The Story of Elastoblur®

When it comes to achieving a smooth, flawless finish, many conventional cosmetics rely on synthetic ingredients, such as silicone elastomers, boron nitride, and nylon powders. While effective, these ingredients don't always align with the growing demand for clean, natural beauty.

Driven by our ongoing mission to replace synthetics with natural alternatives, we wanted to create a natural solution that delivers the same soft-focus, mattifying effect.

That’s how Elastoblur® was born, our creamy, moisturising balm that beautifully blurs and mattifies, all while staying true to nature.

In the Alchemy lab, we always design any new, natural ingredients with formulators in mind.  Our goal?  To make their lives easier!

So we set ourselves the challenge to tick as many boxes as possible whilst making this, which included...

• Creating a smooth texture with a matte finish. Resulting in no pilling, whiteness, or stickiness.
• Formulating a luxurious powdery matte finish to create a soft focus that blurs wrinkles.
• Producing a mild ingredient, with low potential of irritation.
• Creating an ingredient that is easy for formulators to use.

We dedicate extensive time and care into researching and selecting the perfect ingredients for every product we create.

Each one must meet our standards, not only being natural, but also delivering real, functional benefits to ensure every formula is as effective as it is clean.

Here are the ingredients that ticked all of our boxes:

Tapioca Starch: Sourced from the resilient cassava root, a staple food for nearly 800 million people. Tapioca starch is a gentle, skin-friendly ingredient. This drought-tolerant plant requires less water to grow, making it a sustainable choice. 

Castor Oil: Castor plants are nature’s little powerhouses. Thriving in diverse climates with minimal water and no need for pesticides, they’re as eco-conscious as they are effective. Castor oil is also great at dispersing pigments, making it good for colour applications.

Lauroyl Lysine: Derived from natural amino acids, this high-purity, biodegradable ingredient adds a layer of luxury to any formula. It’s known for its ability to provide a smooth, soft feel while delivering lasting moisture. 

We did rigorous blend and stability testing to build the beauty of Elastoblur® and really understand the ingredient.

We then recruited a panel of volunteers to put Elastoblur® to the test. The Visia study analysed skin before and after applying our Elastoblur® Magic Eye Cream formulation. 

The Visia machine assessed the number and depth of wrinkles to assign a skin age to each volunteer. And the results showed a clear decrease in skin age!

We now have to lock the sample cupboard door from our colleagues!

The team loves to get stuck into product training to really understand the uses, feel, and benefits of our ingredients. 

In our recent Elastoblur® workshop, the team learnt all there is to know and, of course, got to try out the popular formulations!

One of the things we love most about Elastoblur® is its incredibly versatile texture. It blends effortlessly into emulsions, balm bases, or even shines on its own as a luxurious balm-to-powder product.

Whether you're formulating something simple or something sophisticated, Elastoblur® fits right in.

Three uses with one ingredient

Using 1-5% of Elastoblur®: To use in a cream or serum as part of the oil phase. It reduces a greasy feel and gives a light, blurring, and powdery skin feel.

Using 5-20% of Elastoblur®: Ideal for applications with a higher matte coverage, such as foundations, BB/CC creams, eye creams, and primers.

Using 20% of Elastoblur®: For a complete matte coverage and balm/mousse texture. Ideal for mousse foundations, balm primers, and concealers with a non-greasy feel.

Launching a new product is always a huge team effort.  And the entire Alchemy team got involved when it came to trying out Elastoblur® - as seen in our 'Team Approved' video below!  

Presented by Technical Sales Manager, Steph (who is also our very own make-up artist), it demonstrates there are endless reasons to love Elastoblur®.

We love the versatility of Elastoblur®, and we showcase its different uses in our various formulation inspirations. Watch out for our new applications soon!