BASF Personal Care is releasing a revised version of its active ingredient Laricyl that features a more sustainable cultivation of the raw material while offering proven enhanced efficacy.

For 20 years, Laricyl, an extract from the Fomes officinalis mushroom, has been a tried-and-tested component of BASF’s portfolio of cosmetic active ingredients for pore refinement. In an effort to align its actions towards more sustainable practices, the company now uses a method to cultivate the mycelium, the vegetative part of the fungus, by solid-state fermentation. This replaces the harvesting of the mushroom from the wild.

The production of the mycelium, that is now organic certified, is carried out in Europe on solid medium within a controlled incubation room. The new version of Laricyl is 99.7% from natural origin according to ISO 16128.

“We continuously revise our portfolio to produce even more sustainably. Of course, this should not be at the expense of performance,” said Lucilene Veira Nunes, Head of Business Management for Bioactive Ingredients, EMEA. “With Laricyl, we have now succeeded in making cultivation of the raw material more sustainable, while at the same time improving the results of the ingredient on immediate pore tightening, skin mattifying and moisturization.”