Formulating for pets: Why animal skin needs its own science

The global pet care market is going through a shift driven by “skinification”, with brands focusing on mild, safe, natural and effective products backed by trustworthy labels.

During a recent webinar co-hosted by GlobalPETS and Seppic, Marine Pasquier, Pet Care Market Manager at Seppic, highlighted the company’s scientific expertise in meeting these new industry standards through a comprehensive range of ingredients, designed specifically for animal hygiene, care and nutrition.

The starting point is simple but essential: pets are not small humans. Their skin has a thinner stratum corneum and a distinct pH, which calls for a dedicated scientific approach rather than a scaled-down version of human products. Seppic has built its strategy around this insight.

Sepifriend™: ingredients designed around animal physiology 

Canine skin is more permeable and sensitive than human skin. The dog’s stratum corneum consists of only 3 to 5 cell layers, compared to 10 to 15 in humans. Furthermore, a dog’s skin pH ranges between 5.2 and 9.2, making it much more neutral or even alkaline than human skin. Using products formulated for human skin chemistry risks disrupting the animal’s natural skin barrier.

To address this challenge, Seppic has launched Sepifriend™, a dedicated range of ingredients for pet care products. This comprehensive offering covers the full spectrum of formulation needs for animal hygiene and care, including mild foaming agents such as Sepifriend™ Surf OAT, rheology modifiers for formula stability and moisturizing emulsifiers. It also features topical actives (e.g., Algae and highly purified Gotu Kola extracts) and nutritional active ingredients.

Proving safety in a market without clear standards

Standardized safety regulations for topical pet care products are still lacking, leaving brands to navigate the gray area. 

To prove the safety of the Sepifriend™ range, Seppic relies on:

• a rigorous ingredient safety assessment with a pet-first approach ensuring genuine animal safety, considering, for instance, ingestion through licking.
• a groundbreaking in vitro toxicological model on Reconstructed Canine Epidermis (RCE) model.

Results demonstrate that Seppic’s topical ingredients show no impact on tissue viability at the tested concentrations, suggesting their potential use in leave-on and rinse-off applications.

From ingredients to ready-to-use formulations

By leveraging the performance of Sepifriend™ ingredients, Seppic’s experts have designed a collection of 7 pet care formulations ensuring complete hygiene and care through a 3-step routine. 

The collection is grounded in market insights and takes into account a regulatory landscape that is maturing globally, but still varies by region. It covers both topical care and oral supplementation, offering formulation tips tailored to the specificities, with a naturalness index above 95% across all topical formulas. From ultra-mild shampoos to ear lotions and repairing balms for noses and paws, it integrates 11 Sepifriend™ ingredients safe for pets.

The era of simply transposing human cosmetics to animals is over. With its Sepifriend™ range and rigorous scientific support, Seppic is setting new quality and safety standards for innovation in global pet care.