SMART THINKING

The anti-ageing potential of vanilla beans.

We’re no strangers to vanilla in terms of scenting our homes and flavouring our food, but could the aromatic seed pods soon be responsible for nudging established anti-aging skincare ingredients like retinol off our shelves? Or at least along a bit?

That’s a possibility uncovered by Heilala Vanilla, a vanilla producer and supplier to some of the world’s top chefs. An indication that all-natural ingredients continue to offer plenty of ground-breaking beauty potential, Heilala has identified two bioactive compounds, extracted from the vanilla bean, shown to have beneficial effects on skin in clinical trials. In 2016, on observing the exceptionally soft and youthful hands of the company’s

Tonga-based employees, who’d been handling vanilla beans daily over a number of years, the company began investigating the potential skincare benefits of the more than 200 compounds within each bean.

The result is the recently announced VanilleActiv2, a patentpending compound-blend that is extracted from the lipid fraction of Heilala’s vanilla beans during their production for food purposes.

“VanilleActiv2 is a clinically proven, powerful anti-ageing ingredient,” says Jennifer Boggiss, co-founder and CEO of Heilala.

“It works to reduce wrinkles and fine lines, restores collagen and improves elasticity.” Boggiss says the trials measured the change in collagen chemistry that occurred on human skin cells when VanilleActiv2 was applied. “The result was increased production of collagen, cell regeneration, and renewal.”

In January 2021, the company launches its first product using the compound, a brightening face oil called Bioblume by Heilala that also contains Kakadu plum, rosehip, jojoba, avocado and bakuchiol, with a number of further products in development.