Is Brazilian red clay South America’s next big beauty export?
Brazilian Kimberlite Clay owns multiple clay deposits in the country and has only recently begun offering the distinctive red clay as a cosmetic ingredient.
The clay contains over 120 minerals, a point of pride that both Alan Oliveira, managing director for Brazilian Kimberlite Clay, and his colleague Luciano Didier, the company’s international business development director, emphasized in conversation with Cosmetics Design at the in-cosmetics show yesterday.
Unique ingredient
Brazilian Kimberlite Clay mines the clay manually. And, as Didier explains, uses an “air-shock process to make it fine…4 – 6 microns.” The clay, he says, is sterilized with a heat process, one that uses no chemicals and no irradiation.
The clay provides several distinctive benefits too. Its mineral crystals are purported to fight toxins, stimulate cells, may reduce the effect of solar radiation, and the clay is understood to provide biophotonic effects as well. (Photonic-cosmetics, some say, will be the next wave of niche products as neurocosmetics are today.)
Suggested applications
Besides having the red clay available for attendees to see and touch, Brazilian Kimberlite Clay is also showing finished goods made with the clay. The company sells its clay-based skin care line under the brand Kion in Brazil, primarily in the professional space. Kion products are available in salons and spas, where the products are also used in the treatment room.
There’s a face and body bar soap, a creamy facial mask, and a facial serum. The clay on its own is a remarkable color—something between red earth and rose gold—and makes for unmistakable product formulations.
Not surprisingly, the clay can also be used in color cosmetic products, like lip color or bronzing powder, prototypes of which Geovana Quadros, a consultant working with the company, showed Cosmetics Design. And, because of mica that occurs naturally in the clay, it has a hint of shimmer.
Market savvy
Brazilian Kimberlite Clay is “developing partnerships with companies that bring health and well-being to the Earth’s population,” according to their site. And the company has an objective “to be recognized as innovators and owners of revolutionary knowledge in taking care of the human beings and our planet, in the four corners of the world.”
By supplying a personal care ingredient with a compelling wellness story, the company is certainly on trend with today’s beauty market. Additionally, Brazilian Kimberlite Clay supplies brands of every size.
Minimum order sizes that many suppliers are holding fast to limit their opportunities to work with niche and startup beauty brands. This is not the case with Brazilian Kimberlite Clay. As Didier tells Cosmetics Design, the company sells its raw material in 250 gram packages as well as in measures of 1 kilo and 15 kilos.
