The lines between skincare and color cosmetics continue to blur. Consumers increasingly expect makeup products to deliver comfort, flexibility, hydration, and skin-friendly performance alongside color benefits. Rather than masking the skin, many modern products are designed to enhance it. This trend places increasing emphasis on texture systems that feel breathable, flexible, offer blemish conscious and comfortable throughout wear

Color cosmetics and sun protection are having a moment. What was once a formulation afterthought is now a full-blown romance, with consumers searching for protective benefits alongside cosmetic performance. Successful protective color cosmetics must balance structure, stability, lightweight wear, and sensory elegance, proving that protection and prettiness can absolutely coexist.

From a formulation standpoint, this requires careful management of UV filter compatibility, emulsion stability, and film-forming systems that maintain SPF efficacy without compromising spreadability or wear. Achieving an even, non-whitening finish while keeping the filter matrix stable under heat, humidity, and movement remains one of the more demanding technical challenges in this category. Formulators will find stability and film flexibility to be critical for a successful SPF formula.

Consumers continue to seek products that provide multiple benefits through fewer steps. As beauty routines become more streamlined, multifunctional formats are gaining importance across every category, from multi-sticks and balm sticks to concealer sticks, foundation sticks, hybrid complexion products, and tinted balms. These versatile formats are designed to simplify application while delivering multiple performance benefits, making texture architecture increasingly important. Success depends on creating textures that balance payoff, application, stability, and ease of use, allowing products to feel intuitive, efficient, and adaptable to modern beauty routines.

Performance is being redefined. Consumers increasingly associate product quality with how a formula feels during application, not just how it functions. Attributes such as cushion, glide, creaminess, melt, richness, and payoff have become important indicators of perceived performance. As a result, product development will need to place a greater emphasis on designing textures that deliver both technical performance and emotional engagement, treating sensory experience not as an afterthought but as a defining measure of quality.

Modern consumers want products that meet them where they are. Blendability, flexible coverage, compatibility with multiple application methods, and skin-like finishes have become essential formulation objectives, fueling the rise of soft-focus complexion products, buildable coverage systems, blendable cream textures, and multi-use color formats. Success now depends on textures that work with the consumer, not against them.

Modern texture design begins with understanding the functional role of each ingredient within a formula. While individual chemistries contribute specific properties, successful systems are built through the interaction of multiple functions working together to create the desired texture, stability, and performance profile.

Ratings range from one to three X’s, indicating increasing suitability for a given function. An ingredient without an X is generally not considered a preferred choice for that specific role.

Note: The technologies referenced in this chart focus on oil-in-water emulsion systems. Koster Keunen also offers technologies specifically designed for water-in-oil (W/O) thickening and structuring, which are not included in this guide. Please contact Koster Keunen for additional information on water-in-oil texture and structuring solutions.

Modern color cosmetic textures are created by combining ingredients that perform different structural and sensory roles. Some ingredients build the backbone of a formula, while others enhance texture, improve stability, refine sensory properties, or control crystallization. Building structure is easy. Building structure that feels beautiful is where formulation excellence begins. The chart on the next page organizes Koster Keunen technologies by their primary functional contribution within a system. Ratings range from one to three X’s, indicating increasing suitability for a given function. An ingredient without an X is generally not considered a preferred choice for that specific role.

One of the most common formulation misconceptions is that softer textures require less structure. In reality, successful soft textures still require a well-developed structural network to provide thermal stability, suspension, consistency, and long-term product integrity.

Rather than removing high melting point structurants to soften a formula, formulators can modify the relationship between structurants and plasticizers to achieve the desired texture while preserving the benefits of a strong wax network. This approach allows a system to maintain its structural framework while becoming softer, more flexible, and more spreadable.

The charts below illustrate how changing the structurant-to-plasticizer ratio can dramatically alter texture, transforming a system from a structured stick to a soft balm, cream product, or squeezable format. The data demonstrates that soft and flowable textures

are not the result of eliminating structure, but rather balancing structure and plasticity within the same formulation architecture.

Processing conditions further influence the final texture. For optimal structure development, formulations are typically poured approximately 7-10°C above their congeal point, allowing the structured network to develop in a controlled manner during cooling. The data illustrates that identical structurant-to-plasticizer ratios can produce significantly different penetration values depending on processing conditions. Pouring at room temperature generally results in softer textures, while controlled pouring above the congeal point promotes stronger network formation and improved structural integrity.

Together, formulation architecture and processing conditions allow chemists to design textures ranging from foundation sticks and lip balms to body balms, cream blushes, squeezable lip balms, and flowable gloss systems without sacrificing the stability benefits provided by a structured wax network.

Do not remove structure to create softness. Maintain the structural network and adjust the structurant-to-plasticizer ratio to achieve the desired texture.

Texture is no longer simply a formulation parameter—it has become a primary driver of product perception, consumer experience, and product performance.

The modern creation of texture requires formulators to strategically balance structure, flexibility, stability, and sensory design. By understanding how waxes, esters, plasticizers, and gelling technologies interact within a formulation, it becomes possible to engineer products that not only perform exceptionally but also create the emotional and tactile experiences consumers increasingly seek.

From flowable gels and soft creams to high-performance sticks and balms, the future of color cosmetics will be defined not only by color, but by the textures that bring those products to life.