Ingredient Profile With Glacial Bay Organic Clay

The Canadian Cosmetic Cluster is Launching the 2nd Edition of the ChemBox and we are excited to share with you some of our interviews with the new ChemBox participant suppliers. This is an interview we had with the Canadian west coast company Glacial Bay Organic Clay. Read the interview below and learn about the amazing resources that Canada has to offer.

​1. 1. (a) Tell Us About Your Company?

We are a raw material ingredient supplier of Glacial Marine Clay powder (Sea-silt) to the cosmetic, health & beauty industry.  Our Company practices environmentally sustainable methods to hand harvest & solar dry while processing this clay.  Our clay deposits come from an active glacier located in a pristine area on the west coast of Canada.  Glacial run off deposits these precious minerals into a pristine Estuary, energizing the clay particles with a strong negative charge that helps bind toxins.  
 
ECOCERT COSMOS Certified, this unique clay is both nourishing and detoxifying when applied to the skin.  Unlike any other Clay, the Oceanic nutrients combine with over 50 essential trace minerals to create this magical, healing clay that has an average particle size of 20 microns.  This powerful combination of minerals, negative charge & oceanic nutrients produce skin product formulations that are highly effective, extremely stable with no odor and low heavy metal counts.  

1. (b) What Inspired You to Get into the Cosmetic Ingredients Industry? 

I have worked with several Indigenous First Nations over the years.  While volunteering for one band, I heard about this "Healing Clay" after listening to stories from the Chief & Elders of our local First Nation.  So we followed up to find these unique, rare deposits in the Estuary at the end of this long inlet off the Pacific Coast. We started to test these clay samples and worked with worked with several scientists, doctors, nurses, formulators & chemists to see what positive effects our clay had on the skin.  It was wonderful to find out how beneficial our clay was to restoring the balance of the skin microbiome (good bacteria that protects the skin) and to see the results once applied to the skin.  So we got a group of like minded shareholders together with the goal of bringing this "Healing" clay to market to help various skin conditions including simple things like acme and oily skin to relieving pain from shingles. As there were costs associated with establishing/proving our claims for the healing qualities of our clay, we decided to enter the cosmetic ingredient market for clay masks and clay related products.  This was done to generate funding for future testing to prove our clay has many healing qualities.  But in the meantime, people who will use our clay for products such as clay masks, will also get the added benefits of the healing qualities our clay possesses.

2. What Makes Your Ingredients Unique? 

Several factors combine to give our clay its unique qualities. First is the source of the clay, from ancient volcanic mountain ranges that produced a lot of Montmorillonites and Illites clay.  These clay is known for their high absorbency and stronger cation exchange capacities for absorbing active ingredients and binding to them to produce a more stable clay mask.   Secondly, there is an active glacier and Icefields that feed this ground up clay down long river systems and through electrolysis, our clay particles become negatively charged.  This strong negative charge binds with the active ingredients of the formula to produce stable products also binds positively charged toxins such as bacteria when applied to the skin
Third,  and just as important is that our clay has a very small particle size, which translates to larger surface areas to absorb active ingredients. Fourth, our clay has an anti-inflammatory property that reduces inflammation which helps reduce wrinkles, bags under your eyes and is even used in a suave for professional athletes for muscle aches and inflammation from injury or overuse. Last is the fact that our clay is immersed in the Pacific Ocean for more than half its life, mixing with the rich micronutrients in the water to produce a microbiome environment similar to the human skin.  Thus allowing an easier transfer of active ingredients to the skin, while detoxifying the skin at the same time.

3. Is Your Ingredient Sustainable?  
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Absolutely! We are fortunate that our mineral claims for our clay material is located at the base of an active Glacier that deposits about 3-4 inches of new clay silt annually. We rotate between the areas of our 10 claims ( each claim is 55 acres) to ensure we do not harvest from the same area every 5 years. We only harvest the clay from the top 12-18 inches of the surface as this region has the richest aerobic clay full of good microbiomes. Thus, we allow time to for each harvest to be replenished with between 15-20 inches of clay before we harvest again.

4. What Types of Formulas benefit From Adding the Ingredient From the ChemBox? Which Ingredient Can It Replace?

Our unique, mineral-rich glacial marine clay powder (INCI: Sea Silt) has natural cleansing, purifying, and oil absorption properties that make this versatile ingredient ideally suited for use in cosmetics and personal care applications like: 

• bar soaps 
• shampoos 
• scalp treatments and scrubs 
• face and body masks 
• cleansers 
• bath bombs and soaks 
• moisturizing creams and lotions 

Ingredient categories: Additives, anti-acne, skin conditioning, skin treatment, thickener.

5. What is One Thing That You Could Change in the Cosmetics Industry?

We have been working with the cosmetic industry to start to think outside the box and change the ways they think about sourcing raw ingredients that are sustainable and manufactured in an environmentally friendly way.  The present formulator can be stuck in a routine whereby they focus on the same ingredients and don't want to spend the time finding ethically sourced materials.
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