natural raw material production, both by increasing scale and by optimizing processes.⁹

 An example of circularity that may nevertheless have a high environmental impact is the case of aquafaba, the cooking water from legumes, which can be used as an emulsifier. The LCA conducted by Rossi et al. (2026) warns producers that, if aquafaba is transformed into powder through spray drying, the energy impact of the process can exceed that of traditional petrochemical emulsifiers. In these cases, keeping the ingredient in liquid form may be the choice most consistent with the objective of reducing environmental impacts.¹⁰

Life Cycle Assessment as a tool to support strategic decisions

 Every time we work on an LCA study, we see that the real value lies not only in the final result, but above all in the quality of the information it makes available to the company. For this reason, at Chimica HTS we use the life cycle approach to help companies build a database that supports decisions on product development, raw material selection, supplier selection and process organization.

 For us, carrying out an LCA study does not only mean quantifying an environmental impact. It means providing deeper knowledge of the product and its supply chain, so as to support more informed technical and management decisions.

Bibliography 

1.  Rocca, Roberto, Daniele Perossa, and Luca Fumagalli. Environmental sustainability performance assessment tools in cosmetics industry: state of the art." XXVII Summer School “Francesco Turco” – Unconventional Plants (2022).

2.  Rudolf, R.; Majeriˇc, P.; Pintariˇc, Z.N.; Horvat, A.; Krajnc, D. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Impact on the Environment of a Cosmetic Cream with Gold Nanoparticles and Hydroxylated Fullerene Ingredients. Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 11625.

3.   Koehler, A., & Wildbolz, C. Comparing the environmental footprints of home-care and personal-hygiene products: The relevance of different life-cycle phases.

4.   Lin, T.J. Low energy emulsification I: Principles and applications. J. Soc. Cosmet. Chem. 1978, 29, 117–125.

5.  Tamburic, S.; Fröhlich, J.; Mistry, S.; Fischer, L.J.; Barbary, T.; Bunyan, S.; Dufton, E. Sustainability by Reduced Energy Consumption during Manufacturing: The Case of Cosmetic Emulsions. Cosmetics 2023, 10, 132. https://doi.org/10.3390/cosmetics10050132

6.  Raposo, S.; Salgado, A.; Eccleston, G.; Urbano, M.; Ribeiro, H.M. Cold processed oil-in-water emulsions for dermatological purpose: Formulation design and structure analysis. Pharm. Dev. Technol. 2014, 19, 417–429

7.  Vassallo, N.; Refalo, P. Reducing the Environmental Impacts of Plastic Cosmetic Packaging: A Multi-Attribute Life Cycle Assessment. Cosmetics 2024, 11, 34. https://doi.org/10.3390/cosmetics11020034

8.  Rathore S, Schuler B, Park J. Life cycle assessment of multiple dispensing systems used for cosmetic product packaging. Packag Technol Sci. 2023;36(7):533-547. doi:10.1002/pts.2729

9.  Pagels, F.; Arias, A.; Guerreiro, A.; Guedes, A.C.; Moreira, M.T. Seaweed Cosmetics under the Spotlight of Sustainability. Phycology 2022, 2, 374–383. https://doi.org/10.3390/phycology2040021

10.  Rossi, E.; Bassi, G.; Cespi, D.; Passarini, F. Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Aquafaba: Applications in the Food and Cosmetic Sectors and Comparison with Conventional Alternatives. Environments 2026, 13, 30.

11.  Rocca, R., Acerbi, F., Fumagalli, L. et al. Development of an LCA-based tool to assess the environmental sustainability level of cosmetics products. Int J Life Cycle Assess 28, 1261–1285 (2023)