Happi: Ashland’s team has the pulse of the beauty and personal care category. What are you seeing right now?

Michael A. Lull: Natural is no longer enough on its own. Today’s innovation is about using advanced science and technology to transform sustainable, biobased ingredients into high-performance solutions that meet rising expectations. Sustainability and performance are fully converging and evolving to deliver high efficacy, refined sensory experiences, transparency, and real differentiation—supported by both science and consumer usage experience.

Happi: There are baselines when it comes to creating products for beauty and personal care, and workhorse ingredients that are well known. But innovation is what drives this space. How is Ashland uniquely set up to help savvy brands keep pace with the challenges of this fast-paced market?

Lull: Ashland is uniquely positioned to help branders keep pace because our Technology Platforms and partnership mindset are built for speed to market, differentiation, and superiority. Many of our Platform Innovations are patented, new to the world innovations. We aren’t just looking to replace workhorse ingredients; we are aiming to displace them. Using advanced science and close collaboration, we are partnering with the industry to develop and refine technologies that truly move the needle, offering superior performance, new benefits, sensorial, and usage experiences efficiently. Helping our partners move faster from concept to launch with first to the world innovations.

Happi: We would like to dig into some specific areas where consumer demand for personalization, performance, aesthetics or sustainability—and often all four at once—require more modern solutions. How can Ashland expertise make a difference? Let’s start with Capital Transformed Vegetable Oils (TVO).

Lull: Transformed Vegetable Oils, TVO, reflect how Ashland approaches modern beauty challenges at a Technology Platform versus product level. TVO is a unique, “new-to-the-world” technology with incredible tunability for leverage across businesses and applications This next‑generation technology is built from renewable vegetable oils that can be tuned a multitude of ways, giving rise to a full spectrum of benefits. From SPF enhancing, water-proof film forming in sun care with antaron™ soja glyceride, to skin and hair conditioning in rinse-off applications with softhance™ mr conditioning agent and lubrihance™ system, from active retention and delivery in oral care with gantrez™ soja polymer to long-wear and transfer resistance in color cosmetics. TVO is designed to be versatile for application spaces and benefits, and compatible in tolerance for a wide range of formulation parameters. This allows formulators to precisely tailor performance, sensory aesthetics, and efficacy across applications. Its high tunability combined with biodegradable, non‑microplastic, vegan, and non‑GMO credentials allow Ashland to innovate with our partners in response to growing consumer expectations. 

Happi: Another Ashland Platform Technology is Multifunctional Starch. Can you talk about this, and Ashland processes and execution capabilities that can make a difference?

Lull: Chassis and textures are playing a bigger role now more than ever in differentiation, especially in skin and sun care. Ingredients like Ashland stabileze™ s polymer from our Multifunctional Starch Platform reflects where formulation is heading. Solutions that combine high performance with improved aesthetics with more mindful, naturally derived design. As a starch‑based, nature‑derived rheology modifier, it delivers strong thickening, suspension, and emulsion stabilization across a broad viscosity range, while offering soft, powdery, and non‑pilling sensory properties that today’s consumers notice immediately. It goes back to philosophy that we are not just looking to replace industry workhorses but truly move the needle. Providing the performance that is demanded but offering something else beyond. Much like the Ashland TVO Platform, there is great tunability in starch. Our best-in-class R&D organization has created superior chemistries to fuel the future of product innovation, address sustainability goals, streamline development, and design elevated usage experiences—without compromising stability, performance, or visual appeal.

Happi: We know that many people know Ashland…but there’s always so much going behind the scenes at innovative companies like yours. What would you share about Ashland, or your team, that maybe people don’t know—but should.

Lull: I love this question because I feel like there’s so much to answer with. We are solvers. Our deep curiosity and passion for learning embedded in the Ashland culture. It’s our “compelling truth”. Innovation is driven by teams that are constantly seeking and questioning. Learning from each other, our customers, and the markets we serve, there’s a shared passion for challenging assumptions, asking better questions that dig deeper, never accepting “no” and applying science in new ways. That mindset fuels our Technology Platform Innovations and allows us to stay ahead of change while partnering more effectively to solve real market‑relevant challenges with speed. The best is yet to come and the future is very bright. 

Happi: Lastly, at the start we asked about what’s happening right now in the beauty and personal care industry. But what is on your radar farther out? What are you tracking that our readers might want to add to their watch list.

Lull: Technology and biology are coming together to fundamentally change how beauty is created and experienced. AI‑enabled insights will play a growing role, not just in personalization at the consumer level, but upstream in formulation design and even further upstream in ingredient design with the adoption of molecular modeling and quantum dynamics. This deeper understanding and rapid iteration of chemistry and formulation combined with new, unique, and personalized consumer needs will help drive our industry. Inclusive personalization, credible, well communicated science, and mindful product design will define the next era of beauty and personal care, setting apart brands that can bring them together in a cohesive, meaningful way.

Ashland.com/innovation