Immobilised lipases in the cosmetics industry

Commercial products for personal care, generally perceived as cosmetics, have an important impact on everyday life worldwide. Accordingly, the market for both consumer products and specialty chemicals comprising their ingredients is considerable. Lipases have started to play a minor role as active ingredients in so-called 'functional cosmetics' as well as a major role as catalysts for the industrial production of various specialty esters, aroma compounds and active agents. Interestingly, both applications almost always require preparation by appropriate immobilisation techniques. In addition, for catalytic use special reactor concepts often have to be employed due to the mostly limited stability of these preparations. Nevertheless, these processes show distinct advantages based on process simplification, product quality and environmental footprint and are therefore apt to more and more replace traditional chemical processes. Here, for the first time a review on the various aspects of using immobilised lipases in the cosmetics industry is given.